single review

Single Review: Of Monsters and Men – Alligator

The first song of Of Monsters and Men’s next album Fever Dream has just been released after a four-year-long absence. I expected quite a lot from the band as they made us wait for so long
since their last album Beneath The Skin which came out in 2015.

Their new single ‘Alligator’ did not disappoint. Like most of their songs, the chorus is memorable and impassioned, which made me think of their song ‘Crystals’ in a similar way. This is
not surprising as the producers of ‘Alligator’ also produced ‘Beneath The Skin’. Overall, the sound is fierce, filled with tension and fuelled by overdriven guitars as the voice reaches for ultimate freedom.

“We are so excited about Alligator, the first release from our
upcoming album,” the band jointly stated to NME. “The song very much speaks to the excitement and energy that we feel about being back. We can’t wait to share more music and see everyone again.”

Quite different from their debut album which includes essentials such as ‘Dirty Paws’ and ‘Little Talks’, the band has walked away from their original folk style to assert a darker rock identity
which they started building up with their last album. Fever Dream promises to be a strong comeback for the Icelandic band, reflecting the confidence they have expressed on their new work.

Single Review: Shawn Mendes – If I Can’t Have You

After a long year of touring, Shawn Mendes is back again with a new single year after his previous self-titled album was released.

The incredibly catchy, ‘If I Can’t Have You’, feels very classic Shawn; the piano, synth and guitar are relatively stripped back highlighting his extraordinary, raw vocal range. However, this single also has a fresh hint of something new and exciting, despite Mendes stating that this is a stand-alone single and is not the start of a new album sequence.

There is no doubt that this single will be a major hit, full of vibrant energy when performed live. On stage, Shawn Mendes never fails to make the crowd feel immersed in the emotions of his songs. This new single has the capacity to be both an opening and closing song of his set.

‘If I Can’t Have You’ is a punchy and upbeat, yet smooth tune that suits just about every mood. It suggests power, lust, sadness, but it is also an absolute party jam. Despite focusing on the subject of an unattainable lover, the single is a perfect feel-good melody for post-exams. I will now be forever hoping this bop will come on in Unit 1 so I can feel its full potential as a dance tune.

Single Review: Courtney Barnett – Everybody Here Hates You

Barnett’s new single is emblematic of the same internalised paranoia that characterised her last awesome album: Tell Me How You Really Feel. She expressed in an email bulletin that she was afraid the lyrics were too personal for the song to even make it to recording. And they certainly are intense: dealing with how said feelings of paranoia feed conditions such as depression (which Barnett suffers from). The song features her characteristic guitar riffs and expertly handled musical composition, and in spite of the intense subject matter, it’s just plain fun to listen to.

in spite of the intense subject matter, it’s just plain fun to listen to

The song is accompanied by a music video set inside Barnett’s brain. While the first verse has a resignatory tone (“I feel putrid, I’m getting used to it these days”), the song’s focus ultimately shifts towards a collective need to monitor the mental health of people around us: “You say ‘It’s only in your head / They’re probably thinking the same thing’”. The song is at once vulnerable and sympathetic, driven by an angry edge to Barnett’s voice, a crescendo of guitar and vocal backing from her bandmates that shout the powerful solidarity she feels between herself and other mental health sufferers. She smiles as she sings “We’re gonna tell everyone it’s okay”. It seems like it’s okay not to be okay in her eyes.

Single Review: Taylor Swift – ME!

Two years after the release of her hit album Reputation, which shocked the world with her dramatic snake motif after the suspenseful anticipation, Taylor Swift is back again and entering a new era.

Her brand-new song ‘ME!’, featuring Panic! At the Disco’s Brendan Urie, is about “embracing your individuality and owning it”.

The ingenious lyrics promote self-confidence, with the repeated lyric in the chorus: “I’m the only one of me”, “I promise that you’ll never find another like me”, and “you can’t spell awesome without me”. Taylor Swift provides all generations with the reassurances that being confident and comfortable with yourself isn’t selfish – it’s healthy.

The hit of the chorus with the cymbals provide an uplifting and motivating feel which instantly categorises it as a summer, feel-good jam

The prominent drums allow the upbeat rhythm to be consistently linked to the melody and beat of the lyrics throughout. The hit of the chorus with the cymbals provides an uplifting and motivating feel which instantly categorises it as a summer, feel-good jam.

The feature of world-famous Brendan Urie brings a smooth, light-hearted and slightly-edgy element to the song, which only promotes it further as what is sure to be a hit single.

After her previous album suggesting emotions of aggression and annoyance about society’s assumptions about who she is, this new track announces her new state of contentment and pride with being individual and entirely herself, despite what people may think.

it is clear that Swift has consistently maintained her personal sound stamp throughout her career – an emotional, empowering, and enlightening experience in every song

Notably, at the beginning of the creatively clever ‘ME!’ music video, the teasing of the snake which suddenly jumps towards the camera and transforms into peaceful butterflies is illustrative of this transition between eras, which has received a lot of praise across social media.

Browsing through Taylor Swift’s discography, there is a clear distinction between each of her albums which can each be defined themselves as eras of her career. However, it is clear that Swift has consistently maintained her personal sound stamp throughout her career – an emotional, empowering, and enlightening experience in every song.

Lorde Reigns On

Once a wonder-kid and now a wonder woman, Lorde reigns on with the release of her new single ‘Green Light’ from her eagerly anticipated new album, Melodrama. Having spent 18 months working on the record with jitter synth king, Bleachers’ Jack Antonoff, this track marks the beginning of “the story of the last 2 wild, fluorescent years of my life” she tweeted last week. A story that if this track is anything to go by rages with a quiet power at every turn and illuminated by the rupture of her synaesthesiac glare.

‘Green Light’ might mark a new story but it’s not a new Lorde. She’s a transformed artist moving through the now technicolour matrix of her life and her heartbreak. Her low purr commands attention over the sparse piano beat that opens the track before transcending amongst synths and pealing guitars supported by a choir of voices that raise hers up even further. Her horizons may be wider, her noise louder, but she’s still recognisable. Who else could write about the incisors of sharks on a break-up track “Well those great whites they have big teeth” and it be a mark of their power as song-writer?

This Yearning for a future reflects her inability to ever fully find closure and echoes the sentiment of the late space alien David Bowie

Nuance bleeds from every line as she conveys intimacy whilst summarising a betrayal of her own “She thinks you love the beach – you’re such a damn liar”. Her voice multiplying into a falsetto chorus that yearns to escape from her own emotions and into a place of empowerment but understanding that this is process “I’m waiting for it/ That green light/ I want it”.

This yearning for a future reflects her inability to ever fully find closure and echoes the sentiment of the late space alien David Bowie, patron saint of weirdos alike, who called Lorde “the future of music”. She hasn’t disappointed here. Admitting that she feels “like the whole time spent writing this record I’ve had [Bowie] in my thoughts, I’ve had him in my heart” in an interview with BBC Radio 1. Even the singles cover, a painting of Lorde lying in bed seems like a ricochet of Bowie’s own Diamond Dogs album cover.

There is a push and pull in Green Light between the present and future but in this oscillation Lorde is opened up to possibility, as she snarls “I hear sounds in my mind/ Brand new sounds in my mind”. The fluctuations in feeling and tone marked by the change in chord between the first verse and chorus show Lorde’s trademark ‘smart-pop’. This may be a song about heartbreak but it’s also more than that, a filo pastry of meaning that becomes more sumptuous the more you dig in.

Lorde is her own protagonist

This track has come under a fair bit of fire, as some see this track as Lorde conceding to what most people think it means to be a pop-star. As if by writing about heartbreak, her lyrics cease to be resonant and intelligent and instead douse themselves in cliché. I couldn’t disagree more. Lorde is her own protagonist. She uses one of the biggest literary symbols of longing – the green light from F.Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and morphs it from seeking fulfilment from romantic relationships into a symbol of transcendence and agency.

The melancholic Green Light eludes Gatsby and we see that as tragedy. But Lorde is dancing in it, rejoicing in the possibility of finding it but being ok in knowing she hasn’t yet. The green light is not her turn towards some-one else but to herself and that is a triumph. Lorde is making grand strides forward and to that I say, all hail.

Track Review: ZAYN – PILLOWTALK

So this is kind of a big deal. Not just for One Direction fans worldwide, but for everyone. Zayn Malik has released his first solo single, ‘PILLOWTALK’, since leaving 1D just under a year ago.

We’ve all been waiting to hear what the smooth-toned, chiselled twenty two year old would offer the world as just ‘ZAYN’. Not ‘Zayn from One Direction’ or ‘the fit one’. Just ‘ZAYN’. But is it everything we hoped for? Is it the smooth R&B with a pop twist, Chris Brown meets Justin Bieber with a Bradford accent breakout single we’ve all been dreaming of? Honestly? Not quite.

I mean, it is almost all those things, but it doesn’t quite live up to expectations. This was supposed to be the moment everyone went “oh my god Zayn should have gone solo years ago”. But, ‘Pillow Talk’ doesn’t quite inspire that reaction. It’s a good song, don’t get me wrong. But, Zayn is clearly new to song-writing, and it shows in this somewhat unoriginal pop/R&B number. The subject of his lyrics, sex, is just a bit obvious. So many male R&B artists have done it and continue to do it in the same way, Zayn is just joining the parade. “We’ll piss off the neighbours” he sings, “in bed all day fucking you”. Surely he could have released something more meaningful following the turbulent year he’s had; making a decision that some saw as a huge career mistake; striving to establish his own identity in the music industry; wanting to be ‘a normal 22 year old’. Sex, isn’t exactly a ground-breaking subject.

The best thing about it is that he’s managed to make a video celebrating women and their bodies without objectifying them

Having said that, he has done everything possible to distance himself from the PG world of boybands and reclaim his own identity with this single. Swearing, referencing his religion and singing explicitly about sex, all make it clear that he’s trying to show the world he is his own person and his own artist with a vision. Props to him for that. One thing that does live up to expectation is his voice, which remains as spine-tingling and effortless as ever. Nobody can say ‘Zayn Malik can’t sing’, so at least that’s one thing he doesn’t have to prove anymore.

Finally, the video. Some people have told me it’s shit, other people were clearly so overwhelmed by seeing the doe-eyed, silver-haired hunk in his own video (making out with his GIRLFRIEND) that they could hardly form an opinion on the rest of the video. Personally, I think it’s cool that Zayn’s continued his love of art into this heavily animated video, although he may have overdone it slightly. The best thing about it is that he’s managed to make a video celebrating women and their bodies without objectifying them. Zayn has always cited the women in his life, who he was constantly surrounded by growing up, as one of his biggest influences, so it’s great to see them crossing over into his art too.

In conclusion, ‘Pillow Talk’ is good, it’s not amazing, but it is good. It’s slow-burning, cool and worlds away from One Direction, it’s even been stuck in my head for some of today. But, it is by no means my new favourite song and it does not live up to all my hopes and dreams. I’m looking forward to his album, just to see if it gets better, but sorry Zayn I won’t be buying this single.