2014 Forest Hills Drive

Alright, so here I am for the last time on this blog with one of those big ass assignments that account for what seems like an ungodly amount of my final grade (a whole 10%, that shit is a pretty decent chunk. Anyway, I am here to talk about J. Cole’s 2014 Forest Hills Drive and how it is related to the genre and its history, the culture it is set in, the ideology behind it by giving a general review of the album. This will be so much fun that this should be illegal.

Okay, well, now I guess I need to explain the super cool and spunky way I found my way to this album. But I am afraid I am only here to disappoint you, just like I have with every other girl I was trying to get a good grade on. Honestly, I knew that this album came out on vinyl and it was at the record shop so I took that as a sign that I needed to do this album for this blog post. But I did learn that this album is still kind of stupidly fucking expensive. Like it was $40 there, that is expensive for an album that is almost 3 years old. And can we please talk about the fact that this album is almost 3 years old? The idea of that is crazy to me, I am not quite sure why, but this album still feels new and up to date, EVEN with J. Cole’s newest album 4 Your Eyez Only released late 2016.

So how am I going to tell you all the shit I have to, while reaching word count? Good question. There will be a track by track, but first yall should know about J. Cole and all the shit he does. J. Cole grew up in North Carolina and had a rough childhood, as you’ll see in the track by track, but he ended up going to St. Johns University and graduated before he pursued his music career. Before this album, J. Cole had released 2 other albums, both generally successful. At the time of the making of this album, rap music was not that different to today’s rap, it included heavy bass with guitars and synths, generally. Lyrics were not as thought out as J. Cole’s are, but some artists did have great lyrics. These are just generalities that I apply to 2010s rap, but J. Cole was here to change the game.

So here comes the track by track, but I’m going to do things a little bit differently. Usually, track by track reviews talk about each song by itself with little to no connection to other songs of the album. Well, I also need to cover the holistic album review as well in this blog, so I am going to not only talk about each song, but I will enter connections to other songs in the album not only to cover my ass, but also because this album’s songs interplay with each other and I think it would be stupid to not talk about those connections.

1. Intro

This track is, as the name obviously states, a precursor to this entire album. There isn’t much to talk about with this song’s lyrics as they are super repetitive and lack any kind of significance. With lines like “Do you wanna be happy? Do you wanna be free?” this songs leaves me with something to be desired, I really wish J. Cole had leaned in to the intro of this album with something that makes me actually think about it. With that said, I think the instruments and music behind him perfectly set up the album, with a sweet, smooth jazz piano flowing through this song, it sets up this peaceful idea that J. Cole interacts with through the entire album. But specifically in this song, the music behind the lyrics are definitely more interesting, especially because of the jazz usage, which is an interplay that hadn’t really been heavily played with before this album. Before you jump on me for saying that, let me refrain, I do not know of any other album that is labelled as rap that was as successful as this album that also had such a heavy jazz influence.

2. January 28^th

            I’m not quite sure how to approach this song, there are a ton of things that need to be said about it. First of all, January 28^th is J. Cole’s birthday and this song is a kind of reflection on his life and what he has struggled with. I think this song a great opportunity to talk about the ideology Cole describes through the whole album. With lines like, “I'm talkin' 'bout that mind state that keep a black nigga dumb / Keep a black nigga dyin' by a black nigga gun” J. Cole is calling out the ideology of modern times that he is claiming keeps black people away from success. J. Cole talks about the idea that he only sees black people in a good light when it is about either sports or music and how there are not many morally good black people being portrayed in movies or any form of media. With this being the first mention of the race problem in this album, it can sometimes be passed over, but the repetitions throughout the album makes these calls to action even louder.

3. Wet Dreamz

            So, this song is a complete switch from what we had before this. This song takes us back to form of rap with less substance but is easy to listen to and is actually funny and entertaining. J. Cole tells us how he lost his virginity in this song. When you just listen to this song by itself, it seem pretty good and is just normal substance for a lot of rap music. But when you attach it to the song before, I think it is actually becomes a comment on black culture and how other people view it. With January 28^th, we see a side of the culture that many people don’t see as much with calls for change and equality and peace, where as in this song we see a song all about sex, similar to a lot of other material from rap. J. Cole is, at least from where I’m standing, is trying to show the world that there are many levels to the black culture that we don’t understand.

4. ’03 Adolescence

            This song is similar to Wet Dreamz because it talks about J. Cole growing up and the things he had and wanted and dealt with. This song also describes black culture in the sense that I understand some of it. But this time, J. Cole also talks about the interaction of white and black kids and what they think of white kids being rich and dumb. J. Cole also talks about his education and how that was an instrumental part to his success when he had the chance to just sell drugs instead and immediately get money where he actually had to wait. This song is kind of a success story for Cole and black culture as well.

5. A Tale of 2 Citiez

            Now this song is the complete white vs. black and rich vs. poor. This song describes two cities that are completely different and how they interact through theft and fighting. Most importantly to me, this is the first time J. Cole brings up the police in this album which is the big culture part of the blog. I think this song has a lot to talk about, but I can’t touch on it all, but I consider this to be like January 28^th in the sense that it has a ton of social commentary on black lives and how they want to live.

6. Fire Squad

            I consider Fire Squad to be the outlier in this album, it is all about dropping names and all that stuff that all the rappers do. But I mean, every great album has to have a song that’s the least good right?

7. St. Tropez

            St. Tropez brings the focus back to J. Cole and how he felt about his career and what he wanted. This song is a lot less jazzy and back to the simple drum beat with some synth in there too. The biggest thing about this song is the lyrics and how J. Cole talks about his doubts and fears, which is something that you don’t hear from other rappers. You might be asking yourself, “What does this have to do with the genre, culture, or ideology?” Well, talking about coming up short is not something discussed in the rap genre, so J. Cole is bringing a level of honesty to his music that wasn’t there before.

8. G. O. M. D.

            Okay, so this song is ALMOST just like Fire Squad in the sense that it is all that rapper trash about being the best and getting all the women and the money and all that bullshit that fills lines. Don’t get me wrong, the beat and the hook of this song are legendary and I love every second of this song, but there aint much to talk about. This comes with one huge but. I think the last verse of this song redeems the rest of the song with its knowledge being dropped. With the line “Why every rich black nigga gotta be famous/Why every broke black nigga gotta be brainless/That's a stereotype” This is yet again J. Cole talking about the ideology of black people and racism. J. Cole is saying that black people cannot just be normal, you can’t have a poor black man that is smart or useful, nor can any wealthy black person just be wealthy without it being because they are black. J. Cole is talking about how racism has changed to the idea that black people do everything because they are black, not because they are just people.

9. No Role Modelz

            This song is again about how J. Cole grew up. There’s some things I need to say about this song, it bumps and is one of J. Cole’s most popular songs and it deserves that. There are some really cool social commentary lines in this song like “I came fast like 911 in white neighborhoods” which is something I totally didn’t even think about before listening to this song. It didn’t even occur to me, a white suburban boy, that police might come at different speeds in different places. I think that is the whole point of music and J. Cole’s music, to educate and entertain. Both of which were satisfied to me through this song.

10. Hello

            Okay, so this song is so damn cool, like what the hell. This is completely different than the rest of the album. This has a nice piano with classical instruments that have a focus that they haven’t in the genre before, especially at the end of the song with all of the cellos and cool instruments. J. Cole just talks over the track about a lost love, which is both so J. Cole and so not J. Cole. He doesn’t talk about race or police in this song and it has this really cool almost gospel vibe to it that I really dig.

11. Apparently

            This song start off with J. Cole singing with a lot of layering of other vocals backing him up. This time, J. Cole is reminiscing on his life and mainly his mom and girlfriend. This song is basically a thank you to his mom and a promise to his girl. Later on in the song, it goes back to the rapper bragging about himself again, but the overall message is pretty cool and I respect it.

12. Love Yourz

            The intro to this song is so chill and original, I like the use of instruments and layering of J. Cole’s voice. This song basically ties the entire album together and actually goes and talks about the general idea of each song before it. This is something that I didn’t even notice until I started writing this and was listening to this song and I saw each of the previous songs get some kind of attention, which I think is fucking awesome. He also talks about how money doesn’t solve all problems like he thought it did when he was younger. “But where does this tie in to anything?” you might be asking yourself. Well, in this song J. Cole talks about real life struggles including financial problems, alcoholism, relationship problems and a lot more. But the thing that is really cool is that J. Cole brought in the entire philosophy utilitarianism into his album, with or without his knowledge. The lyrics, “It's beauty in the struggle” brings in the philosophy of Jeremy Bentham and his idea of pain and pleasure. This is really interesting because the ideas of utilitarianism is basically the idea that the welfare of the greatest number is better than the welfare of one person. I find this interesting because when you apply utilitarianism to this album, everything kind of clicks and some choices seem more right than they did before. “Like what? You won’t get points for generalities like that” is what I know one of you is thinking. So, for example, in “Hello” J. Cole is deciding whether or not go back to his girlfriend that he loves and her two kids she had with another guy. Well he decides not to because he doesn’t want to be the stepfather of those children when he cannot provide for himself yet. Because he cannot provide, according to utilitarianism, he should not go back because it would not benefit the larger group, being the two kids. So there, that is how utilitarianism is in this album.

13. Note to Self

            This is a long ass song. 15 minutes. There is no way in hell that I can cover everything J. Cole says in his speech, he just covers so much. But this is actually his appreciation for specific people that helped with the album. Interestingly, they didn’t have enough time to include all of these shout outs on paper because they were releasing this album in 2014 and it was released in late December, so this is actually really cool. He talks about a lot of stuff but I think the important part is he talks about the Ferguson riots, which I think really cool because it is a real life situation that J. Cole touched on throughout the album.

Okay, so overall, if you picked up it yet, I love this album and I think it was really cool to be able to break this album apart and really look at everything. Well, I think I got everything covered that I was required to and I definitely hit word count so hell yes. I did a track by track with holistic chunks, check. I talked about the genre and how this album agreed with and conflicted with the general genre, check. I talked about black culture and how this album reflected it, check. I talked about the recording process and the how the time constraints created an entirely new song, check. I talked about how the album can be taken as a reflection of utilitarianism, check. I did a lot of shit for this blog post, I hope yall like it.

I won’t, but I might as well say it anyway

See you on the flipside

Hamilton is the Shit, Get over it

Hello everyone that reads this blog, so basically no one. I hope you have enjoyed the theme of this thing, I really like vinyl and record players, but this week, we’re going to have a little bit of a change. As you know, this blog is for an English class about music. Sounds fun, right? Wrong. This sucks. So this week is basically going to be a giant middle finger to the system, because fuck it, I’m already getting a bad grade in this class.

So, this week, I am going to talk about a musical that has taken the world by storm. But guess how I picked it?? Nope, not the clever ways I’ve done for the past ones. There was poster for Hamilton in there, so I guess that is why I thought about it. I picked it because I think it’s a cool ass mf musical that has changed the game for modern musicals. But guess what? IT IS ALSO SOLD ON VYNIL. My ass is way too broke to afford it. This shit is like $70-100 for the complete album. That’s right, fucking one hundred dollars, do you know how much ramen I could buy with that? Aint no way in hell that I’m going to drop that kind of cash on an album. Plus there is no way I could find it in the record shop downtown because it is a limited edition and they are harder to find. So I just picked it because I haven’t talked about any musicals yet.

Have you figured it out yet? That’s right, we’re talking about Hamilton: An American Musical. Honestly, if you haven’t heard about it yet, you have to living under a damn rock. But anyway, I really love this musical, so obviously my opinions are skewed, but it also means that I get annoyed when people say shit about it in a classroom and accuse me of only using conjecture when they only use conjecture.

Okay, stepping down from my soapbox. This post is supposed to be about culture and this album. Well, that should’ve been easy, I have a lot to say about the culture around Hamilton. So there are a few main points I want to hit on this thing so I can get my points and so someone might look at the musical in a different way. There is the culture that made the musical, the culture that musical made, cultures interacting within the show.

The Culture that made Hamilton

Okay, so Hamilton was written by this dude named Lin-Manuel Miranda (LMM). This bitch is wicked good with music. The cool thing is, LMM had a different musical before Hamilton called “In the Heights” which was all about the Dominican-American part of New York. You might be thinking, “Why is he talking about a different musical?” Well, this musical was the forethought of Hamilton. It was the first time the LMM introduced rap into one of his musicals on Broadway. So this was the “dipping the toe into the water” before LMM jumped in headfirst. But what does this have to do with culture? Well, Broadway in general doesn’t really do the whole R&B scene, for a couple of reasons, mainly the electronic side being hard to put into a live stage production with a full orchestra, also the vulgarity that is generally attached to the popular version of rap. Some of you might be thinking, “What gives you the right to make these claims, do you have any proof?” Well, I am actually a musical theatre nerd. My ass knows people on Broadway, touring around the world on Broadway, has met directors and arrangers of off-Broadway musicals, and knows a lot of musical theatre buffs like myself. So if I am not qualified to talk about this, then I shouldn’t be allowed to talk about anything. When I make generalizations, they will tend to be a little more accurate than if I made generalizations about literally any other topic, basically, musical theatre is the only topic thus far that I actually know more about than the average person. But back to my statement, “In the Heights” was the LMM testing out the R&B on Broadway with a couple numbers in the show being rap. That show did pretty well, winning four Tonys and a Grammy. So LMM introduced the R&B culture with “In the Heights” and then wrote “Hamilton” to actually mix these two cultures.

The Culture that Hamilton made

Next up, the culture that Hamilton made slash impacted. So, LMM wrote this musical over a very long time, doing tons of research and fact checking to accurately tell the story. Guess what this did, it taught an entire generation about the Revolutionary War and the founding of our nation. There are kids now that know things about that time period that I had no idea about when I was their age. Next up, people have continued to listen to the show and use it in many ways, including here at U of SC in the classroom and in other cultures, like a small one I know about, show choir culture. I went to three show choir competitions this year and Hamilton was a large part of a lot of the shows. The small niche of show choir has an iron grip on this musical, and like teachers say, you should respect and learn from any culture, no matter how small.

Oh shit, I almost LMM was invited multiple times to the white house and performed on a few different occasions with songs from Hamilton. If the President feels that the music should be shared, then I think we can all agree it has had some impact on a plethora of cultures.

There are a lot more examples than these, you can youtube it.

Cultures Interacting through Hamilton

Okay so here is the meaty part of this post. There are a couple cultures interacting here. This includes the historical side, as in the culture America was made in, the Broadway side (I have already explained my qualifications to comment on this), the R&B side, and the diversity of the cast. I think it was completely genius to use such an extremely diverse cast for this show. As we all know, America was founded by a bunch of rich white men who were helped by others but those other people were lost in the history books. The Hamilton original cast was extremely diverse, full of all sexes, orientations, races, and other factors as well. For example, the man who played Alexander Hamilton on tour was mixed, gay, and HIV positive. Here's a link that better explains the cast diversity.

Okay, next thing, R&B vs the Broadway side and how they interact. Well, one thing that is pretty cool about Hamilton is that was number 1 on Billboard R&B for over two weeks. Some people might say, “How do you know that it wasn’t a bunch of white people that bought it and it just so happened to make its way the number 1 and it actually wasn’t appreciated by the culture of R&B?” Well, sir, that is the exact point that I am making. What I am saying is that this musical has joined these two generally distant genres. This musical has created a conversation that wasn’t there before the creation of this musical. Now, some of you might ask, “Does this fit at all with your theme of your blog, or ‘Brand’?” Well actually, yes, because I believe that this is connected to vinyl in a more abstract way. Vinyl is something that is old, it’s just an older version of tape players, cds, and mp3 files. So how does that connect to anything? Well Hamilton is an old story retold, I mean that in the sense that the history of the Revolutionary War has already been written in textbooks, but LMM still wrote it into an art form and it is changing that way people think about and what they know about that time in history. It’s a stretch, but you know, so is life.

See you on the flip side I guess.

REVISED Rock has a lot of history, I can’t cover all of it.

Hello everyone, I’m back again and I’m SUPER excited to get into this “Genre History” with all of you, as you can tell. So before I could learn about the genre’s history, I had to figure out what kind of music my genre was going to be. So I made my way to the local record store. I recently go a critique that the music in the past two reviews were too new and that I should find something older. Well, with this being a history post, I made my way to the way way way back of the store to the crates of 50 cent albums, because I am a broke bitch who can’t afford another nice album. There were 7 people in the record store at that time, so I obviously had to choose the seventh album. I still think it’s funny that I’ve managed to come up with these stupid ways to find an album. And that is how I found and beat up, torn, gross, yet still functional copy of “The Grand Illusion” by Styx. Rock. I get to do a genre history over rock, this should be fun and not time consuming at alllllll.

Alright well, let’s get into it then. Everyone knows about rock, it isn’t one of those unnecessarily specific niches that no one other than the people who follow it intensely no about. I’d even be willing to bet that you know all the words to at least one classic rock song, most likely it’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” or a song by Elvis. Basically, everyone knows about this genre, but do you know where it came from? That, my buddy ole pal, is a whole other question. 

The genre of rock was a branch of popular music and then became popular music for a very long time. But where did this jank-ass rock come from? It actually came from an advancing of technology and the combination of blues, jazz, and big band with new instruments. One of the advancements in technology that was made during this time was, wait for it, the vinyl record, you had to know that was coming. Who would’ve guessed that I would manage to stick my entire blog’s identity into this post, or as some would say my “brand” into this post? Well, this shit’s for a grade so I guess you gotta do what you gotta do.

We’re going to take a step back and talk about the vinyl side of things here, as if that is the entire point of this blog, to talk about vinyl. If you never noticed, all early songs pressed on vinyl are about 3 minutes. At most 3, sometimes less. The reason for this is in the technology of the time. Records used to be pressed on shellac with larger grooves than we are used to today. This meant that there was a lot less area on the record to put information. Along with the wider grooves, that record spun faster, at about 78 rpm. The combination of these two factors led to a record only being able to hold about 3 minutes of music on each side, hence the lack of longer songs. Then there were some improvements made. The microgroove was created, which is a lot thinner, therefore able to put more music on each side of the record. Then people started experimenting with different materials for the record and found that vinyl was the best because it was more durable. Finally, an improvement in the pressing process led to the ability to slow down the spinning speed. These breakthroughs led to the album you know and love today where you can fit a 45 minute album onto a vinyl record. Pretty cool, huh?

Okay, so here I made for y’all a mash-up of a couple songs that I think best sums up part of the journey of rock, I’m lying, I had to make this for the pre-blog post thing for the class and I’m actually kind of happy with it and it can be a good base to start off from. I can’t talk about the entirety of rock because of all of the branches it split into through time, so this track is the journey that I’m going to talk about. I will say this again. There is no way that I could do a complete genre history over rock with the time I have nor be able to do it well, also, that is way too much stuff to figure out. If I get any comments on how this is a scoped version of the history of rock, I will be annoyed and probably mad, because I am telling you that right now.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3QD0kuOC1ibZFJ3QXUxN1BwMGs

Before we do any discussion of the genre, I want to really get something very clear, when I describe these bands and their reputation and sound, I am talking specifically about each song for the most part, many of them do line up with the reputation of the entire band, but every band has songs that don’t fit their normal sound or image, I am talking very generally about each band. Also, almost all of these bands can fit into other categories, but I am not talking about pop or folk, I am talking about just rock. With that, I am aware that I am missing a ton of branches of rock, like I said, I cannot cover them all. If you would like a list of rock genres I did not cover, you can look somewhere else (thumbs up).

Okay, I’m going to start with “Rock Around the Clock”. Rock has its roots in big band swing music, which you can hear in the first song “Rock Around the Clock” by Billy Haley and His Comets. This was the first “Rock” song to hit number 1 on Billboard’s top 100. There were obviously many albums before this one that could be considered rock, but the first number 1 hit is a good place to start. This initial version of rock was basically big band swing music with more suggestive lyrics and some sprinkling in of electric guitars and basses. Like I’m talking about some bullshit like when “rock and roll” literally means sex, like come on, they need to come up with better euphemisms. This led to the next artist’s big break, Elvis Presley. This man was the face behind what many of the older generation called “devil music” for its direct suggestions pertaining to sexual natures. In fact, when Elvis played on the Ed Sullivan Show, they were only allowed to show the upper half of his body because of his famous hip shakes and all that shit that was considered inappropriate for TV at the time. Next up is the cleaned up version of rock with “The Beach Boys” with their clean fun in the sun. There wasn’t much substance to their music, it was all about fun and basically the anti-Elvis. Bob Dylan, who was just recently given the Nobel Peace Prize for Literature, is up next on the mash-up. Dylan took the ideas of the Beach Boys and added a deeper purpose. Dylan used music as his medium for social activism. This was the first time that rock was used for this and commonly accepted by the audience. I consider this part of rock as the most, for a lack of better terms, impactful, Bob Dylan actually did shit with his music, which is fucking cool, but not really part of the rest of these bands.

Ah, the British Invasion, this is a pretty big turning point in rock as a genre. The Beatles changed the world and everyone knows it. The first half of their career was what the older generation could tolerate, they sang about love and adventure and all the idealized things parents wanted their kids to listen to. Up next is my favorite turn of rock, the introduction of drugs, and I’m like talking some of those hard core motherfucking drugs. Don’t get me wrong, I am fully aware of the amount of drugs rock bands did before this time (Elvis’s death for one) but this is when drugs became the topic of discussion for a lot of bands. “I am the Walrus” is a good song that The Beatles wrote while obviously on some kind of drug, god knows what kind and how many. From then on, in this line of rock history, it’s a lot of the same ideas. With Eric Clapton literally singing about cocaine and Pink Floyd’s trippy “Interstellar Overdrive” it is clear that drugs were a part of these bands’ recipes for success. By the by, if you happen to be on any conscious altering substance, “Interstellar Overdrive” is a fucking rage and will change your life, or so I’m told, because drugs are bad for you and you shouldn’t do them. In my opinion, the man that had more drugs in his system than blood, Jimi Hendrix is the epitome of this kind of rock, but to be fair he did create the branch of “Acid Rock” and that shit is lit.

Alright, after that, we leave the drug world and get to the all-time famous rock song that everyone hates that they know all the words, “Don’t Stop Believin’” which cuts down on the drugs mentioned throughout the song. Finally, we get to the album I found in the 50 cent crate with “Come Sail Away” which describes a crazy trip somebody takes that ranges from sailing away on a boat to going to heaven and ending by meeting aliens, I’m sure that was some good shit they were smoking. This song may not say that this is a drug trip, but I think we can be honest with ourselves and admit that somebody took some acid or something and wrote this song. The Eagles follow with “Hotel California” which is a mellowed out version of rock similar to the Beach Boys. This is where we see bands connecting with past bands of their genre and creating something similar but new. “Renegade” By Styx isn’t from the album I picked up, but it has a lot of classic ideas of rock in it that just makes you want to headband. Finally, we have the king of being weird, David Bowie. This dude is strange, but also just damn cool. I feel like he took the rulebook for rock and tossed it into a volcano. But even then, he brought back a lot of ideas from rock before his time. The impact of drugs on his music is undeniable, but he also took a note from Bob Dylan in this song “Heroes” and was using music as a medium to show his opinions of the situation of Berlin after the war.

So basically, rock has an extremely storied background and there is so much more than I could say in this post, but rock still lives on and continues to evolve while also keeping its roots.

Well, that’s really all I have for you this time, have a groovy day.

I’m so sorry for that.

See you on the flip side.

Vessel Carries Me Back to My Roots

Album: Vessel

Band: Twenty One pilots

Hello participants of English 102 and anyone else who managed to fall upon this oddly specific yet broad blog. So for the style of finding this album was similar to the last one, except the number was chosen by the time. It was 3:22 when I started looking for an album at the local record store, Papa Jazz. So I went to the 22^nd album in the third crate from the left of the wall. There it was, in all its beauty, “Vessel” by Twenty One Pilots.

Okay, so this album is really cool, like really cool. It has something for almost anyone. There are a lot of cool things happening throughout it that I think should be talked about.

But before I get into the album, this band deserves a decent introduction, because without it, the album doesn’t mean much. Twenty One Pilots was formed in Columbus, OH in 2009, but the two current members, Tyler Joseph and Josh Dunn, came together in 2011. They released two album called “Twenty One Pilots” and “Regional at Best” before signing a record deal with Fueled By Ramen and releasing “Vessel”. The band is a stretch in a lot of different directions. They have rock, pop, punk, alternative, and electronic vibes to them that puts them into a lot of categories but also none of them. My favorite thing about Twenty One Pilots in general is the lyrics. I think they’re so damn cool and deep yet easy to listen to. If you look past this album a little bit, they released another album and got a Grammy award the other week, in their underwear (here’s a video). So basically, they’re quirky, original, and getting a lot of attention now.

Okay, here we go, let’s get into this album.

Vessel is one of those albums that I can listen to all the way through over and over. It’s honestly that enjoyable. There are some really cool ways that the songs connect to tell a larger story than what each individual song can do. Alright, so I think the best thing to talk about first is the top of the album, the title. There’s no titular track, which is different, and I always focus on the title when that happens. This album with name "Vessel" is a ship that carries a lot of purpose and good intentions. It is quite literally a vessel in which the band is spreading ideas and their message. I don't know, I think that's like cool as shit. 

Okay, so next, there’s the overarching idea of depression and insecurity. The first part that sticks out is the idea of being different. The structure of songs like “Car Radio” and “Trees” are strange and unique, but the journey they take you on doesn’t have any extra bumps because of the strange structure. “Car Radio” doesn’t really have a structure, it was written before Tyler learned the common way to write music, so this my favorite part is that this is how Tyler thinks music happens organically like it is on the track, which is then translated to the other tracks on the album. Along with the structure, there’s also a lot of darkness and “voices” that they love to sing about. Darkness is mentioned in every song is some kind of way, so obviously, it is pretty important to Tyler and Josh, and so it becomes important to the audience. Another thing that is really cool about this album is the way it naturally makes you invest in the story. It does this through a lot of vulnerability in the lyrics as well as a beat that is easy to learn and engage.

Along with the darkness, there are also a lot of rays of hope in the album. Songs like “Truce” and “House of Gold” have a lot of light and are general upturns in the music, which with “Truce”, it ends the album on the question of light and hope, which is what Tyler wanted to end the album as life ends, in a sort of question.

Finally, my favorite thing about this album is the really lowkey religious implications in the album. They’re actually everywhere, including Twenty One Pilots’ first self-titled album, where there were whole songs based on Christianity. Tyler is a really religious person, but he always denies that his music is based in religion. But with lyrics like, “I'm not free, I asked forgiveness three times/ Same amount that I denied, I three-time MVP'd this crime” referencing Peter denying Jesus three times after he died and before the next morning, I call bullshit. Really, Tyler? Of all things to deny, this is what you choose? Anyway, Tyler references being Christian a lot throughout this album. Now let’s talk about this, this is smart, this is how you get people to invest in your music. When you start comparing and referencing God, you automatically reach a different level of seriousness and commitment by the audience. Its smart, honestly, you skip a couple steps in growth when you’re backed by a religion. Is it also kinda cringey and predictable, but I appreciate it.

Okay, so that’s what I think of this album, it is cool as shit. Like so very cool and interesting and just so fun to listen to. Honestly, I am so happy that I found this album and got to dive into it.

Anyway,

See you on the flip side. 

Track by Track Analysis Rough Draft

I went to one of our local record store last weekend and asked my friend to pick a random number. He said 34, so I went up to a crate and counted to the 34^th record in the crate and pulled out “Babel” by Mumford & Sons. So that is where I found this album, complete and total happenstance. That is where this journey begins.

Track by Track Analysis

Mumford & Sons

Babel

Released on January 1, 2012

Overview:

Okay, so before I talk about this album song by song and get all nit-picky and all that jazz, I think we should talk about the band a whole for a second, so you know where they’re coming from. Mumford & Sons is a super cool and hipster band. The band consists of 4 British dudes that formed in 2007. A cool thing about them is that they all play a ton of different instruments throughout all their music. All of their voices can be heard in their music, which leads to some pretty cool layers and harmonies. But I think the coolest part about them is the instruments they chose to play with; these include the piano, banjo, mandolin, electric and acoustic guitar, standing bass, double bass, and a ton of other folk instruments. The mix of folk and pop instruments have led Mumford & Sons to have a pretty unique sound and style. Anyway, let’s get on with the rest of this review, but if you like this, you should listen to their other albums!

Side A:

Babel-

            Ah, the title track. I feel like there is a lot of pressure on the title track, because it’s usually the first song people think of when they think about the album. As both the title track and the first track on the side A, it’s obvious they believed in this song. This track did just that. It’s a pretty intense song to start off, which I wasn’t really expecting, but it has these two soft and almost vulnerable sections that invite the listeners to the album and the journey within it.

Whispers in the Dark-

Whispers in the Dark feels like a journey, starting with some soft instrumental that lets the listener settle in and feel comfortable. Then the song shifts and gets an angry tone when the lead singer, Marcus Mumford, starts to use his scream singing as the lyrics change as well. Also, this song uses religious references a lot, which, I’m totally cool with, but I’m also happy that it’s not this heavy throughout the entire album.

I Will Wait-

When you get to this song when listening to the album in order, you can get kinda sick of the loudness and fast paced songs, which for me, led to a kind of annoyance and less appreciation for this song. Plus this is the song from this album that radios would ALWAYS play even though there are some others that are better or more original. But when you listen to this song by itself, it’s actually really cool, especially during the chorus when you can hear the four distinct voices, creating a vibe that you aren’t alone, which complement the lyrics talking about waiting for their lover.

Holland Road-

Finally, a ballad-ish song. Okay, a power ballad-ish thing. This song just feels genuine, with less going on, we can listen to the pain in the lyrics, as Marcus talks about a break-up and how he felt. Oh shit and when he goes pseudo-acapella, and yet again you can hear all the voices. Then this song like pumps up, as if he is healing and moving on.

Ghosts That We Knew-

Yo so this is the true actual for real life ballad. This side of the record can be taken as the journey of a break-up and the stages of grief. This song is the “sadness” part but there are also some chunks of hope. This man has realized it has happened and almost ready to move on. “The ghosts that we knew will flicker from view.” With a faint acoustic guitar in the background at the very end of this song puts a sweeter end to a sad, yet extremely powerful and emotional song.

Lover Of The Light-

This song throws a wrench into the stages of grief. This man goes back to the girl and gets her back. This song has a lot of build-up and instrumental breaks that you cant help but to feel happy about hearing. This song is similar to Babel and I Will Wait, but is a welcome change after the emotional journey of The Ghosts That We Knew.

Side B:

Okay, so now we get to flip the record over and have a completely new experience with new music, sometimes with a completely different tone of message.

Lovers’ Eyes-

As opposed to the first track of Side A, Lovers’ Eyes is a slow and deep song that changes speed quite a bit, but never wavers in the statements it is making. “I’ll walk slow, take my hand help me on my way” is talking about his significant other that he knows he needs her help. The change from the beginning where he thinks it is too good to be true and he slowly realizes that it is true, and more instruments and the volume of the voices.edit

Reminder-

This song will put me right into my feels super-fast. And that’s impressive because I don’t get into my feels that much and this is a 2 minute song. This song is the vulnerability of being in love and what it feels like to not be around the person you love. Wow, such a real song that just gets to me.

Hopeless Wanderer-

This song does that thing that I like to call a “folk bass drop” where the song is quiet and simple and then all hell breaks loose and it’s a completely different song, but it’s also just as enjoyable. This it goes back and calms down again before losing its shit once again. This song is fun and can be pretty moving if you listen to the lyrics that tell you he is in love but he can’t help but wonder what’s out there.

Broken Crown-

Well, this is a new level of anger we haven’t seen by Mumford on this album. This is the only song that is labeled as “explicit” which is actually pretty interesting. If there was one song that is the “anger” part of the grieving process, it’s for sure this one. The driving beat in end part of this song is just simply nice to feel angry to and have an outlet for that anger.

Below My Feet-

What a cool song, but it’s just like Babel, I Will Wait, Lover of the Light, and Hopeless Wanderer. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll take every day of the week and twice on Sunday, but it pretty similar.

Not With Haste-

I straight up think this song is a prayer. Similar to Whispers in the Dark, this just has a god feel. I think this is the perfect way to end this album: in acceptance. I really like the “We will be who we are” and “Sadness will be far away” leaves us with this sense of hope to find love and to be happy with who we are. Kinda cringey and middle school, but the way the music added to it made it feel mature somehow. I don’t know, it’s just cool.

Bonus: if you like these songs, you should listen to the deluxe version, there’s a couple other songs not included on the vinyl. I’d highly suggest “The Boxer” just saying.