ALBUM RECOMMENDATION (PJ Harvey - Stories from the city, stories from the sea)

I remember buying this album in Carrer Tallers after having just moved to Barcelona when I was 18 and it was one of the greatest surprises of my life. I had only listened to White Chalk before, which was a very different album, kinda slow, so I didn’t expect something so rocker when I started listening to Stories from the city, stories from the sea. I was really impressed by the energy of the album from the very beginning and I also remember feeling very thrilled after having listened to the first song of the album, Big Exit, with those rocker guitars and that final line in which her voice turns extremely powerful. 

I think it is one of the best works ever made in music history and each and every song on the album is amazing, they all could have been a great choice as singles. I still listen to the album today and feel amazed by its perfection. The videos are great too, especially Good Fortune and This Is Love, in which she looks very sexy. 

A masterpiece of female rock music!

Favorite songs: Big Exit, Good Fortune, A Place Called Home, The Whore’s Hustle And The Hustle’s Whore, This Mess We’re In, and This Is Love.

THE WALL

Songwriting

The idea behind this song came after listening to the great song of the 80s Tainted Love by Soft Cell. That catchy and epic melody really inspired me and I wanted to do something similar, so I started to write the lyrics of the verses and later I added the chorus, which was originally the bridge of another song of mine. Writing the songs for this album has been like putting together the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle because I had lots of ideas that I had been accumulating over the years and now they have finally taken shape. For me, singing and writing songs was some kind of repressed desire because I was being bullied in high school and people made me feel like I wasn’t worthy, so I used to spend hours locked in the bathroom listening to my favorite albums and singing along to get rid of my demons but it was something I would always do like secretly and this song is about not willing to repress my instincts anymore. It has a lot to do with this awakening I’ve been experiencing for the past few years in which I’ve started to produce songs and I’ve realized that this is what makes me happy no matter what other people say. I may not be the best singer but I do not give up on trying to improve day by day. Singing is not just a craving for me, it is an essential need like breathing or drinking water and I’ve always had the theory that if you feel it inside and you need to do it, you are a real singer, no matter what other people think. It’s like what Whoopi Goldberg says to one of her pupils in Sister Act 2, quoting a famous writer: “If when you wake up in the morning, you can’t think of nothing but writing, then you’re a writer”. So, with this song, I’d like to give a similar message to those people who feel the same way about singing and encourage them to never give up on what they like doing only because some other people criticize it, because criticizing is an easy thing but being brave enough to follow your dreams is what makes the difference.

Production

This song was recorded two times, just like some others on the album, and I like the final result rather than the first one recorded but I have to admit that the voice could sound better, though. It’s a difficult song to sing because the notes of the chorus are pretty high and long but I’m proud, anyway, of the composition in itself and I’m learning little by little to love my voice and its tone. 

500 DAYS OF SUMMER TRIBUTE

I got to know about this movie when I was in Barcelona coursing the third and last year of my cinema degree. The person I was in love with was a big fan of the movie so I wrongly thought it would be a good idea to watch it, not for being a bad movie, but because of the pain this fact implicated. I was being rejected by someone I was desperately in love with, so I guess that somehow I could relate my experience to the main character’s. This made me feel sad and I guess that’s one of the reasons why I couldn't really appreciate the movie and I haven’t watched it since then. Anyway, I have to admit that it’s a great movie and it contains diverse elements that make it very original and different from other romance movies. It clearly wants to destroy the conventional schemes of the typical romantic comedy, being one of them in itself at the same time. I think that it can be considered a cult movie too: the dance scene, the mix between real image and cartoon, temporal jumps in the structure of the script, memorable dialogues and characters, attractive typography… they all combine fluently. I think that it is also a very personal movie, which is very important when you want to make a difference in art because this gives it a unique personality.

For this tribute video, I used the song Numbness, which is about the depression you can get to feel when you are rejected by someone you love. The lyrics mention a bench, just like in the scene in which the main character sits and reencounters the girl, the melancholic music combined with strong scene shots of the movie and, obviously, the fact that this song is about that guy I was in love with and who likes this movie, made the decision of using this song and movie together for the video pretty evident.

THESIS

In this case, the thesis is very clear, though it has a double meaning or interpretation. It is determined at the ending of the movie, as usual, when the main character decides to give love another chance. On one hand, this could be interpreted as self-denial, since the search for the perfect love has always been an idealized concept by most people. On the other hand and with a rather positive lecture, it could mean that love is something we build on little by little and work at constantly and we should never give up on fighting for it. I’d rather believe the second lecture is the right one.

Thesis: Love and relationships will always be a worthwhile experience, no matter how much pain they implicate.