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“Somebody That I Used to Know” was surprising hit when first arrived on the music scene. It was by two unknown artists, did not seem to have a lot of mass appeal, and frankly was a little strange sounding. But, as most of us are already aware, this song was hugely popular and the lead singer/composer, Gotye, gained massive success. Unfortunately, that fame only lasted until that song was on the radio. After it got replaced by the new sound, Gotye fell out of favor with the general public and was lost amongst the other names. I personally believe that this was a mistake, as Gotye has massive amounts of talent and still has great hits stored away for future releases.

A little background, Gotye was born May 21, 1980 in Belgium, though he lives and grew up in Australia. His real name, Woulter Andre De Backer served as inspiration for his pseudonym. Woulter is the Flemish form of Gauthier, which, when phonetically spelled, gives Gotye. De Backer first got his idea for his act when his neighbor gave him his collection of records after hearing his band practicing. Gotye has so far released 3 albums, but only 2 are available in the United States. His creative styling and composition is truly unique as he goes out of way to mix sounds that aren’t usually put together. He’ll do anything from vocal distortion, to individually plucking strings of a harp, to sampling older records in order to make a sound that really inspires him. To find out more, I would highly suggest watching his video, “Making Making Mirrors”.

I do not believe that Gotye gets the praise that he deserves. His art is something truly unique and it deserves praise. If “Somebody That I Used to Know” didn’t convince you of his talent, then I suggest you look up “Eyes Wide Open” or my personal favorite, “Easy Way Out”. Both songs are completely different experiences with differing sounds, meanings, and feelings to them. His songs are beautifully and carefully crafted in such a way that it is astounding.

In addition to the crafting of the songs, the creation of the album as a whole is also ordered fascinatingly well. The songs flow from one to another without any noticeable change. That is how an album should be made. The songs should change, but the sensation of the album should not. “Save Me” and “Bronte” are right next to each other on the album “Making Mirrors” and even though they are very different songs, they sound perfect in that exact order.

Perhaps, what I find to be the most interesting is that he does it mostly by himself. He has people play instruments rarely and has people look over his work, but all of his work is almost entirely self-made. He does not have a studio to make him sound perfect, nor does he have a sound technician to make sure that all of it is put in the right place. Gotye is a master of his craft and recognition must be given.

When my friends tell me how much they love and idolize Demi, Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, and the like I try to jump in with my one and only pop obsession: Marina and the Diamonds. The usual response I get is, “who?” Followed by a return of discussion to the more easily recognized pop heroines of the day. These friends gush to me about how Demi is saving the world, Tay is giving voice to our broken hearts, and Bey is just queen of everything. And while I completely respect these pop heroines for using their voices to reach people like my wonderful friends, there is something missing from their vein of pop for me, something that no one provides better than Marina and the Diamonds.

Marina began playing the piano and putting her poetry to music when she was 20 years old, which is a pretty late start for someone in the pop world. The first video I ever saw of Marina’s was “How to be a Heartbreaker” from her 2012 album Electra Heart. My first reaction was that this was yet another fluffy pop song jumping aboard the modern trend of gender role reversal in music videos. I thought it was cute, but didn’t connect with any substantive message in it at first. However, something kept me coming back to it and I watched it three more times that day.

Fast forward to a couple weeks later. After making it through the entire Electra Heart music video series (yes, she did this before Bey), I was totally swept by her unique voice and poetic lyrics. The way that she uses the pop medium to expose a variety of multifaceted issues on gender and culture results in songs that are both extremely catchy as well as layered in symbolism and deep thought.

The song that broke my ambivalence toward Marina is called Primadonna. Like many of her songs, this song is full of wit, irony, humor, and depth – not a very easy thing to pull off. She artfully balances mocking the “prima donna” female trope with an explicit acknowledgement of the fact that we all have a little prima donna in us. This theme is reflected in her song Homewrecker, but this is just one side of her work. She is entirely unafraid to expose a much more raw and emotionally charged side of herself in songs like Teen Idle and Lies.

I could list, analyze, and gush about the Marina songs I love (aka all of them) all day, but beside her artistry in writing and crafting her songs and videos, she has amazing talent that is not to be overlooked. I love Rihanna, she’s so bold and eccentric, but when she gets on stage to sing, she exposes how artificial and produced her tracks are. Marina, on the other hand, has amazing control of her voice. She moves seamlessly from beautiful high notes to a smooth (or sometimes raspy, if she so chooses) deep low notes.

I see how long this post is getting, but I genuinely feel that even this does not do her justice. In her music, she advocates for women’s rights, a deeper thinking culture, and a more intellectual breed of pop in a wonderfully poetic way. The best part is, she really does have the world talking. Instead of the usual heap of trolling and superficial commentary, her videos receive comments discussing and opening up the songs to the many possibilities of meaning, almost in the same way one would for a piece of literary criticism. Her work is sparking an highly intellectual and interpretive discussion about culture and art.

I highly respect this artist and encourage you to check out her other songs, especially the acoustic versions she has released. Stay tuned for her upcoming album FROOT; she released the first track from the album earlier this month.

Growing up, I loved Halloween. For an evening I was able to pretend to be someone or something else and be rewarded for it with a bucket filled to the brim with various fun sized candy bars. On Halloween you forgot your troubles, ignored your homework and became a princess, a cowboy or whatever else struck your fancy. While the night had to end and you still had to do your homework, Halloween was different than just playing dress up. There was a purpose, Halloween meant a Reese’s Peanut Butter cup in your lunch box everyday for the next two weeks, wrappers stuffed into jean pockets and lingering compliments on the originality and craftsmanship of your costume. For most people, Halloween is a once a year opportunity to lose themselves in someone else but, for me, that was never enough and so I found theater.

I suppose the connection between Halloween and theater is a bit odd to make. Yes, they both involve costumes. Yes, those involved typically are boisterous and uninhibited. Yet for me, this is not where the similarities end. There are many reasons that I love theater but as a performer the ability to find myself in someone else and to lose part of myself for an hour or four (if it happens to be unedited Shakespeare or Handel) is a near addictive experience.

But then it’s over. The curtain falls and the person you became disappears as the part of you that you left behind returns. Instantaneously you are transported back to exactly where you were just a few hours before; your troubles return and impending deadlines demand your attention. Yet, just like Halloween, the actual event may be over but your efforts have not been for naught. You are welcomed back from who you pretended to be to the person you are as the audience applauds your accomplishments. The next day, your name appears in the paper with (ideally) a glowing review as all your friends compliment your performance and promise to come see the show as soon as they get the chance.

That’s the magic in Halloween. For one night, everyone gets to experience the joy of performing without the stage fright, memorized lines and months of rehearsal. So however you celebrate tomorrow night, I hope you have as much fun as I have on stage and that you revel in your reward.

My friends and I enjoy checking out the Museum of Art on campus – it holds a wonderful collection of paintings. The one section of paintings that has tripped us up over the years is the modernist section – full of the infamous non-compositional, abstract series of paintings.

Here’s an example of something on display (White Territory, Mitchell, 1970)

What the heck is going on here? Does it mean anything? Or to quote the classic insult towards abstraction: “My kid could do that! That’s just FINGERPAINTING!”

So why do we put these paintings in museums and position them with so much cultural reverence?

I was so invested in this question that I took a class on abstract art a few semesters ago. The ace in your deck of visual analysis strategies are the following question:

-how is this painting guiding my eyes?

It’s important to know that European abstract art (this is an important distinction to make, there exist many forms of abstract art throughout the ages, each with their own projects, and I don’t want to generalize. The painting I’ve pictured above represents the influence of European modernism that confuzzles many in the museum setting) is very self-aware of the history of painting. European art had become highly realistic, highly focused on recreating landscapes and portraits. Artists felt that after a point, there was going to be nothing left to paint. Moreover, with the invention of photographs, the whole purpose of painting realistically was called into question.

So painters decided to approach their craft from a fresh perspective. They decided to go back to basics. Asking fundamental questions like, what makes painting special and unique? Why do we mix colors the way we do? How do we guide a viewer’s eye across the canvas?

Let’s look at one famous artist’s trajectory: Piet Mondrian. This is an early painting of his from around 1900:

This is one from a few years later:

by 1930, this is what he was painting:

Quite the change in style? Clearly, Mondrian knew how to paint. But did he straight up forget how to along the way?

Well, no biographical evidence suggests he lost his edge. It would seem he was trying to do something new. Let’s trace the changes along his path.

That painting of the house is hauntingly good. But looking closely at it, it’s already clear he was moving away from realism. The color saturation looks off, the reflection is stylized to look extra wavy, the symmetry is unbalanced to make the whole painting feel askew, unnerving almost.

Mondrian was playing with the fundamentals of how to elicit emotion in a viewer. He wanted to know how BASIC he could get while still influencing someone to think when looking at a painting.

So we move to the second painting, a series of curves and shadows. They could be a haunted house, a dark forest, or something else. But maybe it doesn’t matter what Mondrian actually paints. Maybe his goal in the first place is to make a viewer feel something. So does it matter what subject he chooses if his end goal is to elicit emotion, rather than represent a specific object? This is the question painters like Mondrian were asking.

Finally, we move to the last painting. There’s a lot of philosophy behind this one that is dense – a Hegelian notion of the dialectic – the synthesis of two binary compositional decisions, be they space, color, or something else, combining to form artistic unity. This is a little heavy handed, but simply put, Mondrian is now beyond emotion and asking an even more basic question: how does a painter control the space of the canvas in the most basic way?

Note the use of the three primary colors, black and white. Note the giant red square, which decenters the painting, preventing true symmetry, forcing our gaze to the fringes of the painting. Would the effect of this painting be the same if we flipped it sideways?

To be completely honest, I haven’t spent enough time reading to answer this question satisfactorily. But enjoy returning to the problem of abstract painting when I’m experiencing writer’s block, to remind myself that sometimes, returning to a basic approach can add a sense of clarity to what I’m trying to achieve with my own art.