Right now I am feeling as if millions of thoughts and feelings were flowing in a chaotic way within myself, allowing to see just a little crack of so much light I cannot glimpse, of so much truth I cannot embrace, of so much beauty I cannot stand... And it's only up to me to bring back every lived experience to the right place they belong, bringing back together the pieces of a broken time which are part of the perfect equation between reality and imperfection.
I really admire Anouk and I love each and every album she has released, but I think she made a real difference with this one, not only about her own music but about the way it was released and the audiovisual content that accompanied the album. Speaking concretely about the music, this album is 100% conceptual: each song is linked to one another with ambient sounds and all of the songs are sad and melancholic, even mysterious some of them. She is telling us a story about the search for light and happiness, so the tracks go from dark to brighter as they advance until we get to the final song and its epic ending. Everything is very connected, both music and lyrics, and Anouk’s voice sounds amazingly beautiful and full of emotion in every note. She’s proved that she’s great at singing ballads, aside from the rock and roll that she gets us used to. As I said at the beginning, the videos are amazing too and they deserve a special mention. It’s four music videos all connected in between by stories, characters, symbols… the same actors playing different roles, similarly to the American Horror Story Tv show. For me, everything related to this album can be considered a MASTERPIECE. Best Anouk album ever (and it’s hard to choose) and one of the most original and conceptual ideas ever made in the past years.
"You won't come, you won't care if I live or die today"
SONGWRITING
As I explained in the post about the song Catharsis, the idea of Numbness came from a desire of transmitting a real deep melancholic feeling. I am a really melancholic person and this remains reflected in some melodies of my songs and the lyrics too. In this particular case, I needed to express a feeling of absolute powerlessness but from a sad and rather vulnerable perspective this time, instead of being inspired by the usual angry rocker mood, as lots of songs on this album have been conceived and recorded.
The story behind this song is pretty simple and literal. I was deeply in love with that guy who told me I was crazy and I couldn’t do anything else but to accept it the way it was. That led me to an empty state of mind where my feelings had to be numb in order to survive and, though I was feeling that way, I had to carry on with my life at the same time one way or another, so I was experiencing a real contradiction in my own skin, living a life that was not worthwhile for me anymore.
But to speak more precisely about the concrete event that inspired this song, I must go back to a July day in 2012. I was living in Barcelona and I had just finished my cinema director career, so I used to go clubbing with some schoolmates to celebrate the end of the course. One night, I met a guy who had a really gay look and he was very handsome too. I flirted with him despite the fact that he said that he was not gay. However, everybody around me thought the same and said to me that he was clearly gay. At the end of the night, he became really violent and started to break bottles and insult people, so I decided to give that flirting up. I felt simply stupid and pathetic because I had spent the whole night trying to get laid with that guy only to forget about the other guy but, in the end, it was me the one who was alone one more night, as usual.
I sat alone on a bench on the street, feeling completely empty. I had never felt that empty in my whole life. There was absolutely no point in anything. I sat there for at least one hour, watching people walking by and expecting someone to stop and tell me: “Are you ok?” Obviously, no one did because they were exactly as empty as I was, or, at least, that’s the way I felt it. I wanted to cry but I couldn’t, I wanted to scream and I couldn’t either. I just wanted to feel something, I wanted to feel real and, in the end, the only thing I could think about was the guy I was in love with, wishing that he would suddenly appear to give me a strong hug.
Fortunately, I also knew that that horrible moment could be reflected in a song and it did. Art has always been my greatest escape and will always be.
PRODUCTION
This song was directly recorded with a higher key. I wanted to record the verses again before releasing it because I wanted the voice to sound more whispered but I finally decided to leave it this way and, though the voice doesn’t exactly sound the way I like in the verses, I think you can find beauty in the imperfections sometimes and I also really like how the voice sounds in the choruses and the final high note.
I watched this movie during more or less the same period of months that I watched Cube. I got to know about it thanks to that horror movies website that I mentioned in the previous post and I rented it from the older movies section of the video store too. At first, I thought that it would be like some kind of Tv movie with a poor story and aesthetic but I was completely wrong. Watching this movie was a true EXPERIENCE. I had never seen anything like that before and it could be considered my first introduction as the spectator of this gore torture porn sub-genera that movies like Wolf Creek, I Spit On Your Grave or Martyrs have offered over the past decade.
The best aspect of the movie is the cinematography and the realization of the tension scenes, which are shot in a very original and realistic way. The movie makes clear the honor of its title because, once the action starts, the tension never lows until the ending. You can really feel the danger and worry about the characters, mainly because of the brilliant choice of shootings. The performances are great too, especially the one given by the protagonist.
The worst part of the movie with no doubt and many people will surely agree, is the ending. We have seen a lot of turning-tables endings and it’s fine if you know how to solve it in a subtle and coherent way but it doesn’t work at all in this movie. Many people think that this ending ruins the whole movie and I can completely relate to that claim because, after having seen such great tension scenes, you feel fooled by that ending and it pisses you off. However, it can’t be denied that eluding the ending, it is still one of the best horror movies ever made and one of my favorites too.
THESIS
I would say that the thesis of this movie is similar to the one that I exposed in the Black Swan post. Once again, you deal with mental illness or psychotic break, and, for me, it’s pretty clear that it has something to do with the self-repression suffered by the main character and her obsession with her friend.
Thesis:The repression of our deepest instincts may be one of the causes of some mental illnesses.
Garbage is an amazing band and clearly one of my favorites. They have always been very faithful to their music style, so it gets very hard to choose one of their albums as their best because all of them are true pieces of art but, if I had to choose, I would say that Version 2.0 is their best album. One of the reasons is that I equally love each and every track of the album. It’s not that I don’t like some of the songs on the other albums, I would even dare to say that there’s not any bad Garbage song in their discography, but the songs in Version 2.0 are really great compositions. They are all very catchy and entertaining to listen to. The production of the album is amazing too. I don’t know much about the subject but I’d say that I love the electronic sounds and the distortions, something very characteristic of the band that gets very harmonic in this album. Then there’s also the fact that these songs were used in lots of movies and TV shows and it brings me really good memories: Sleep Together was used on the trailer of Cherry Falls and the amazing guitar solo of Push It sounded on the trailer of Teaching Mrs. Tingle, You Look So Fine was part of the soundtrack of Queer As Folk… It’s clearly a piece of the cult of the 90s and most of the songs on the album are iconic and representative of that era. Essential for any nostalgic lover of the 90s!
Favorite songs: I Think I’m Paranoid, When I Grow Up, Special, Push It, The Trick Is To Keep Breathing, Sleep Together, Wicked Ways, and You Look So Fine.
"I should've known before that this was never my fault"
SONGWRITING
As with many of my songs, the original idea comes from the strong need of expressing my feelings of powerlessness about love or society and a melody running through my head. In this case, I was inspired by a song by Dover titled The Hitter, which starts directly with the first line of the lyrics being sung very rapidly, without an instrumental intro. This suggested to me a very overwhelming way of expressing rage, which was exactly what I needed to speak, once again, about a frustrating relationship.
I was in love with a guy who told me, in a very cruel way, that I was sick when I confessed my feelings to him. He really made me feel like I was a terrible human being for being in love with him, so the message that I wanted to transmit with this song was that, even though I became obsessed and mad about that, it was self-evident that my only crime was falling in love or having feelings for him while he was being very cruel and disrespectful to me and he took advantage of that to hurt me.
The song went through diverse phases during the songwriting process. The word "play" from the bridge was very clear and the lyrics, in general, were always pretty clear but the melody, especially in the verses, suffered a lot of changes. In the beginning, the notes were in a higher key but when the producer sent me the instrumental he had made I had to change it in order to adapt it, so the notes of the verses ended up being sung in a lower key.
PRODUCTION
This was one of the songs that I wanted to record one more time with a higher key because the voice sounded too low but, after showing the song to my guitar teacher, who said that he liked the song with that key, I decided to leave it that way. And I think he was right because, according to the subject of the song and the fact that there are already other songs with higher keys, it’s fine that there is at least one song on the album that sounds different from the rest.
I got to know about this movie when I was 15 years old thanks to a website about horror films. It was very well rated and the critic said that it was a must for any horror movie lover. Back then, I used to buy horror movies on the Internet without not even having watched them first, guided only by this horror movies website, so when I saw that Cube was available to buy I decided to give it a chance and it definitely was a worth spent money.
Cube has become one of my favorite movies ever and a big reference for me in the horror genre. It clearly deserves its cult movie label, due to various factors, such as the directing or the performances, but the most remarkable aspect of the movie is, with no doubt, the script: the structure, the characters, and, especially, the dialogues are simply excellent! I would even say that those dialogues are essential for the movie, which would probably get boring without them because it’s very hard to maintain such suspense with only one space where everything takes place and if you don’t have a strong story with strong characters, things are likely to break down in the end. And what to say about the ending of the movie? Perfect! I understand why some people may not like it but it makes a lot of sense to me and gives the whole movie its coherence and point.
THESIS
Questions. We are made of questions. It always begs a question that will inevitably lead you to one another.
In this case, I think the thesis of the movie is very clear. Once again, it’s reinforced by the ending not revealing the truth to the spectator. We don’t really need to know who or what has caged these people and we don’t need to know the reason why either, because the most important thing is not the ending or the final result, but what happens in between and how the characters deal with it and solve it. It’s a very strong metaphor for the mystery of God and life in itself.
THESIS: Human beings, who are curious by nature and constantly searching for the truth, get lost along the way becoming right the opposite thing they are longing for.
This is an essential album for any rock and roll music lover. It contains 15 tracks, mostly rocker and mid-tempos except for the last one, which is a ballad. This is, in my opinion, the best album of the band. It really gets stuck since the first listen because it’s very easy and pleasant to listen to if you like good classic rock music. You’ll find amazing electric guitar solos and catchy pop melodies and the voice of the singer sounds great, which is curious since she said in some interviews that the whole recording process was really tough due to the continuous disagreements with the producer. however, All the songs are very well composed and produced. I would say that maybe the only inconvenience is the large track-list because some songs can get repetitive in the end though, as I said, all of them are great still, especially the first 6 introducing the album. The videos also deserve a special mention because they’re very elegant and, despite showing the typical rocker band stereotype image, they are still very well shot and connected with the whole concept of the album.
Favorite songs: My Secret People, Better Day, The Weak Hour Of The Rooster, King George, Lady Barbuda, Big Mistake, and Death Rocker.
This was one of the first songs that were written with the idea of being included in an album. It was 2013 and I had already decided on the title of the album knowing that I wanted it to be dark and rocker, so I started to write the first verse of the song, partly inspired by the great song Drive of Incubus. It was a time when writing songs and flowing through the process was still very difficult for me because there was a lot of insecurity and chaos in my life but, after finishing writing the first verse, I remember that I felt very proud of it because I felt like it was something really coherent and connected to that moment in life, I felt like I wrote something very honest that was coming from the heart.
I’m an agnostic but I’ve always had this tendency of believing that there is more than meets the eye. When I was being bullied in high school I clung to the idea of God very tightly because I guess it’s natural that when you’re feeling so alone you need to believe in something else in order to stay alive or, at least, that’s what happened to me. You start dialoguing with yourself until you become crazy and, in the end, you stop asking questions because it’s worthless and they're not gonna solve the problems that are happening here and now. I would say that this is what the song is about. It’s about letting go of doubts and fears and starting to fight for recovering who you really are.
I’m very proud of this song on a songwriting level. I really like the structure and how each part of the song leads to one another, emphasizing the burdens of contradiction in life. There’s a true meaning behind the lyrics and they make a lot of sense to me. I would say that it’s one of my favorite songs on the album with no doubt.
PRODUCTION
I’ve recorded the song two times. The first time, with a lower key, I didn’t like how the voice sounded so I decided to record it again with a higher one. Now, I really like the voice. The saddest part is that on the first recording there was an amazing guitar solo after the second chorus that has been excluded on the last one. Anyway, I still prefer this version because, after all, the voice is more important and it sounds for almost the whole song while the solo sounded only for 10 seconds.
I watched this movie as a recommendation of a friend while I was coursing my cinema studies in 2012. I really liked the movie and, especially, its atmosphere. I think that Never Let Me Go is a conventional movie since it tells us a story with the typical script turning points but the most characteristic aspect of the film is, as I said before, the melancholic aesthetic and cinematography that the film has. It’s more kind of a concept than a typical Hollywood movie, which is usually more focused on entertaining and being satisfactory for the spectator in contrast to European films, whose stories are more realistic and dramatic, without mentioning that there are always exceptions in both cases, of course.
Never Let Me Go transmits a strong feeling of powerlessness and numbness. You end the movie with a very specific melancholic emotional state. The characters are trapped because they don’t know any other way to be and they accept it. I connect a lot with this idea of characters who’d rather hurt themselves before hurting any other person because I am like that in real life. I don’t understand those people who are violent and stuck on their skins as ifother people’s lives had no value. It’s easier for me to hurt myself though, in the end, no one can escape from having bad feelings or thoughts, no one’s free from being vulnerable and no one can love other people if they don’t love themselves. I guess that’s the main point of the movie.
The aesthetic of the movie also reminds me a little of the first short film I wrote and directed during my first year at the cinema school before getting through the psychotic break. It’s shot with a Super8 camera and, though the shooting was one of the toughest experiences of my life, I’m pretty proud of the final result. Kind of a conceptual music video. Here’s the video:
I also like the result of this tribute video very much. I think that, in this case, both music and images fit perfectly. The song Catharsis is partly about feeling contained and wanting to explode without knowing how and I think that’s the way the characters of the movie feel. I also love how the lyrics truly speak for the characters and how the line “Wish I had a soul” has so much to do with one of the scenes of the movie.
THESIS
As I explained before, this movie is very centered on its characters and their particular circumstances and peculiar personalities. They are so innocent that they can’t even allow themselves to feel anger or rage but, once again, they are still human beings, and, in the end, they have exactly the same needs that any other human being has. I think the movie is mainly about the loss of innocence and I would say that the whole point is reflected in the final scene and the inner monologue of the protagonist: what’s the difference between clinging to this life and letting go of it? What’s the difference between fighting or giving up? What’s the difference between good and evil whatever these two concepts mean or imply? In the end, everything comes down to this simple equation; in the end, "we all complete".
Thesis: IT MAKES NO DIFFERENCE WHO YOU ARE OR WHO I AM BECAUSE, IN THE END, WE ARE ALL HUMAN BEINGS, WE ARE ALL THE SAME.
It was a really great surprise to get to know about this album back in 2011. I had heard her song Hold Me on the radio one day in the car with my father and we both agreed that the song was beautiful, so I searched for the song on the Internet and a few months later I saw on iTunes that she was going to release a new album called Viktoria. It was a time in my life when I would buy new and unknown music on iTunes so I decided to give a chance to this album without knowing what exactly I was going to listen to and, honestly, what I found was much better than what I expected. I love sad and melancholic music and I also like an album to be conceptual with music and words connected with the concept and idea, and this album has both things. Though not all of the songs are sad and that’s ok, the feeling predominating on the album is dramatic. Her voice gets very emotional and it can be sweet and powerful at the same time. On a songwriting level, the lyrics are very honest and I love that. I love songs that tell personal stories and the more personal art is the more I like it because it denotes no fear of going within as an artist. The songs are, on a musical production level, pretty naked and that’s also very interesting because they all work perfectly without lots of vocals and instruments, which is hard to achieve sometimes. I guess that what I like the most about the album is that it is very mature and it reminds me a little of the crudest Alanis Morissette songs of her album Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie. If you like songs telling very personal stories from a pessimistic but realistic perspective, you’re gonna love this album!
Favorite songs: The Art Of Forgiveness, Habits, This Too Shall Pass, It Took Me By Surprise, Secrets, and Am I Supposed To Apologize?
The idea behind this song came firstly from the desire of writing a very dramatic and melancholic song. From that point, I wrote a song that was originally titled just like catharsis but ended being named “Numbness”, another song that is also included on the record, Still, I wanted one of my songs to be titled as Catharsis and from this idea, I began to work on this other concept. I had a melody stuck in my mind: The instrumental piece that sounds in the opening credits scene of the movie Urban Legend (which is curiously similar to one of my favorite songs by the band Garbage, “I Hate Love”).
The songwriting process was rather logical and easy in this case: Inspired by that mysterious melody of the movie Urban Legend, I started to play a very simple guitar arpeggio and, after that, the melody of the verses came up. Later, I wrote the lyrics of the verses, and then I just needed a chorus, which was taken from another of the disordered ideas I was working on back then: a song called “Sad song for a small boy with a big heart”. As I said, the different parts of the structure, the melody, and the lyrics were pretty easy to find and put in order along the whole process, so it was clear that there was no other way this song should have been written. I think it is a simple yet quite effective composition where the rule of “less is more” can be easily applied.
PRODUCTION
In this case, the arpeggio that began everything in the original instrumental of the demo went out by decision of the producer, and it was substituted for those little electric guitar "touches" in the verses, which I like a lot as well. This was the fifth song we recorded for the album and maybe the first one I liked the way my voice sounded in. Though I’m not very fond of some of the lowest notes in the verses, I really like how my voice sounds in the choruses and how emotional it gets there.
I wasn’t a really big fan of this movie when it came out because I was little and I could not really appreciate its message. My parents rented a copy from those old video stores that I used to love as a kid and we watched it together but it wasn’t until years later that I watched the movie again and became part of my favorites. In fact, the reason why I watched the movie again is a little twisted: during the highest paranoia state of my psychotic break, someone mentioned this movie and for some reason, it got stuck on my mind. One of the biggest paranoias I had was that I was being watched and observed by the whole world just like the main character of the movie, but not exactly for being celebrated or admired in a good way. I thought I was the protagonist of some extreme religious reality show that was trying to prove that being homosexual was wrong and, therefore, Ihad to be punished. I guess that the main cause for this absurd thought crossing my mind was the whole repression I experienced during my teenage years, which made me develop unconscious inner homophobia and hate for myself. It was a really tough and terrifying moment and thankfully I am recovering little by little and allowing myself to fully love the way I am without having to believe that I am the fucking antichrist or something.
But getting back to the movie, I would say that the script is what gives the film its greatness, probably one of the most original and risky scripts ever written. I also like the performance of Jim Carrey in this one, without being as overacted as usual. I personally like the love story between the main character and the girl, which remains as a secondary plot and should have got more presence, in my opinion, but yet it doesn't take the enchantment of such a fascinating movie away.
THESIS
To me, the thesis of this movie is very clear: it’s about the shallowness of the fast-consuming culture nowadays, where we receive a lot of stimulation from anywhere (TV, advertisements, social networks) and we easily forget about it as soon as the new tendency tells us to do. The final sketch, which reminds me of the final scene of the movie Money Monster, denotes this message about how useless and forgettable things turn out to be at the end when it comes to the content we get to see on television.
