Bent Knee was founded in 2009 between Ben Levin and Courtney Swain as a mashup of the members names: Ben and (Cour)tney. They’ve danced between more industrial rock at their founding to hyper-pop inspired, avant-garde rock as of their most recent album. Here, though, I want to discuss their most popular album, “Land Animal”. I believe this to be the greatest amalgamation of the band’s talents, especially lead singer Swain.
Musical Versatility in Bent Knee’s Hands
Bent Knee has a knack for progression throughout the runtime of their songs, which is amplified by the average 5:03 minute length of tracks on this album. Starting with lead track “Terror Bird”, the song starts with some simple, low-key drumming and rhythm guitar led by Swain’s voice. Eventually, the song picks up as a heavy, overdriven electric guitar drowns out Swain’s beautifully quivering falsetto.
Music Video for song “Terror Bird” by Bent Knee.
Likewise, “These Hands” highlights the musical storytelling Bent Knee is capable of. The song never repeats itself in structure, and each new phase feels fresh and invigorating. The bridge towards the end of the song, especially, seems to throw guitars and drums all around your ears as it goes on, creating an incredibly dynamic soundscape.
The Haunting Holiness of Bent Knee’s Voice
“Holy Ghost” is probably where Swain gets to show off her vocal range best on the album. Her loud, nasally singing on the chorus feels straight out of 90s grunge bands like Hole. She perfectly encapsulates a work-induced loneliness that breaks her. Even her quiet singing on the bridge sounds like shes about to have a mental breakdown, especially with how her voice echoes with delay.
These qualities persist through the album, of course, but they take center stage on “Holy Ghost”. Despite their often heavy subject material, Bent Knee’s music also becomes incredibly cathartic to sing along to because of these qualities. I’ve actually found listening to “Land Animal” in my car, screaming choruses to no one in particular, to be a great form of emotional relief.
I am shrinking in the laptop light Messages and blessings from each part of my mind When I’m writing fiction I can shriek in real life
Lyrics from “Holy Ghost” by Bent Knee
Concluding Thoughts
Again, I highly recommend “Land Animal”, and the rest of Bent Knee’s work for that matter. If you’re listening to this album for the first time, I suggest giving it your full attention, letting the guitars wash over you and the lyrics penetrate you.
Box art of Celeste. Photo courtesy of Maddy Makes Games, under Creative Commons
On January 25, 2018, a small team led by Maddy Thorson and Noel Berry at Extremely OK Games (EXOK) released Celeste. The game quickly grew in popularity as a 2D platformer with smooth, intuitive movement, a heartfelt narrative, and a stellar soundtrack. The impressive levels of depth to the game also helped launch a vibrant speedrunning community as it is the 6th most active game on speedrun.com.
I want to dive deeper, though, into how the music in this game ties together those other elements. Between Lena Raine’s composition and Power Up Audio’s sound design, Celeste has been nominated for (and won) 7 different awards for its score. There will be spoilers for the first 7 chapters that comprise the main game, so go play Celeste first if you haven’t already.
Lena Raine, composer and producer for Celeste. Photo courtesy of Sara Ranlett, under Creative Commons.
Opening Anxieties
Chapter 1, Forsaken City, establishes our protagonist and her goal of climbing Celeste Mountain. Madeline travels through an abandoned town with run-down steam machinery as her theme plays in the background. Using a high-pitched synth in a major key, the theme sounds hopeful and optimistic.
Along the way, she meets a fellow climber, Theo, who mostly just wants pictures for his Instapix followers as opposed to actually reaching the summit. Eventually, she finds an old campsite with a memorial “dedicated to those who perished on the climb”. The music dies down, leaving just a piano repeating the same three notes softly, and the chapter ends.
Chapter 2, Old Site, introduces Madeline’s antagonist, who refers to herself as “Part of You”. The community has instead nicknamed her Badeline so I’ll use that name here. She casts doubt on Madeline’s journey and reflects her anxieties, uncovering Madeline’s true motivations for climbing Celeste Mountain.
About halfway through the chapter, she begins chasing Madeline by imitating the player’s movements, killing her if they touch. Here, the music intensifies as Badeline’s theme begins playing. The same synth for Madeline’s theme plays a similar melody, but lowered an octave and slowed down, creating a spookier, haunting melody that echoes on. The parallels between Madeline and Badeline are obvious through gameplay and music, though their ideas still clash.
Screenshot of Chapter 2 of Celeste. Photo courtesy of Maddy Makes Games, under Creative Commons.
Books and a Breakdown
Madeline makes it up to a hotel on the mountain for chapter 3, Celestial Resort, which is often considered harder than the next two or three chapters. A soft piano introduces the chapter as Madeline meets Mr. Oshiro, the hotel owner who appears to be a ghost. As the player progresses through the level, Oshiro continues to grow more insecure about Madeline not wanting to stay.
Badeline tells Oshiro that Madeline only wanted to help him to satiate her ego, which Madeline tries to argue against. A boss fight with an enraged Oshiro ensues, and the music grows violent. An 8-bit synth mixes with Oshiro’s ghastly theme as vibrant drumming intensifies the interaction.
Madeline: If I disappear now, Mr. Oshiro could have a meltdown. And maybe I can actually do something good. For once.
Quote from Chapter 3 of Celeste.
Madeline was advised earlier by Theo not to try to help Oshiro with his anxieties for her own safety, but she refused, saying she wanted to “do something good for once”. So, Badeline was not that wrong in what she told Oshiro, leaving players with a sense that Madeline and Badeline are not as good and bad as they seem to be respectively.
Magnifying Mirrors
Chapter 5, Mirror Temple, delves into a visual representation of Madeline’s worries through a labyrinth of puzzles. The score is quiet, subtle, and devoid of either Madeline or Badeline’s themes. As a result, players feel alone and lost in the temple, allowing doubt about their own abilities to creep in. Madeline eventually gets sucked into a mirror where she enters rooms now occupied by seekers.
The temple amplifies the mountain’s ability to bring out a part of oneself that they despise, so these seekers represent Madeline’s worries about climbing the mountain. She feels they’re attacking her. The same vibrant drums from the boss fight with Oshiro return, indicating that Madeline feels as stressed now as she did then.
Revelation and Reform
Chapter 6, Reflection, opens with Madeline telling Part of Herself that she doesn’t need her anymore. Badeline is only slowing her down. It seems like Madeline has finally defeated Badeline as bold, optimistic synths come in. And then, Badeline breaks. She begins berating Madeline for thinking she can just neglect Part of Herself and Madeline begins having a panic attack. Badeline worsens her stress and they end up falling all the way back to the base of the mountain.
They meet again later, and the last boss fight in the game commences. The music swells louder and more complex than ever. Madeline and Badeline’s themes alternate now as the fight progresses. Everything feels so grand that this difficult section feels invigorating rather than discouraging to play.
Madeline tries to keep calming Badeline down until they are both beaten down. Madeline tells her counterpart that she was wrong to leave instead of helping her, and that they have to work together instead of separating again. They merge into one character and the player unlocks a new mechanic.
Chapter 7, Summit, ends the game by progressing through remixed versions of each of the previous chapters. Now each chapter’s music is accompanied by triumphant strings and a piano version of both character’s themes. The progression of the game becomes much more vertical as it feels like they are speeding up the mountain far faster together than they ever did separately.
Screenshot of Chapter 7 of Celeste. Photo courtesy of Maddy Makes Games, under Creative Commons
The last section features a series of checkpoints counting down from 30 as players are encouraged to jump, dash, and climb their way to the summit. As the player reaches the final checkpoint, the score fades into the background so a sense of relief can wash over. Madeline was really able to climb the mountain. The player was able to climb the mountain.
Closing Thoughts
Aside from the contents of the music within each level, there are a couple other elements I wish to praise. No part of the score ever grows stale, since there are so many small variations of each chapter’s music. They never seem to loop on themselves.
The way EXOK handles anxiety in Celeste is remarkably original as well. Much of the story was created through Maddy Thorson’s own experiences, and there’s even a genuinely helpful strategy at the end of Chapter 4 for alleviating panic attacks, both for Madeline and the player.
Although Celeste’s narrative was primarily focused on anxiety and how to reckon with it, many trans people have found the narrative to describe their experiences very well too. In fact, this coincidence likely comes from Maddy’s experiences as well, since she came out as trans not long after Celeste released. In a follow-up DLC to Celeste, the last cutscene shows a trans pride flag on Madeline’s desk, confirming that Madeline the character is also trans, which is a nice touch.
Anyway, play Celeste if you haven’t before, so you can greater experience this indie masterpiece. And if you have played it before, replay it and see what connections you can make to your own life. Keep on a lookout for EXOK’s next game too, Earthblade.
On Halloween, 2020, Adult Swim released a series of short films titled “adult swim smalls”. Many of these featured the work of Jack Stauber, an animator and pop musician who uses many different styles and genres to create moving, eccentric pieces of art. One of these works was “OPAL”, a 12-minute amalgamation of ballads, pop songs, and animation.
Now, I highly recommend you go watch this film before continuing on with this review. It’s a fantastic work of art and the music is pretty neat I think. Also this review will just make more sense. You will find so many different analysis videos talking about “OPAL”, so instead I’m going to discuss my own experience and feelings watching it for the first time.
“OPAL”, a short film created by Jack Stauber.
Opal and the Plot Summary
I’m going to give a brief overview of “OPAL” here for people who refuse to watch the actual video. The opening scene shows a family gathered around a small, likely malnourished child named Opal as she picks up a burger and subsequently starts dancing around with it in her hand. She sees a dark, decrepit house across the street before the shutters on the top window swing open, releasing cries of anguish and despair as a ghastly presence spills out around it.
Still, she gets curious and sneaks over to this dark abode. The first thing she encounters is an old, obese smoker who calls the girl Claire. He seems to be her grandfather, and he asks her to bring him some cigarettes before launching into a tirade about how Claire shouldn’t try to get him to quit smoking because he’s fine, actually. Also, he’s likely blind.
After a while, he gets suspicious that this girl is not actually his granddaughter and starts chasing after Claire as she runs up the stairs in fear. She’s stopped by being seen through the doorway by a man surrounded by mirrors who we can believe to be Claire’s dad. He’s clearly dealing with narcissism coupled with insecurities about his appearance and hardly ever talks to Claire directly. Also, he never sees Claire’s face.
Eventually, she runs off and ends up being grabbed by a drunk, pill-abusing woman who we can assume is Claire’s mom. The mom keeps calling herself similar to or the same as Claire even if that’s not actually true. Also, she never sees Claire in focus.
Opal finally escapes and ends up in the room with the top window mentioned earlier. Through that window, she sees a billboard for “Opal’s Burgers” with the same family from the opening scene, but a healthier, well-fed girl. Claire begins to have a mental breakdown and retreats into her own head while her (probably actual) family bangs on the door to get in.
Opal and the Hamburger
The opening scene and everything to do with the first house is honestly kinda confusing to open with. I mean, it makes sense by the end, like a Tarantino movie, but it makes the later tragedy even harder to stomach. Opal’s here having a good time actually being seen by people she can consider family.
“We See You, Opal” is more of a thematic intro ballad than an actual song, so it doesn’t really leave much impact, especially since I didn’t know what “OPAL” is about yet. However, the pure, innocent joy that Opal gets just from picking up a burger is infectious.
Opal has a family who cares about her and doesn’t try to project themselves onto her and it’s really sweet. Of course, we’re only 2 minutes into the film at this point, so things were bound to get worse. The cries that come from the dark house are genuinely chilling. Opal’s dad’s warnings not to look at or think about the house are pretty spot on to how suburban parents handle local crime, homelessness, drugs, and Black bad people. Or maybe that was just my family.
Opal and the Cigarettes
Cigarettes, Photo courtesy of Ardfern, under Creative Commons
The scene with Opal/Claire and her grandfather is such a dramatic shift in tone delving into the abuse Claire faces on what is probably a daily basis. The way the grandfather’s head seems to snap around at the sound of a wood block is extremely disconcerting.
“Easy to Breathe” during this scene did not really have much going for it to be honest. I mean, thematically it works really well with how Claire is never seen for herself throughout the film, but the music itself is bland. The piano uses very simple chord progressions and the drums add basically nothing interesting. The backing vocals singing “la, la, la, la” are fun though.
Also, something I didn’t notice first time around was how claymation was implemented into “OPAL”. I’ve seen other Jack Stauber shorts before so the clay heads of the first family and Claire were not a shock, but it’s weird to see them placed in the frame so that they basically just cover the head of Stauber’s body in different outfits. Claire is the only character to get her entire body in claymation, probably so that her malnutrition can be exemplified.
Opal and the Egomaniac
On first watch, the scene between Claire and her father felt both refreshing and familiar while still bringing that disturbing touch that Stauber is often known for. Although I don’t think it’s Stauber’s intent, the father reminds me of being an “ally” to marginalized communities. He’s completely unaware of his own biases while still seeing himself as a “tiny growing thing” on a journey. And of course, he refuses to lose the audience that sees through his narcissism while he ignores any and all issues at hand.
The song “Mirror Man” in this scene creates such a dichotomy with the previous song in that this feels so sterile and clean compared to the dirtiness of “Easy to Breathe”. Also, “Mirror Man” is much more in line with the sound of Stauber’s discography outside of this film, including the voices, which he uses often. Overall, this track is definitely the most fun and enjoyable in the film, which is probably why this scene is the least impactful to the emotional punch at the end.
Now I sit here in reflection chamber
Fixing myself so that all can savor.
Lyrics from “Mirror Man” by Jack Stauber
Opal and the Booze
Seeing Claire’s mother for the first time creeped me out far more than any other character thus far. Her drunken stupor is clearly something that happens quite often for Claire to have to deal with. Her narcissism is probably the most traumatizing for Claire, as Claire has to fight fear and hopelessness in order to be better than her mother who sees Claire as a reflection of herself. Her dad is more neglectful than directly abusive, and she seems to almost exist in a sort of business relationship with her grandfather.
And that song, “Virtuous Cycle,” is just so chilling. The piano is something straight out of “Friday the 13th”. The song’s breakdown at the end as a montage of the mother’s abuse plays is by far the most haunting part of the whole film. It’s unclear whether these are the mother’s own traumas that she’s relaying down to Claire or whether these are just a collection of abuses towards Claire. Either way, the use of “Mama” in the song is the most disrespectful thing to happen to Claire that we see. Claire is fully justified in not seeing that woman as family, let alone her mama.
Opal and the Hamburger (reprise)
That ending is just a punch to the gut. Opal and her family don’t actually exist, they are just the closest thing to a loving family that Claire has reference to. Her house is so isolated that she may not ever see anyone other than her relatives. The reprise of “We See You, Opal” has such a twist of irony to it now that Claire’s troubles are not “miles away” but right outside her bedroom door.
I still don’t think I’ve seen anything as creatively diverse in medium and unified in theme as “OPAL”. Stauber was responsible for all of the singing, all of the acting, much of the animation, and most, if not all of the music. I highly commend his work as an artist, and I hope you all go on to visit more of his projects.
Wesley Willis, Photo courtesy of Greg from New York, NY, America, under Creative Commons
I write songs because I like to write songs. It’s my life. I had to do what I had to do.
Wesley Willis, in an interview with Nardwaur the Human Serviette
Wesley Willis was a Chicago native diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 1989. Despite this diagnosis (in fact often empowered by it), Willis devoted his life to his music and his drawings, some of which became his album covers. Over the course of his career, he performed as the lead of his punk rock band, The Wesley Willis Fiasco, many solo acts, and even collaborations with more well-known artists such as Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys, who signed him to his label “Alternative Tentacles”.
Drawing of Chicago by Wesley Willis, Photo courtesy of Daniel X. O’Neil, under Creative Commons
Songs for the Strange
Much of his music, especially his solo work, has a very distinctive song structure and sound. His Technics KN keyboard tended to be the only instrument used during his performances, where he used various presets altered in some way for each song. One preset in particular, featured on “Rock N Roll McDonalds,” was used for over 40% of songs on his 3 “Greatest Hits” albums.
There are also several recurring themes in Willis’s lyrics based on his own experiences with schizophrenia, both imagined and physical. Several songs call out fast food companies for selling fattening food. Others recount his outbursts on the Chicago bus lines or in church. Still others are entirely devoted to praising artists and people he loves (platonically and romantically). A concerning number of his songs tell of people being arrested for murder and other felonies.
I believe that all of Willis’s songs reflect some fear of his. He may worry about his own weight. He may worry about being sent to jail because of his outbursts. He may fear losing the love of people he adores. Additionally, many of his songs are highly explicit and violent, likely stemming from his paranoia such as “I Wupped Batman’s Ass” or “Suck a Caribou’s Ass”.
Nearly every song ends with the phrase, “Rock over London / Rock on Chicago,” and the slogan of companies such as Folgers, Wheaties, and Mitsubishi.
A Man Beloved
Wesley Willis was well known in Chicago during the 1990s among his fans for his honest, heartfelt songwriting, even if the music can be repetitive. He famously greeted and left people with a headbutt, leaving a permanent bruise on his forehead.
Star of Wesley Willis on the outside mural of the Minneapolis nightclub First Avenue. Photo courtesy of Christopher Bahn, under Creative Commons
In fact, his entire body was distinctive to people who saw him. Not only was he 6’6″, towering over most people, but he had multiple scars over his face from an attack by a stranger and that bruise on his forehead. This attack was only one of many traumas he experienced during his lifetime, the most notable of which is probably his aunt robbing him of $600 with a gun to his head.
Regardless, he was compassionate to his fans and the people he sings about. His music was incredibly original if nothing else, and most people who went to his shows seemed to be enjoying his music for what it was, not as “so bad it’s good” music.
If you want to explore Wesley Willis’s music, I suggest listening to his “Greatest Hits Volume 1” album and watching his interview with Nardwaur below.
Video interview between Wesley Willis and Nardwaur the Human Serviette on YouTube.
The album cover for BURN PYGMALION!!! A Better Guide to Romance by The Scary Jokes
On January 1, 2019, The Scary Jokes released their 3rd album: “BURN PYGMALION!!! A Better Guide to Romance”. This piece of quaint bedroom pop follows fictional characters Jeanine and Sylvia through the struggles of their relationship. Liz Lehman, creator of The Scary Jokes, weaves together haunting yet entrancing melodies to probe into the details of each character’s feelings for each other.
A Journalist’s Obsession With a Star
“BURN PYGMALION” is split into songs from the perspectives of both characters with short narrations in between. The second track, “Death, Thrice Drawn” first introduces Jeanine’s adoration for Sylvia, a “hotshot” who she would “set the world on fire to be with”.
However, her anxiety over their less-than-ideal situation leads her to question if the relationship can sustain itself, much like the wyrm referenced in the second verse. The mostly upbeat, synth-filled song ends with an emptying of the soundscape to allow Jeanine’s anxieties to come to light.
The title alludes to tarot cards, in which death signals great change to come, foreshadowing a turbulent relationship throughout the rest of the album. Additionally, these three phases will likely spell the end of them both by their story’s end if it reflects the “triptych in decay” referenced in the second verse.
Pygmalion – Myth Made Reality
“Pygmalion” steps into an outsider’s point of view of Sylvia and Jeanine’s relationship, scalding Sylvia for her emotional abuse of her lover. Pygmalion was originally a king in Greek myth who obsessed over sculpting the perfect wife to adore before Aphrodite brought her to life.
You’re just a monster with a BFA She wants to claw your eyes open So you can see, she’s not a plaything
The Scary Jokes on “Pygmalion”
Much like the king, Sylvia is accused of manipulating her object of adoration to her whims without regard for Jeanine’s feelings. Sylvia chisels “fear in [Jeanine’s] eyes” in order to keep her clinging, as reflected in the intrusive hi-hats and the general emptiness in the music surrounding them.
A Dying Fad
At the halfway point in the album, Jeanine seems to officially cut ties with Sylvia, though not without retaining her love for the star. In “Sylvia’s Just a Dying Fad”, she vents her frustrations and worries with Sylvia leaving her to go film a new movie, suspecting that she is “just a friend” who helped jumpstart Sylvia’s career.
At this point, alarm bells are ringing in Jeanine’s head, just as they do in the song itself. The low synths also seem to distort as Jeanine’s perception of Sylvia does.
No Pleasure in Love
After hearing about Jeanine’s past emotional abuse on tracks like “Emotional Vagrant”, we can understand why she might be so insecure about Sylvia leaving her for so long. On “No Leverage / No Pleasure”, She comes to realize that her habit of hiding everything away even from those she loves is part of the reason why their relationship has mostly failed so far.
Jeanine repeats “I love you/ I need you” over and over, admitting to herself that she feels incomplete without Sylvia able to take care of her. Even still, she knows that part of this need comes from Sylvia “hijacking my mind”. The same musical themes present in “Sylvia’s Just a Dying Fad” present themselves in this song, implying that she’s still cautious about Sylvia distorting her mind further.
Optimism Against the Void
The album ends with “Bets Against the Void”, in which Jeanine finally reconciles the fact that Sylvia does love her and that their love can be beautiful. The more cheerful, lighter synths return as Jeanine tries to focus on how good she feels today, not what the future may bring.
As explained in one of their tumblr posts, Lehman’s own anxieties as someone in Jeanine’s position primarily fuelled the album’s emotional themes that provide complexity. The album’s overall light, spacey instrumentals allow Lehman’s lyrics to shine through while building a stellar atmosphere for those emotional themes to be surrounded in.
Kause in a Much Damaged Society, or KMD, sparked the legendary career of one of its core members, Zev Love X. Among other aliases, Zev Love X eventually came to be known by the moniker MF DOOM, the underground hip hop icon. Other members of KMD included DJ Subroc (Zev Love X’s younger brother) and Onyx the Birthstone Kid. “Mr. Hood” was the debut album released by the group under Elektra Records in 1991.
Can Rap Be Comical and Impactful?
The concept that “Mr. Hood” revolves around is the namesake character, who is composed entirely of samples from language-learning tapes and travels around New York City with the members of KMD. The group also brings in sampled voice lines from sources as disparate as a Malcolm X speech on “Boy Who Cried Wolf” and Bert from Sesame Street on “Who Me? (With an Answer from Dr. Bert)” and “Humrush”.
KMD’s lyrical style is reminiscent of other artists in the New York scene during the early 90s, including A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, and the Jungle Brothers. They maintain a balanced blend of light-hearted humor and themes of racism and black empowerment throughout “Mr. Hood”.
Yet, the humor often serves to emphasize more thoughtful messages from verses on “Who Me?” for example. The song begins with a snippet from Disney’s “Song of the South”, an infamously racist movie from the 40s that introduces the character Little Sambo. Zev Love X’s verses explore his outrage towards several derogatory terms for Black people, and the phrase “who me?” reflects this point.
Lips and eyes dominant traits of our race Does not take up 95 percent of one’s face But still I see, in the back two or three Ignorant punks pointing at me
Lyrics from “Who Me? (With an Answer from Dr. Bert)” by KMD
Zev Love calls on Dr. Bert at the end of the song to solve this issue, in which he instructs kids to “draw a circle around [Little Sambo]”. Considering how Little Sambo is such a racist caricature of Black people, Bert is telling all kids (not just those affected) to call out racism when they see or hear it rather than letting it slide.
Philosophy of KMD
As noted on the track “Nitty Gritty”, the members of KMD are Black Muslims part of the Ansaaru Allah sect, which mixes elements of Black nationalism and Islam. At this stage in KMD’s career, all were devout and refrained from drinking or doing drugs.
The opening track off “Mr. Hood” illustrates Zev Love X’s disdain for drugs and drug dealers. After learning that Mr. Hood is a drug dealer, he tells the story of Crackpot Jenkins, who got arrested for trying to sell crack to a cop. He still manages to keep up the light-heartedness of the album by setting the story in a playground where Crackpot Jenkins sells “pebbles and stones to throw rocks”.
Since then I knew he wasn’t too head smart
As I scribbled in art he insisted on standing in the sandbox
To collect unknown amounts of pebbles and stones to throw rocks
Lyrics from “Mr. Hood At Piocallee Jewelry / Crackpot” by KMD
From Love to Villainy
Despite becoming well known as one of the best in complex rhyme later in his career, Zev Love X’s rap style still sounds highly reminiscent of established artists at the time. His rhyme scheme had not yet developed to the intricate level displayed on Madvillainy or MM…FOOD.
Additionally, he had not yet experienced the hardships that brought him to adopting his villainous persona MF DOOM such as losing his brother Subroc to a car accident. As such, he still raps enthusiastically and with a passion not present in his later work.
It’s difficult to find a track on “Mr. Hood” devoid of any funk, with thudding bass lines and a groove that resonates through every track. While albums released under MF DOOM would drop the funk sound, the driving bass and humor lived on.
Conclusion
Zev Love X wanted listeners to be able to enjoy KMD’s music while still preserving the artistic integrity of their messages on Black empowerment. These themes only became more of a focus on their follow-up album “Black Bastards”, which was finished after Subroc had been killed.
As a result, “Mr. Hood” remains the only album in Zev Love X’s discography to be born out of passion for his craft and relative innocence. Listeners already familiar with MF DOOM should come to this album to explore his origins and find a more upbeat and pure DOOM.
One of the most popular perceptions of “pop music” is that of a shallow, clichéd genre with little artistic value. That doesn’t mean that artists aren’t trying to buck this perspective by using the upbeat, repetitive sounds and lyrics that define the genre to discuss social and cultural issues.
“Topical Dancer” is the satirical, irony-laced debut album released in March 2022 under DEEWEE and Because Music by Charlotte Adigéry and Bolis Pupul. This duo from Ghent, Belgium utilize an upbeat electropop sound that contrasts heavily with their socially-conscious lyrics about racism and sexism (among other issues).
Still, that dichotomy helps to bring humor into the album without sacrificing nuance in their lyrics or musical quality. “We see pop music as a vehicle to say something,” Bolis said in an interview with The Guardian’s Kadish Morris.
“Do you speak Esperanto?”
We’ll start with Charlotte’s address to the audience that opens the album: why do you think you’re so much better than everyone else? The first track after the intro, “Esperanto”, lets Charlotte vent her frustrations with many people who claim to be “woke”. In the track’s first half, Charlotte asks listeners to consider whether they simply pretend to empathize with the plights of marginalized communities.
“Are you as open-minded behind closed doors?
Would you join forces in this holy war?
Are you as offended when nobody’s watching?”
Lyrics from “Esperanto” by Charlotte Adigéry and Bolis Pupul
As backhanded insults toward the people she’s questioned throughout the first half of the song, Charlotte pivots into relaying many of the substitutions in language these people make when talking about people often subject to discrimination (Black people, Latinos, Asians and women, specifically).
“And then, it hit me”
This may just be my most played song off “Topical Dancer”, and it’s the one that drills into you most with its blunt messaging about love in western society. The song in question is “It Hit Me”, the fifth track on the album and the first vocal appearance of Bolis Pupul.
From the first 20 seconds of the song, the duo greets listeners with haunting, eerie synths that unnerved me at first but set up an uncomfortable tone that beautifully supplements the three stories in the track. And then, we hear a whistle as Charlotte starts her first story. At just 13 years old, a couple of men catcalled her on her way to field hockey practice, which she explains in full detail to listeners. Eventually, she realizes just how she’s been sexualized not just by these men but by a society that encourages shallow sexual appeal.
Bolis then delves into his own experiences of dealing with insecurities about his appearance, which he struggles to see how any woman could find attractive. He realizes at the end of his story how toxic it is for him to worry so much about every aspect of how he looks, but again society promotes this obsession with physical appearance.
Finally, Charlotte recalls a date with a boy named Stefaan where she follows flirting advice from a teen magazine. The date goes south, Stefaan leaves her, and it hits her how weird the flirting advice in a teen magazine is. Why is love something marketed to people as inherently sexual, looks-based, and (especially) targeted towards minors?
“This is not a cliché”
“Ceci n’est pas un cliché” is the most popular song off “Topical Dancer”, and it serves as a good summary of the goal for the album as a whole. Charlotte spends the entirety of this song rattling off clichés in pop songwriting: she’s “down on my knees begging you please” and spelling out words like love, which was especially popular in the mid-to-late-2000s.
However, the real punch of this track lies in the chorus: “I wanna make you feel real nice / I bet this song sounds real familiar.” While Charlotte’s trying to live out the ideal love life as described by pop songs throughout the last 50 years, her partner is “cold as ice” and uncaring.
This is exactly the type of situation Charlotte and Bolis hope to change with their own pop music; they’re trying to dispel many of the clichés so ingrained into pop and instead turn the genre into something filled with a nuanced discussion of social issues.
Music video for “Ceci n’est pas un cliché” from YouTube posted by Charlotte Adigéry and Bolis Pupul. Directed by Bob Jeusette and produced by Jarri Van der Haegen.
Now Go Dance
One of the great things about “Topical Dancer” is that, while it might be unconventional compared to other pop and dance music, it is still incredibly accessible to anyone with a passing interest in music. Two of the songs are in languages other than English, and one–“HAHA”–is composed mostly of the distorted laughs of Charlotte. However, the lyrics in every other song are straightforward and impactful.
Even if you don’t care for the lyrical content of “Topical Dancer”, Charlotte and Bolis succeeded in creating a dance-able album that can be enjoyed by just about anyone.
Overall, I would give the album a 9/10, since there are a couple of tracks that don’t add much to the album, but they aren’t bad by any means.
