New Releases

Premiere: Marney Drops “Conversations”

Dark emotions fused with pop flavors.

Conversations

Los Angeles alt-pop duo Marney introduces "Conversations," teasing their debut EP, Feelings, set to drop later this year.

Made up of Crystal Douesnard (vocals) and Thomas Moore (guitar, bass, production), Marney says, "'Conversations' focuses on the anxieties that come from listening to our inner voice. We all try to hide parts of ourselves that we don't think others will like, and we start questioning everything about ourselves in order to fit the norm."


Follow Marney Instagram | Facebook | Twitter

Billie Eilish's sophomore LP, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? is significantly darker than anything she's released before. Even "idontwannabeyouanymore," the most serious track on her debut "dont smile at me," was an indictment of damaging beauty standards.

Her music has always been melancholy, pulled from whatever spring of velvety, neon-saturated darkness that Lana Del Rey and Lorde first drew from. But When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? dives deeper. It stares into the far reaches of the subconscious, and somewhere along the way, it moves into the realm of explicit suicidal ideation, raising the question—should we be concerned about Billie Eilish? And what do we do with music that isn't just sad, but sounds like a genuine cry for help?

Although lyrics like "I want you to worry about me" and "call my friends and tell them that I'll miss them / but I'm not sorry" express new levels of desperation, Eilish has long been open about her struggles with mental illness. She told Zane Lowe on Apple Music's Beats 1 that depression had "controlled everything in [her] life," adding that "I've always been a melancholy person… I feel like there are some people that neutrally they're happy." When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? doesn't shy from this at all, visually and lyrically. Despite a few exhilarating tracks like "you should see me in a crown" (accompanied by one of the most magnificently creepy pop music videos in recent memory), it's mostly about depression, heartache, and death.

Billie Eilish - you should see me in a crown (official video by Takashi Murakami) - Teaserwww.youtube.com

Eilish is no stranger to death, and it's clearly not a joke to her. She publicly mourned the passing of her friend XXXTentancion, who was shot in June, and by the sound of it he's not the only one; songs like "bury a friend" and "ilomilo" excavate these painful experiences.

But "bury a friend" and especially "listen before i go" both veer into explicit ideation at points; the latter is a veritable suicide note. It sounds like giving up, like a last call at the end of the night when plans have already been made. And that's where it goes too far.

Obviously, Billie Eilish not the first musician to write and speak out about these themes. Everyone from Billie Holliday to Elliot Smith has detailed the intricacies of their struggles in the public eye, and the media has been glamorizing the trope of the troubled young star since time immemorial. A new generation of emo-rappers, from Lil Peep to Lil Uzi Vert, has also brought raw, unfiltered honesty about mental illness into the mainstream.

Since extreme emotion is a shared aspect of the human experience, it's no surprise that these themes are so pervasive. Ours is a strange world—and especially for those growing up with unlimited access to the Internet, faced with pending environmental catastrophe and ever-more-insidious pressures from a voracious media-industrial complex, it's not an easy place to be. So all this definitely is not meant to criticize Eilish and her peers for feeling these things and for creating sad, furious, disconcerting art.

This also isn't a damnation of sad music. Sad songs and other forms of public honesty about mental illness can do a lot of important, often subversive work; they can interrupt the media's simulacrum of false happiness or function as catalysts for discussions about mental health. Those conversations are vitally important, especially in light of the fact that many reports say there's a higher level of depression and anxiety in teens than ever before, and when one in five adults struggles with a mental illness.

But there's a difference between being honest about mental health, and creating work that threatens actual self-harm and could be potentially triggering, especially for vulnerable fans who view artists as cult leaders who they'll follow, quite literally, to the end. Billie Eilish's new music goes too far because—coupled with her too-cool-for-you ethos and pending superstardom—she not only glamorizes mental illness; she glamorizes suicide, packages it up in a bundle of synths and bass and sells it for $200 a ticket.

So what are we as listeners to do with music that's explicitly suicidal? In truth, there's not much we can do except trust that Eilish has a solid support system. She's in a band with her brother, and a whole bunch of people had to be involved in creating her album; hopefully, someone is taking steps to get her the help she needs. Of course, often with things like depression, even if you're close to the person, there's not too much you can do aside from validating their feelings and encouraging them to seek professional support. And even with professional help, there's no easy solution for mental illness, no neat way to sew it up; it's a monster that ebbs and flows, changing shape and requiring individualized treatment and attention.

This is most definitely not meant to criticize Eilish for speaking out, or to say that should just try yoga and get better. In fact, she's truly brave for speaking out so candidly about her feelings, for continuing to create and for staring fearlessly into the eyes of her demons.

But part of the issue here is that Eilish's music is so flat-out beautiful, her persona so magnetic. She's a bona fide star, with a huge amount of power that's sure to only grow with this release. In light of the huge amount of sway she holds over deeply impressionable kids across the globe, she now has a responsibility—or at least a tremendous opportunity—to speak out and share messages of support, to promise that it's okay to feel and struggle and that healing is possible, to inspire others not to give up, no matter how much pain they're in.

Billie Eilish - when the party's overwww.youtube.com

After all, there are ways to talk about depression and mental illness without glorifying and aestheticizing them. Lana Del Rey has long been the poster girl for the "sad girl" trope, which came to a head when she received blowback from Francis Bean Cobain after telling an interviewer that she "wished she was dead already." Since then, Del Rey has released a hopeful Trump protest album followed by the empowering "Mariner's Apartment Complex." This shift in her approach, though slight, is significant because it moves away from the passivity that made her earlier work so dangerously seductive. And Julien Baker, who makes some of the saddest music around, is stunningly hopeful and inspiring in interviews and online, constantly spreading messages about faith, community, and recovery. Other artists like Selena Gomez and Lady Gaga have been explicit and honest about their mental health struggles, but equally explicit about their healing journeys.

Lana Del Rey - Mariners Apartment Complexwww.youtube.com


Julien Baker - "Appointments" (Official Video)www.youtube.com

Eilish is also 17, significantly younger than any of the aforementioned artists, so she can be forgiven for not channeling her pain into some kind of larger force. It may be a good sign that she's coming to terms with her emotions early, that she's sharing them and learning how to deal with them. Often depression and mental illness stem from an inability to process deep-rooted trauma, so allowing oneself to traverse the depths of the subconscious mind and unearth repressed memories can be incredibly beneficial.

But for people as uniquely powerful and culturally influential as Eilish and her team—and for anyone interested in addressing and subverting the reasons mental illness is becoming an epidemic—simply being honest about mental illness isn't enough, especially in terms of serious suicidal ideation. Stopping the stigma should be a beginning point, the launching pad for structural changes and new ways of understanding and treating real mental health issues, not an end in itself. We should be talking about recovery, about how it is possible to live a full life while suffering from mental illness. We should be talking about how there are always options and pathways through places of darkness, and how it's definitely not beautiful or somehow more authentic and honest to give up hope.

If you or a friend are experiencing thoughts of suicide, call 1-800-273-8255 or visit afsp.org to learn more.


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


POP⚡DUST | Read More...


Is Mia Farrow Okay?

Abby Anderson is Country's Next Kacey Musgraves

Modest Mouse Share New Song "Poison the Well"

Music Features

Cry at Parties, and Other Ways to Become One of Jack Antonoff’s Female Collaborators

He's worked with Lorde, Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey, Tegan and Sara, and Carly Rae Jepsen. Here's how to be next.

Taylor Swift

Evan Agostini/Invision/AP/Shutterstock

Jack Antonoff is one of the thousands (millions?) of Brooklyn-based male producers, but unlike most, he has worked with some of pop music's most fascinating female artists—including Lana Del Rey, whose Norman Fucking Rockwell will be coming out at some point this spring (release date still TBD).

He has also collaborated with Tegan and Sara, Sara Bareilles, Christina Perri, Grimes, Sia, Fifth Harmony, Banks, and P!nk, and recently expressed interest in working with Kesha and Julien Baker. His ever-growing list of widely loved female collaborators has begun to provoke resistance, like Noisey's JACK ANTONOFF YOU STAY AWAY FROM THE DIXIE CHICKS.

Although these artists all have different sounds, they are eerily similar in many ways, belying an underlying method to this Antonoffian madness. Here are some of the requirements for his typical collaborators.

1. Be the subject of thousands of thinkpieces

If there's one thing that Lana Del Rey and Taylor Swift have in common, it's that they've made people really angry—and very inspired to write about it. From Lana Del Rey's disastrous SNL performance and the subsequent neverending storm of outraged blog posts to Taylor Swift becoming the face of white feminism (alongside Lena Dunham—Antonoff's ex), Antonoff seems to go for singularly contentious figures.

Upon the release of "Look What You Made Me Do," Antonoff excitedly told The Guardian, "I remember saying: this is going to make thinkpieces on thinkpieces on thinkpieces!" Although Lorde hasn't provoked quite as much rage as those two, she's been spawning conspiracy theories since the release of "Royals". And let's not even start on the Grimes Internet storm following the Met Gala.

2. Have personal autonomy and/or some element of indie cred

Taylor Swift might be the exception to this rule, but across the board, Antonoff has chosen to work with artists who maintain some credit in alternative spheres, or who possess some level personal autonomy (just listen to Sara Bareilles's "Brave"). He seems to prefer collaboration rather than writing on his own or jumping on a track after it's done. He also seems to work with artists who refuse overtly sexualized imagery. In fact, most of Antonoff's collaborators are hugely successful female artists who satirize or subvert the archetypically scantily clad, shallow, love song-spouting popstar image (at least during their time with him; the promotional content for Norman Fucking Rockwell has all featured a makeup-free, T-shirt-wearing Lana Del Rey). For better or for worse, he seems to attract women who write their own words and emphasize their independence, whether they identify as feminists or not.

Lana Del Rey - How to Disappear and Venice Bitch Live at Apple Event 2018www.youtube.com


3. Be cool with commuting to Brooklyn

Antonoff doesn't come to you; you come to his Brooklyn studio. Maybe this is part of his brand, for Antonoff seems to have crafted a niche for himself as the go-to producer for those looking to avoid LA's impersonality; he's even been called the "antidote to Dr. Luke." This affection for homeyness seems to extend to his preferred working environment—his studio, which he modeled after his childhood bedroom, right down to the wallpaper printed with tigers.

4. Write about parties, but in a dark, jaded way

What do Lorde's Melodrama and St. Vincent's Masseduction have in common? They're both about hedonistic cultures of excess—but viewed from the sidelines, through waves of smoke and exhaustion. Melodrama takes the listener through a single party whereas Masseduction takes on Los Angeles's culture of pills and plastic surgery, but both lean into the glamour of these settings while observing them through a lens of wearied experience. Similarly, Lana Del Rey has always written about the dark sides of drugs, men, and bohemian freedom, and Banks' "Crowded Places" oscillates between love for performing and a fear of crowds. This fascination with the seam between abandon and the desire to escape it seems like a running theme for Antonoff, starting back with "We Are Young."

BANKS - Crowded Places (Visualizer)www.youtube.com

5. Be willing to pour your heart out

In 2017, Antonoff told the Ringer that he starts his songwriting sessions with the question, "What's the worst thing that ever happened to you?" This has proven fruitful; Lana Del Rey described her forthcoming album as more "sad girl shit." Antonoff hasn't yet worked with Julien Baker, but she writes some of the saddest songs around; he clearly has a thing for emotional honesty.

JACK ANTONOFF YOU STAY AWAY FROM JULIEN BAKER.
www.youtube.com

6. Love synthesizers

Antonoff's music production is defined by a mix of acoustic and electronic instrumentation and slick beats cast against rougher vintage sounds, but there's nothing he loves more than a good synth, preferably sent through a lot of filters. Describing Masseduction, he said that the album is a "push and pull of wild, synthetic sounds and deeply personal organic sounds." He can create huge soundscapes or strip back to nothing but a voice and piano, but there are always those synths somewhere in the background, waiting to launch any track to high drama.

St. Vincent - Masseductionwww.youtube.com

7. Be straight, white, and feminine

Jack Antonoff has primarily chosen to work with conventionally attractive, straight white women. While women in music are still underrepresented, on the whole, white women have the easiest time making it by far; and traditional beauty standards are still unfortunate and damaging requirements for many women looking to break into the pop sphere.

Based on this algorithm, Billie Eilish, Fiona Apple, Halsey, or Ariana Grande could be next, and Demi Lovato, Lady Gaga, Maggie Rogers, and Kacey Musgraves are also fair game. Why does he choose to work with these kinds of people? Is there something Freudian going on here? "I just want to be around women," he said in a Pitchfork interview. "It's not a sex thing — I'm heterosexual, but it's not coming from any place like that. It's just a comfort thing."

Ultimately, it's annoying that the music Jack Antonoff makes is so fucking good. If it weren't, his invasive presence beside some of the industry's most talented women would be insufferable. No matter how much he insists that his motives are pure, it's easy to intuit that there could be something off about the whole nice guy schtick, something underlying one man's desire to draw confessional narratives from and to produce music alone with so many women.

All that is speculation, but there is also a very long, real history of women's achievements in music being attributed to men. When it comes down to it, in spite of their superficial similarities, each of these women is a uniquely talented innovator and visionary, and each is the primary creator and orchestrator of her story.

And in the end, none of this matters when you're experiencing their music like it's meant to be experienced—falling into the neon blue pool of overwhelming beauty that is "Sober II" or crying at a party to "Mariners Apartment Complex" while slow-dancing with your half-drunk glass of wine.

Lana Del Rey - Mariners Apartment Complexwww.youtube.com


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


POP⚡DUST | Read More...

The Future Is Here. and it is Gay.

Green Book is This Year's Best Feel-Good Movie About Racism

Fetishizing Autism: Representation in Hollywood

Rock noir band Scarlet Sails dropped their debut album, Future From the Past, in 2017, followed by three national tours and a performance in Moscow on New Year's Eve. In 2018, they are releasing a series of singles and music videos. Their current offering is "Hideaway," a dreamy pop noir music video full of baroque sensibilities.

Popdust sat down with Scarlet Sails to find out more about their backstory and what the future holds for them musically.

How would you describe yourself?

Brian: Intense, Muppet-like. Also, like a big black lab in human form.

Olya: Lover, dreamer, thinker, creator.

Who is in the band and how did you get together?

Olya: It's me, Olya Viglione, the lead singer and the songwriter, keys, guitar, uke; Brian Viglione, the drummer extraordinaire, multi-instrumentalist; Mark Christopher Kohut - guitar; Kevin Jones - bass.

Brian and I met at a Black Flag tribute show on the lower east side of Manhattan; we "recruited" Mark at the same club, and Kevin just recently joined the crew in April.

What's the story behind the band's name?

Brian: The name comes from the famous 1923 Russian novel by Alexander Grin. It was one of Olya's favorites growing up, and in a way really mirrors our story as a couple and in forming the band. The book is about two dreamers, both of whom don't fit in with the hardened people and situations of their day-to-day lives, and through their meeting and finding love in each other they make their dreams come true against all odds. It's about how when no one else seems to believe in you, sometimes finding that right person can drastically open up your life.

What is the most trouble you've ever gotten into?

Brian: Golf ball theft, and drunken idiocy when I was 16 years old. My friends and I had a weird situation where we used to hang out at this driving range across the road from my friend's house in Mason, New Hampshire. One night for no reason, we totally cleared out every single golf ball we could find in a big army duffle bag and were gonna sell them to a used sports gear place as a prank, but the cops saw our foot prints in the sand and were at the door the next morning. It was absolutely dumb and hilarious. The drunken behavior part was on a school trip to Italy when I was in 10th grade. I had been told by an older friend that our language teacher might be inclined to share a brandy with a few of the guys to celebrate the trip, so I asked him and there were about 6-8 of us on the roof top of our hotel in the evening having a drink. Only things got out of hand and one of the other kids got totally hammered in their room, so one of the chaperones was alerted and SHE was getting trashed with the other teachers in HER room, but when she went to get our guy on the roof, the shit hit the fan and EVERYONE got in trouble; we all had to do 20 hours of community service and the language teacher got fired for drinking with the students. It was a drag, he was a good guy. I shoulda never said anything to him. Fun trip otherwise.

Olya: I don't think I can beat that one so I'll pass, haha.

What's your favorite song to belt out in the car or the shower?

Olya: Haha, the first song we yelled on the top of our lungs int the car was "What's Up" by 4 Non Blonds. We also love Whitney and Aretha for that purpose. Brian is especially good at "Respect."

What musicians influenced you the most?

Olya: Freddie Mercury (Queen), Radiohead, Diane Arbenina of Night Snipers, Debussy, Oasis.

How, if at all, do your musical influences shape and impact your music?

Brian: They open up the whole color pallet from which we draw. There are so many directions you can pick from to steer the mood of a song that all our influences basically wind up providing the gust of wind in a certain direction, and then we can craft it from there. Some people have criticized the band for being too diverse stylistically, but I think that diversity of musical expression is an absolute asset, and we choose to color the music in ways that speak to us, rather than feel confined.

How would you describe your style of music?

Brian: Pure, unadulterated Rock Noir. A friend of ours once described it as, "Joe Raposo and Freddie Mercury are walking into this piano bar and wave to David Bowie, who introduces them to George Gershwin and Alice Cooper..."

Where do you find inspiration for your songs?

Olya: All around the city of New York, on the road, reading books I love, listening to the sounds that inspire me, living life.

What is your songwriting process? Do the lyrics come first, or the music?

Olya: More often than not, music comes first. But it always is different with every song. Sometimes the melody comes to me and I record it as a voice memo on my phone. I sing to myself on the streets and on the subway which might be confusing to the passers-by, but, on the other hand, I don't think New Yorkers can be surprised by anything by this point, haha. The most amazing is when the melody comes with the lyrics and you have 70% of the song within the first 5 minutes, that is a very inspiring place to start working on the arrangement.

I really like your music video "Hideaway." Who wrote the song and how did it come together?

Olya: Thank you! "Hideaway" was the first song I wrote on ukulele. I have a 6-string beautiful instrument with a special timbre I got while traveling in Hawaii. I was never interested in ukes until I saw a Hawaiian artist, Paula Fuga, playing a six-string, and I completely fell in love with its sound and also Paula's.

When I returned to NY after the trip I started playing it and almost immediately wrote "Hideaway" which sprang out effortlessly. I was never taught how to play ukelele, so it gave me an immense freedom in writing on it, making up chords as I went along with the melody in my head.

The video exudes an elegant baroque quality. What inspired the video's appearance?

Olya: This old New York townhouse where we live as an artist collective, and the trips to the Wizarding World Of Harry Potter in Orlando, haha.

Is a new album or EP on the horizon?

Brian: We're releasing a series of singles and making a video of each one this year, giving full attention to the recording and production of each one, so absolutely keep your eyes and ears open this summer and fall!

Will you be touring this summer?

Brian: Yes, we've got a string of headline shows and festivals on the East Coast, between recording sessions. Then heading to the U.K. in November!

Check out their tour dates here.

Keep ReadingShow less