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ACROSS
1 Med. recording
4 Type sizes
9 “__, then ... ”
13 __ Post: Nassau
County, N.Y.
school
14 Spectacle
15 Haunted house
sound
16 Letters on a
communications
corp. logo
17 *Dog that really
needs a bath?
19 The Gray Lady of
the press: Abbr.
20 Exile of 1979
21 Els on greens
22 *Donkey that has
mastered the
hurdles?
26 AB negative,
among blood
types
27 Cockpit no.
28 Prepared
29 Big Ben feature
30 Odysseus’
faithful dog
32 *Holiday
employment
schedule in
“Animal Farm”?
39 Friend of
d’Artagnan
40 Unsullied
41 One-fifth of MD
44 Swindle
45 Any Beatle, say
47 *Offer to acquire
a rising agent?
51 Give one final
flicker
52 Greatly reduced
sea
53 Old possessive
55 When required ...
or a terse hint to
solving the
starred clues
58 Where Simone
Biles won four
golds
59 Welsh actor
Roger
60 Subway
entrance
61 Lake Mich. state
62 Criteria: Abbr.
63 Thompson of
“Creed”
64 Org. with a tee in
its logo
DOWN
1 Joie de vivre
2 Lockup
3 Throaty
4 Hunter’s need
5 Trap during winter
6 Sound on some
San Francisco
streets
7 Small batteries
8 Muddy abode
9 “__ very hard,
and ... play very
hard”: Maya
Angelou
10 Regional animal
groups
11 “Forrest Gump”
actor
12 Most stale
17 Voids
18 Bully
23 __ toast
24 Baby food array
25 Bit of aquatic life
26 Nutritional fig.
30 Cadillac compact
31 Hue of many
Renaissance
drawings
33 Long list
substitute, briefly
34 “Cat on __ Tin
Roof”
35 Xperia maker
36 Best
37 Causing to foam
38 Marshy expanse
41 Pleasures shared
by Churchill and
Castro
42 It might be
stuffed at home
43 Like one who is
beside oneself?
45 How land prices
are often
calculated
46 Lean (on)
48 Stab
49 Refreshing
spot
50 Range with one
end in
Kazakhstan
54 Small figure
wielding much
force?
56 Del. winter hrs.
57 Jeanne d’Arc,
e.g.: Abbr.
By Jeffrey Wechsler
©2018 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
02/23/18
02/23/18
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
RELEASE DATE– Friday, February 23, 2018
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
The first time I heard Phoebe
Bridgers’s music, I was entranced.
I’m a longtime fan of Ryan Adams’s
Pax-Am Records: When Bridgers’s
first EP Killer was released on the
label, I fell head-over-heels in love
with her songs, her voice and the
emotional investment her music
creates in a listener. Though she
and other artists like Julien Baker
follow a wave of folk-nouveau
(which is increasing in popularity),
Bridgers has a very unique take
on the genre: a perfect mix of
poignantly
simple
songwriting
and
layered
production
that
fuses storytelling tradition with
a modern edge, lodging itself in
your brain like an earworm for
months on end. She’s one of those
artists that represents something
more than just herself — Bridgers
is evidence of a shifting change in
popular music towards complete
authenticity, proudly wearing her
heart on her sleeve. Adams himself
has even compared her to a young
Bob Dylan.
“In the end,” Bridgers said in a
recent phone interview with The
Michigan Daily, “I’ll always write
what I feel.”
Bridgers spoke with me about
this singular authenticity, her
creative process and how the
songs she’s written have changed
throughout time. The transition
from her EP to last year’s critically
acclaimed album Stranger in the
Alps was a big one, a shift between
bare-bones voice and guitar to a
more fully produced sound.
“Contrary to popular belief, I
met Ryan (Adams), who produced
the EP, and Tony (Berg), who
produced the album in the same
week … We started both at the
same time, but the Ryan thing
kind of felt like he was recording
me in his wheelhouse, which is
really simple kind of folk acoustic,
and the album was just me,” she
explained. “That’s what I sound
like.”
While recording the album,
Bridgers and Berg fought to strike
a balance between production and
Bridgers’s musical style, forming a
strong partnership in the process.
“I’m the kind of artist who needs
a producer, and he brought so
much to the table,” Bridgers said.
“We fought a lot, but the middle
ground we would reach was like ...
perfect.”
“It’s exactly like I wanted it
to sound, but I could have never
imagined it sounding like that, if
that makes sense,” she continued.
This unique sound carries her
incredible
lyrics
masterfully,
touching on topics like depression,
heartbreak and death with grace
and honesty. I asked her whether
this attention to heavier subject
matter was a purely creative choice
or more tangled with her own
experiences while writing.
“I obviously don’t want to be
pigeonholed as an artist who only
writes sad songs,” she answered,
“but the truth is for this album
that’s what I was going through
and feeling, so I just want to tell
the truth and hold up my end of the
conversation.”
For the most part, Bridgers
finds sharing her own stories to
be cathartic, but occasionally
has trouble with the highly
personal nature of her songs while
performing and writing with
others.
“When it’s a crowd of people
who come to see me, I know that
they know this one album, so it’s
great, but then when I open for
people I have this weird guilt,
where I’m like ‘Oh God, I’m about
to ruin the mood,’” she said. “I
sometimes write with friends, and
that’s sometimes hard because I
have to explain all these things like,
‘Yeah, I really hate this person, but
I also have these other conflicting
feelings.’ It’s hard to put those
ideas into words, so it’s difficult —
I don’t put half the things I think
about on paper.”
Despite
this,
the
singer-
songwriter
is
committed
to
sharing her own story through
her music, saying she thinks “the
importance of (her) music is to
process and share whatever (she’s)
going through personally, and how
that relates to other people.”
Bridgers consistently maintains
a certain ingenuity, even when
collaborating with other artists
or trying new ways to approach
writing her music. She has always
found a niche in expressing herself,
a natural truth that shows up
deeply in her music: “I think, it’s
always kind of been easy for me
to do that, maybe at some point it
won’t be, but I’ve always thought
that what I had to bring to the
table, someone would think was
cool.” She has now worked with
people from Adams to longtime
hero Conor Oberst (who appears
in the duet “Would You Rather” on
Stranger), she sees them as a great
inspiration for her own career.
“I meet people — especially
growing up in LA — heroes that
I’m disappointed by all the time.
They’re just a dick or whatever,”
she laughed. “But these are the
kinds of people I want to be around,
that they’ve always been true to
themselves and real. They’re really
inspiring to me on so many levels
— the fact that you can make such
great music and be a good person.
I feel like I really needed in my
life, and I love being around it. It
inspires me to write more and all
kinds of stuff.”
She has grown more comfortable
with collaborating with artists she
Phoebe Bridgers opens up about process and poetry
CLARA SCOTT
Daily Arts Writer
PAX-AM RECORDS
MUSIC ALBUM REVIEW
For nearly seven years between
1995 and 2001, Michael Jackson
went quiet. He released two
compilation albums with a few
new one-off tracks, but the waiting
time for a follow-up album to
the 1995 release of HIStory was
unusually long — especially for a
pop star that continually released
material since age six. So when
Invincible released in Oct. of 2001,
Michael Jackson was expected to
make a monumental Thriller-esque
comeback. However, the album
was unlike any album in Jackson’s
discography — it’s vindictive,
assertive and disheveled, reflecting
the mental state of one of music’s
most famous stars. Invincible, in
hindsight, offers a rare glimpse
behind the curtain of pop music’s
ever-present label executives and
publicists to reveal soundbites of
Jackson’s deterioration.
Aside
from
the
pressure
of
arguably
the
biggest
fan
base of all time, Jackson was
returning to the charts with
Invincible after widespread media
coverage regarding alleged child
molestation. His life had been more
public than ever before — his house
was invaded, his marriage failed
and a police strip-search revealed
detailed descriptions of his private
parts on an international level.
Regardless of the legitimacy of his
charges (which were dismissed at
the time), Jackson was the center
of international media scrutiny.
In
retrospect,
considering
Jackson’s turmoil, Invincible is
exactly the album he wanted to
release. It’s unapologetically angry,
with heavy electronic production
and vocal distortion that veers far
from early 2000s pop influences.
The opening track “Unbreakable”
slaps listeners in the face with its
wall of sound; there’s a growling
lion, syncopated piano and heavy
808s repeated in a short loop
that feels militaristic. Jackson
lets this beat saturate listeners’
ears for almost a minute before
coming in with more grit than ever
before questioning, “Now I’m just
wondering why you think / That
you can get to me with anything?”
Perhaps to combat his alleged
molestation
charges,
Jackson
is uber-macho, even featuring
a Notorious B.I.G. feature on
“Unbreakable” in what feels like an
attempt at hypermasculinity.
However, this machismo divides
the album. The first three tracks
(“Unbreakable,”
“Heartbreaker”
and “Invincible”) follow a similar
trend of dense production and
bitter lyricism, but there’s also
jarring pockets of familiar, yet
boring, Jackson ballads. “Break
of Dawn” opens with bird noises
and “The Lost Children” features
sampled audio of children playing
— an odd dichotomy of the well-
known and soft-spoken Jackson
versus one that is bitter and
aggressive.
Somewhere in the middle,
there’s a glimpse of Jackson as
a true R&B artist that’s neither
angry or bashful. “You Rock
My World” is what I’d expect a
well-seasoned, adult pop star to
sound like late in his career — it’s
light-hearted and mature while
remaining innovative. Produced
by Darkchild (Destiny’s Child’s
“Say My Name” and Brandy and
Monica’s “The Boy Is Mine”) and
featuring ad-libs from comedian
Chris Tucker, “You Rock My
World” perfectly embodied the
growing sound of early 2000s
R&B. Darkchild’s signature bass
and string production would later
dominate the 2000s with Destiny’s
Child, Lady Gaga and Justin
Bieber. Jackson feels sincere — he
doesn’t sound vocally strained,
as he stays in a more achievable
range, singing about courting a
lover. “You Rock My World” was
Jackson’s last number one to top
the charts during his lifetime and,
looking back, that makes sense. It
was exactly what fans wanted —
something fresh and innovative
that didn’t stray too far from the
Jackson they knew and loved,
sounding like an updated “The
Way You Make Me Feel” but for
the 2000s.
The
more
interesting
(and
likely more genuine) parts of
Invincible are those that are brash,
showcasing a side of Jackson
the public never saw. Invincible’s
disjointed, sometimes contrasting
flow is why the album is required
listening — never before had a
mega star released an album
that lacked pristine calculation
and allowed genuine insight into
an
artist’s
psyche.
Invincible,
although largely forgotten by fans,
is Jackson at his most earnest and,
coincidentally, his last body of
work. In the years after Invincible,
Jackson would face another child
molestation charge and spiral
deeper into controversy (like
dangling his child over a balcony)
that prevented any further studio
albums, suggesting that Invincible
offered fans a warning of his future
decline.
MUSIC NOTEBOOOK
An overlooked gem from
one of pop’s biggest stars
DANIEL MADION
Daily Arts Writer
In retrospect,
considering
Jackson’s turmoil,
Invincible is
exactly the album
he wanted to
release
has admired for a long time, saying
“I was intimidated at first, and
now I feel way more comfortable,
like there’s a reason I’m in this
room, you know? It feels good.”
Bridgers has evolved quite
a bit throughout the process of
recording and now touring for
Stranger in the Alps, expanding her
horizons by translating the album’s
music into live performance for
the first time. She has now toured
with several artists including
Oberst, Julien Baker and will open
for Bon Iver on two dates during
her current foray across the United
States and Canada. I asked her
about the process of performing
live and creating different versions
of her songs through touring.
“There’s
so
many
things
happening
at
once
on
the
album,” she answered. “There’s a
million instruments; it feels very
produced, which is a very weird
thing to say about my music. I
think that in trying (to replicate
the recording), we’ve created
live versions. So we try to make
it sound like the recording, but if
it’s not exactly the same, it’s in the
same vein.”
Bridgers also elaborated on
her recent experiences touring,
sharing a story about one of the
songs off the album.
“I
still
get
nervous,”
she
admitted. “I do this thing now
where I sing ‘You Missed My
Heart,’ which is this very slow,
very long, sad song, but I don’t
play an instrument on it, so the
first night I got really nervous.
There’s piano happening, but I’m
not playing anything, and have
nothing to do with my hands,” she
laughed, “but we were at this club
where I couldn’t hear the monitor,
so I ended up sitting down, and
listening to the monitors close to
the floor. People totally thought it
was on purpose and like, badass,
so for the next couple of shows I
decided to do that, and it was really
different.”
Bridgers acknowledges her own
growth as a performer during live
shows, getting out of her comfort
zone by trying new things on stage
throughout the tour: “I’m not a
huge ‘stage presence’ person, I just
kind of stand there,” she laughed
again. “I can barely tap my foot
without going out of time on the
guitar, so I’m trying to step out
of my comfort zone, but it doesn’t
feel disingenuous, like ‘People do
this! People do this, right? I can do
this!’”
This spunky edge and focus on
self-realization is something that
sets Bridgers apart from the crowd
— she’s genuinely funny, carrying a
well-defined sense of dark humor
that shows up even in her saddest
songs. Even the album’s title is an
inside joke, a nod to the TV re-dub
of cult classic movie “The Big
Lebowski.”
“It’s the scene where Walter
is screaming at this kid, and he
says ‘This is what happens when
you fuck a stranger in the ass,’”
she explained, “but the TV edit is
‘This is what happens when you
find a stranger in the alps,’ which
is the strangest quote ever, and I
just thought it sounded so pseudo-
poetic and thought it really
represented my personality and
my music in general.”
This balance between drama
and the comedic intricacies and
accidents of life is what makes
Bridgers’s writing seem so real —
it captures the humanity in life’s
ups and downs with a beautifully
poetic twist. She laughed when I
brought this up, saying something
I don’t think I’ll ever forget: “I’m
not entirely like smoking a clove
cigarette in the corner of a fucking
coffee shop right now, but I’m also
not doing stand up comedy; I’m
doing this.”
You can see Phoebe Bridgers
with Shortly at the Pike Room in
Pontiac, Mich. on March 1 at 7 p.m.
Bridgers is
evidence of a
shifting change
in popular music
towards complete
authenticity
6 — Friday, February 23, 2018
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com