New Releases

MILCK Shares Her Vision of a New World

MILCK's new single "If I Ruled the World" paints a picture of a world where everyone has affordable health insurance and fast WiFi.

MILCK - Quiet (Official Video)

In 2016, MILCK became one of the leading voices of the burgeoning anti-Trump resistance movement with her rawly emotional power ballad "Quiet," which went viral after she performed it at the first Women's March.

www.youtube.com

Now, with the next presidential election approaching, and with nearly four years of Trump down and four more looming, MILCK is still making good on her promise to sing out. But over these past few years, she hasn't been beaten down or fallen prey to anger, frustration, or apocalyptic foreboding. Instead, her newest single protests reality by offering a vision of a new world.

"If I Ruled the World" is about what would happen if the woman known as Connie Lim was allowed to shape the future. "In my journey since 'Quiet,' I have found that focusing on the world we want is far more powerful than focusing on what we don't want," she said. "Activism doesn't always have to be arduous. We can find joy within our fight. It's my vision for a better world."

The song's lyrics paint an optimistic picture. If MILCK was in charge, everyone would recycle, the WiFi would be faster, and women wouldn't judge themselves based on their weight. If she ruled the world, nobody would be slammed with huge bills from doctor's visits, and "instead of feeding fear, we'd be feeding half the planet." If Milck ruled the world, schoolkids would have days full of music and trips to the ocean and workdays would include naps and "age would be a source of pride."

The song is MILCK's first single off her forthcoming EP, Into Gold, which is about "the journey of a woman leaving a safe relationship in search of her authentic place in the world." While she seems to be in a better place now, Lim has been open about her struggles with domestic violence, depression, and anorexia. Those forces made their way into "I Can't Keep Quiet," in which MILCK's voice cracked and trembled with quiet strength. Now, having grown into a star, her voice has grown along with her, and she reaches new heights on "If I Ruled the World."

The whole song emphasizes belief that change—both personal and political—is possible. Four years after she broke through, MILCK officially has made good on her promise to speak out. Instead of keeping quiet, she's kept blooming, dreaming of possibility, casting love out into the void. "If I Ruled the World" is a sweet, optimistic vision of systemic change—but what else has ever actually changed the world? It's an ambitious vision, but MILCK has one clear message for us: It's achievable if we fight for it together.

Listen to "If I Ruled the World" here:

MILCK's forthcoming EP, Into Gold, is out February 21st.


MUSIC

Lil Dicky and Grimes are Kickstarting a New Wave of Climate Change Protest Music

After a long period of silence, popular musicians like Grimes and Lil Dicky are taking notes from Joni Mitchell and have started to release climate protest songs—but will their efforts be enough to launch a movement?

Photo by Jayy Torres on Unsplash

For his new video "Earth," Lil Dicky managed to rally some of pop music's titans to form a truly unique visual and auditory experience.

Featured artists include Ariana Grande (as a zebra asking if she's black or white) and Snoop Dogg (as a marijuana plant); as well as Halsey, Justin Bieber, Ed Sheeran, and even an all-knowing Leonardo DiCaprio. It's a deeply disorienting animated journey across time and space, led by a caveman-esque Dicky.

But if you can get past all of the dirty jokes and layers of fluff, at its heart, "Earth" is a climate change protest song—and for that, it's revolutionary.

Lil Dicky - Earth (Official Music Video)www.youtube.com

Music, art, and activism have long gone hand in hand. In the 1960s, musicians sang tirelessly about bringing the boys back from Vietnam and taking down "the big man," and artists like Bob Dylan and Billie Holiday have long inspired activist movements. Today, artists like Kendrick Lamar and Childish Gambino are steadily releasing protest anthems that are sure to go down in history.


Childish Gambino - This Is America (Official Video)www.youtube.com

Still, though it is one of the most fundamentally pressing issues of our time, climate change has been largely ignored in modern protest music. Just Google "climate change protest music" and you'll find articles with headlines like "Where are all the climate change songs?"

In a way, this lacuna makes sense. Climate change can feel like an abstract and unimportant issue, especially for people who fear for their lives when simply walking down the street, or who are too concerned with finding their families' next meal to worry about impending ecological decline. However, climate change will disproportionately affect people of color and lower socioeconomic classes, making it an issue with profoundly intersectional consequences.

And it is no longer an abstract threat—a dire 2018 UN report proclaimed that we have twelve years to reverse the worst effects of climate change, which will effectively decimate the human race if it progresses at its current rate. The existential size of this crisis is unprecedented, and so it calls for unprecedented levels of unity and action—both of which have historically been facilitated by music and art.

Though environmental activism has yet to break through to mainstream popular music, climate change protest music does exist, and it seems to be gaining traction. In March, the singer-producer Grimes announced that her next project will be called Miss_Anthropocene, after an alter ego who personifies climate change. "It's a concept album about the anthropomorphic Goddess of climate Change: A psychedelic, space-dwelling demon/ beauty-Queen who relishes the end of the world," she wrote, adding, "She's composed of Ivory and Oil."

Regarding her inspiration behind the character, Grimes (who now goes by c) explained, "Climate change is something I'm only ever confronted with in a sad/ guilty way…. Reading news and what not. So my goal is to make climate change fun...(I mean, everybody loves a good villain… re: the joker, Queen Beryl)...so maybe it'll be a bit easier to look at if it can exist as a character and not just abstract doom."

Other musicians have tried different approaches to create popular music that raises awareness about climate change. Recently, the artist Maureen Lupo Lilanda collaborated with other Zambian musicians on a song called "Samalilani." The track was released alongside a video comprised of dire scenes of ecological catastrophe—charcoal burning, charred tree stumps, flames devouring a rainforest. Together, the song and film make a powerful, chilling statement.

Theresa N'gambi, James Sakala, Maureen Lilanda, Pompi & Shaps Mutambo - Samalilani (Official Video)www.youtube.com

"It occurred to me that things were changing," Lilanda said of her inspiration behind the song, noting the severe changes she noticed in the Zambian countryside, which a lack of rainfall had turned from a lush, verdant landscape to a barren desert over the course of her lifetime. "Once I understood it, it felt imperative that I change the mindset," she added.

"Samililani" was a collaboration with National Geographic-led initiative Conservation Music, a project led by geographer and musician Alex Paullin. His nonprofit, which has traveled all over Africa in an effort to work with musicians and artists on raising awareness about climate change, has also collaborated with a Zambian reggae group and collective called Yes Rasta! to craft a climate change protest song called "Sons of October."

Sons of October - Yes Rasta! | Zambian musicians teach climate change solutions!www.youtube.com

With its unique ability to access the deepest and most terrifying of human emotions, music is an important and largely untapped resource that might be instrumental in the fight against climate change. "There isn't any other tool [besides music] that you can use that is as effective," Paullin said of his mission. Indeed, music could be vital in helping us collectively move past a state of paralysis or chosen ignorance, into a more unified mindset that will allow us to band together to enact real change.

Before any of this happens, the music needs to be written. Luckily, from an aesthetic perspective, climate change is rich territory. Since time immemorial, artists have waxed rhapsodic about the beauty and power of the natural world, and the threat of its decline creates the kind of existential tension that has long inspired truly masterful works of art.

All this isn't to say that climate change protest music doesn't exist. If you do some digging, you'll find that there actually is a fair amount of music about climate change and environmentalism, stretching back nearly a century. A lot of the greatest music about climate change comes from the 1960s—before anyone knew the true extent of the damage we inflicting on our world in by ceaselessly pumping fossil fuels into the atmosphere. One prescient track is Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi," which still frequently plays on radio stations, having long ago solidified its place as an environmentalist's anthem.

Big Yellow Taxi - Joni Mitchellwww.youtube.com

The early 2000s saw another wave of climate-change-inspired music. Increasingly alarming scientific reports had metalheads taking note: Metallica's song "Blackened" and Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" both explore environmental decline. A few of pop's brightest stars had something to say, too—in 2009, Selena Gomez, Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato, and the Jonas Brothers collaborated on a song called "Send It On" which donated its proceeds to environmental organizations. More recently, artists including Radiohead and Jack Johnson have been actively writing and speaking out about climate change, as have plenty of indie or lesser-known musicians.


Metallica - Blackenedwww.youtube.com


But the majority of new climate change-inspired music has received little significant commercial attention. Among the outliers are ANOHNI's "4 Degrees" and AURORA's "The Seed," both of which are promising hints at more to come. Weyes Blood's critically acclaimed new album is rife with meditations on climate anxiety, and activists Jimmy and Sid have also been steadily creating innovative protest songs, like many diverse musicians from around the world. Still, much of the most widely publicized recent climate change protest art has, ironically, been created by scientists. For example, in 2015, a young scientist composed a piece for a string quartet based on 133 years of climate change data. While projects like this one are impressive, they are also complex and somewhat inaccessible for those of us who are not scientifically inclined—and certainly, they are not as likely to gain media traction as, say, a song that features Lady Gaga or Beyoncé.

AURORA - The Seedwww.youtube.com

Scientific proof of climate change has been public knowledge for a long time, but clearly facts and figures have not been enough to spark widespread cultural and political action. What we need now is a never-before-seen level of collective support and unity, and this can only happen if climate change becomes an intersectional cultural movement.

Most likely, the next decade will be defined by intense protests across the globe. As activists flood the streets of London, as movements like Sunrise pack Washington, D.C. offices and chant their slogans to the sky during nationwide strikes, and as young kids stand before behemoth politicians and fossil fuel executives and ask them to stop destroying their futures, at the very least, they ought to have inspiring music to accompany them.

So for all its absurdity, Lil Dicky's "Earth" is, at least, a promising indication that climate change is being recognized by some of pop culture's most influential figures. In light of the literally apocalyptic threat that we collectively face—and considering the massive organizational efforts it will take to even start to heal some of the wounds we have inflicted on the earth—it has to be just the beginning.



Eden Arielle Gordon is a writer and musician from New York City. Follow her on Twitter @edenarielmusic.


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MUSIC

6 New Songs You Should Hear This Week: The Times, They Are a-Changing

Featuring tracks from Suki Waterhouse, Jimi Somewhere, Shura, and more.

This week's new indie music selections oscillate between nostalgia and a resolute desire to embrace the present and future. While Jimi Somewhere, Suki Waterhouse and Rae Isla miss bygone times, Tierra Whack is done with bullshit and ready to power into her strength, and Holly Herndon is basically already living in the matrix.

Each of these songs grapples with the reality of change in a completely different way—but ultimately, each is guaranteed to remind you that you're not alone in feeling a lot of things about it.

1. Jimi Somewhere — "I Shot My Dog / 1st Place"

Jimi Somewhere's newest release is a harmony-laden, sun-drenched tune in the vein of Kevin Abstract and Roy Blair. It's an angsty and expansive track that seems meant for lying on the floor of your mom's basement, staring at the vomit stain from one of your high school parties, questioning everything and missing your childhood dog. But it also has enough energy to propel you off that floor, out onto the highway and into a dramatic running scene that ends with you kneeling down in a wheat field and suddenly deciding to change your life, dedicating yourself to love rather than self-pity. "I Shot My Dog" is a mixed bag of emotions, and it's a promising taste of the Norwegian up-and-comer's first EP.

2. Suki Waterhouse — Good Looking

Suki Waterhouse - Good Looking (Official Video)www.youtube.com

The English singer returns with an almost luxuriously vapid single that sounds like a ripoff of a Twin Peaks trance-ballad. But the fluorescent guitar and opulently dramatic ending give the song a trippy, relaxing warmth, making it feel kind of like a sonic hot spring. It's a saccharine, glistening tribute to superficiality, and it feels kind of like wandering through Sephora, fully aware that you're being sold exorbitantly expensive products that will benefit you in absolutely no way—but not letting that stop you from lingering over the latest colorstay vegan moisturizing face-rejuvenating turmeric-infused eyeshadow palate, $75. Fortunately, listening to "Good Looking" is free and will give you the same rush of bittersweet joy you would receive from any overpriced cosmetics.

3. Rae Isla — "American Paradise"

Rae Isla - American Paradise (Official Audio)www.youtube.com

As long as humans have existed, we've dreamed of paradises—a certain garden, nirvana, and heaven are only a few of the perfect worlds we've imagined and clung to in times of duress. In "American Paradise," Rae Isla pays her tribute to a haven of her own—our ever-idealized California dream. Vaguely reminiscent of old Irish folk songs, full of seasonal imagery and lit with a spacy kind of innocence, this nostalgic ballad is ultimately about fear of change. "Oh this country, so divided with its science and faith. Give me freedom in the valley / that is where I'll find my place," she sings. "California, do you love me?" It's unclear whether she's singing to California the state, a lover, some lost sense of happiness and peace, or a combination of all three, but regardless, "American Paradise" is about the all-too-human longing for escape.

4. Shura, "BKLYNLDN"

Shura - BKLYNLDNwww.youtube.com

Since the release of her debut album Nothing's Real in 2016, British songwriter and producer Shura has been quiet, but her new single "BKLYNLDN" breaks the silence with an intoxicating beat and expertly delicate orchestrations. Shura moved from London to Brooklyn to be with her girlfriend, and the song reflects the fear and excitement that defines major life changes. "We could take the subway to the beach where there's a breeze, cause we're in America," she sings, making it clear that she is, indeed, new to Brooklyn. Just wait, Shura, the bedbugs will find you. But for anyone who's ever made a long-term move or sacrifice in pursuit of love, this song will resonate—and plus the video is a sultry tribute to queer love, sure to engage the attention of everyone who's ever been attracted to a woman, or felt the sting of a difficult romance.

5. Holly Herndon, "Eternal"

Holly Herndon - Eternal (Official Video)www.youtube.com

This erratic work of electronica is a collaboration between Herndon and an A.I. she created called "Spawn." Herndon, a longtime computer musician, has thought long and hard about the implications of making music with an inhuman partner. "I don't want to live in a world in which humans are automated off stage," she said in a statement. "I want an A.I. to be raised to appreciate and interact with that beauty." While these are important discussions to be exploring, "Eternal" sounds a little bit too synthetic to feel like an actual expression of emotion or a cohesive composition. It's a little too caught up in its lofty ideals, a little too close to the uncanny valley—but maybe that's the point.

6. Tierra Whack — "Wasteland"

Tierra Whack – Wasteland (Audio)www.youtube.com

#WhackHistoryMonth just keeps getting better and better. On "Wasteland," the rising star laces aggressive lyrics over a mellow beat and churchy organ motif. She shows off her singing voice alongside effortless bars as the tune sways and swells at just the right times, echoing sentiments shared by any woman who has simply been Done with a man's shit. True to her innovative release style, Whack has been releasing one new song each week this month as a prelude to her upcoming 2019 LP.


Eden Arielle Gordon is a writer and musician from New York City. Follow her on Twitter @edenarielmusic.


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FILM & TV

BOX OFFICE BREAKDOWN | What's coming to theaters this weekend?

FEBRUARY 2ND-4TH | Many horrors and thrills infiltrate the cinema starting this Friday!

WINCHESTER - Official Trailer - HD (Helen Mirren, Jason Clarke)

If you're caught up with all of the Oscar-nominated flicks by now, it might be time to try out something a little more terrifying but a little less show-stopping.

In Popdust's column, Box Office Breakdown, we aim to inform you of the top flicks to check out every weekend depending on what you're in the mood to enjoy. Looking to laugh? What about have your pants scared off? Maybe just need a little love? Whatever the case may be, we have it.

Take a peek at our top picks for this week...

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