Author: Kellie M Beck

 

“Mile-Long Mixtapes”: Ep. #7

Guess I’m Grown Now

by Kellie M. Beck

 

Stephen Day has quietly been writing R&B-inspired acoustic tunes since 2016, with his debut EP, Undergrad Romance and the Moses in Me. He’s come a long way since then, recently releasing a live album and a new EP in 2021, but his only full length album, Guess I’m Grown Now, in my opinion, is his finest work. With one leg in acoustic singer-songwriter folk, and the other in bedroom pop, Day shows listeners the future of pop-writing techniques, borrowing from a variety of genres to create a sound uniquely his. 

 

Guess I’m Grown Now is my favorite kind of album– it explores a single concept, with great dexterity, texture, and tone. What can I say? I’m a sucker for musicians who use their albums to ask specific questions about their lives. Catharsis and reflection, for me, create importance. 

 

With a mixture of love songs and songs that self-reflect on Day’s “twenty-two years and some change”, the album creates a multi=layered view of what feels like a hot summer week in New York City, where the night gives in, and we all take a breath of relief as the humidity is lifted off our shoulders, if only for a moment. 

 

Day gives listeners a brief intro track that I’ve always appreciated– the title song of his album. But after, it jumps into a song with easy guitar grooves and a beat made for strutting down the sidewalk. From this track, entitled For Life (Take You Out, Treat You Right), Day detours into a series of songs that seems to tell the story of a relationship from different points of perspective and time. The next four songs have the same groove, relying on funky background guitar riffs, and melodies that stray a little left of center– in the best kind of way. Whatever you do, DON’T MISS OUT ON Dancing in the Street. God, what a good song. 

 

If John Mayer had a cooler, more interesting, and less problematic brother, it would be Stephen Day. He has that sweet crooning voice we all love from Mayer, and a similar style, but Day elevates his work with more production and layers of instrumentation, and a stronger build toward his musical climaxes. 

 

After our foiree into relationships, Day brings the spotlight back to him. Twenty Two and Some Change, as well as Back to Georgia, address what it means to find your own voice, and how lonely, yet empowering it can be. Day drops down the production for the last two tracks on the album, that are sentimental, bittersweet, and lush. 

 

There is also an acoustic version of the album– a great counterpart to the fully produced album and a reminder that Day knows what he’s doing when it comes to songwriting.

“Mile-Long Mixtapes”: Ep. #6

Catharsis

by Kellie M. Beck

 

Aristotle’s Poetics defines the term “tragic catharsis” as a type of purgation. The idea behind tragic catharsis is that when we see something deeply tragic, we experience a purification process of a sort. Described as a “tragic pleasure”, we experience a certain satisfaction in witnessing difficult emotions in the media we consume. 

 

Phoebe Bridgers’ sophomore album is full of opportunities for catharsis– even the title, Punisher, alludes to it to a certain extent. But it’s the album’s second single, Kyoto, about Bridger’s estranged father, as well as the ending track (really quite a finale), I Know The End, are the ones that ring the truest when it comes to my own personal catharsis. 

 

When I was in high school, I had a boyfriend, who, to make a long story short, was emotionally dependent on me, two years younger than him initially, at fifteen. While our actual relationship was short-lived, he haunted my life for three and half years afterward– he would show up out of the blue at my theatre productions, or send me a text late at night, asking how I’d been. It’d be fair to say I should’ve blocked him, ignored him, been firmer in telling him to leave me alone. But he knew all too well what to say to get my attention. 

 

Listening to Bridgers’ Kyoto for the first time, I burst into tears– not the gross, sobbing kind, but rather that kind of emotional response you’re not sure where it comes from. Bridgers’ lyrics are blunt– they cut to the chase. 

 

I don’t forgive you

But please don’t hold me to it

Born under Scorpio skies

I wanted to see the world

Through your eyes until it happened

Then I changed my mind

 

Even though Bridgers is referencing her father, one of her major skills is writing her personal stories to be universal. The most interesting thing about Punisher, to me, is its use of both themes of masochism, as well as tragic catharsis, that makes me wonder if Bridgers herself finds tragic catharsis in her own pain. A better question might be, can we process our traumas and hurt through art so that we ourselves might find catharsis in them? But perhaps that is why creating art is so seductive– to play a character outside yourself, to write a story from another’s point of view, to write your story down through lyrics– isn’t that what most artists pursue?

 

The boyfriend moved to Frankenmuth, of all places. He asked me to visit for a day– god knows why, but I said yes. We had a fine day. In fact, it almost felt normal. After that day, we never saw or spoke to each other again. 

 

Catharsis is a kind of relief. 

“Mile-Long Mixtapes”: Ep. #5

Getting Older & Feeling Younger

by Kellie M. Beck

 

“Woke up, I’m in the inbetween, honey.

All the hope I had when I was young, 

I hope I wasn’t wrong.”

 

Jack Antonoff’s Bleachers sophomore album, Gone Now,  begins with a whisper and grows quickly to a roar; Dream of Mickey Mantle sounds like the kind of song that starts off a coming-of-age movie with teen heartthrob, “Enter White Suburban Male Name Here”, but it echoes throughout the rest of the album as a call to arms– a call to let go and accept our past selves.

 

I guess that’s what I’ve been trying to do lately. 

 

In isolation for a year, facing college graduation, and hoping and praying that theatre gets back up on its feet in time for my Brooklyn move this August, I’ve been thinking about who I’d be if the pandemic hadn’t happened. I know we’re all sick of it– sick of talking about it, sick of dealing with it, just sick of this sickness. But anniversaries are nostalgic, and I’ve been hungry for an explanation of how I’ve changed over the past year– maybe if I can define it, I can live with it. 

 

Gone Now came out in 2017, three years after Bleachers’ debut Album Strange Desire. Antonoff has been candid about his first pass at an album– he has explained in several interviews that the album has a lot to do with learning to accept and cope with his sister’s death. But Gone Now, despite its recognition of grief, feels optimistic. I’ll take a crack at Gone Now’s thesis– growing up means accepting that things– sometimes horrible things– will happen to you. Growing up is accepting that who you are is who you’ve always been. And that most of our life will be an attempt to undo the ugly habits that those horrible things have caused in us. But if we can accept the horrible things for whatever they are– that is, random and inevitable, and yes, often quite painful, then they don’t have to become a part of us. 

 

It helps that Bleachers gets this message across in a series of anthem-esque, 80’s reminiscent tracks. Everybody Lost Somebody is, in my opinion, one of the albums strongest tracks in terms of concept. 

 

I think pain is waiting alone at the corner,

I’m trying to get myself back home, yeah,

Looking like everybody,

Knowing everybody lost somebody. 

 

The undercurrent of Antonoff’s album is a deep desire to move on. I think it’s important to differentiate the difference between wishing to start over, and wishing to move on. Perhaps that’s the biggest difference between his two albums. Strange Desire wishes certain things never happened. Gone Now wishes to not be hindered by them. 

 

So how do we accomplish Antonoff’s lofty goal?

 

He offers us a hint in the above excerpt, and in just about every track on the album. Despite our current isolation, it is important to remember that the human condition is something we have all lived. And although the details of our lives may differ, everybody has lost somebody, something. Every problem we have has likely been had before, by someone, at some point. Let’s Get Married says it plainly (over and over again, in the chorus): “don’t wanna walk alone”. 

 

The long winter’s ending. A terrible thing has happened to all of us over the past year. Whatever comes next, I don’t wanna walk alone.

 

I’ve been walking circles

Lost on Sunday morning

Tryna find my way back home

‘Cause I know I’ve been a stranger lately

I’ve been a stranger lately

I know I’ve been a stranger lately

Everybody passing

Can’t make out their faces

I’m tryna find a way back home

‘Cause I know I’ve been a stranger lately

I’ve been as tranger lately

I know I’ve been a stranger lately. 

 

 

“Mile-Long Mixtapes”: Ep. #2

Screenshots of November

by Kellie M. Beck

 

Smooth Sailin’ // Leon Bridges

 

Attic floorboards sing along to voices like velvet. Sock-footed, freshly showered, we know the winter is nipping at our heels– so we dance faster to evade its grasp, razor-thin November edges, frost on the skylight crystallized in the dawn. We light fires inside till our cheeks grow rosy and we sweat our brows. Pick up the pace and ride out the light of the year. 

 

Cigarettes and Coffee // Otis Redding

 

She had grown beautiful in the approachable way we all wished we were– the beauty that comes when someone realizes just how lovely they are. She had grown teeth over the fall, the trees turning to flames in her mere presence. 

 

Sunday Kind of Love // Etta James

 

The window nearest to my bed can’t close completely. In the summer, when the heat of the day suffocates the attic, it’s more than welcome. Now the cold emanates off of it and gnaws at my ears in the morning. My roommate thinks we should put a blanket over it at night. Tucking in the cold. 

 

Bring It On Home // Sam Cooke

 

Growing up, my family never had a real kitchen table and chairs. It was a folding table that was a little bit broken, both sides of it dipping towards the middle hinge. We crowded six folding metal chairs around it. We had a dining room, but we mostly used the room to put things we didn’t know what else to do with there. 

 

My mother just bought a proper kitchen set and chairs. Last spring, they redid the front garden of the house. New trimmings for an empty nest. 

 

Jealous Guy // Donny Hathaway

 

They whisper briefly to each other, two planets orbiting throughout the room on different axes, briefly crossing each other’s way and sharing in a brief conversation, only to move away from each other once more. 

 

She can feel the heat of his gaze on the nape of her neck. A blithe passing hand on her waist, a fresh drink, a secret in her ear.