2B — Thursday, February 21, 2019
b-side
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Clad in a denim-on-denim
ensemble, a girl walks down the
bustling streets of Ann Arbor.
She’s wearing earphones and
the clash of drums in Nirvana’s
“Smells Like Teen Spirit” seems
to eradicate the chaos that
surrounds her. Her getup is
anything but form-fitting. The
oversized jean jacket and the
Adidas sneakers create a unisex
style while her accent braids
keep the look feminine. There
is nothing flashy about her,
yet people can’t help but stare
because this isn’t the ’90s. This
took place yesterday.
I could roll my eyes at the
scene and comment on how
hard the girl is trying to seem
“grunge,”
but
I’ve
already
drank the Kool Aid. Bootcut
jeans and “dad jeans” are back
in stores such as Lucky and The
Gap, and jean jackets have had
a full-on resurgence among the
Generation Z kids that missed
their last heyday. Stan Smiths,
vintage Adidas, New Balance
and Nike sneakers have taken
the streets by storm. Denim-on-
denim is acceptable once again.
Multiple hoops adorn women’s
ears, turtlenecks have become
the
standard
sweater
and
flannel shirts are inescapable.
Many would label these style
choices as the epitome of “white
’90s dad” attire, so why would
young people be championing
them?
The answer involves both
psychology
and
stylistic
choices. The style is called
Normcore, a hybrid of “normal”
and “hardcore.” The New
York Times has defined it as
“a fashion movement in which
scruffy young urbanites swear
off the tired street-style clichés
of the last decade — skinny
jeans, wallet chains, flannel
shirts — in favor of a less-ironic
embrace of bland, suburban
anti-fashion attire.” Normcore
is a unisex style that works
hard to embody “normal” and
“simple” through unpretentious
clothing and basic colors. There
are no blouses or neckties.
There are no complex patterns
or tight fits. It’s not meant to
stand out, and the biggest brand
these urbanites shop is The
Gap.
Fashion trends are often
driven
by
young
people
choosing new ways to express
themselves,
and
often
the
sentiment is a rejection of
what was there before. The
cynics among us will blame the
market economy and say that
trends keep the retail sector
humming and second hand
stores flush with new cast-offs.
With Normcore, I choose to
see something less cynical in
fashion trends. I see something
more creative: A generation
slowly moving into the world
of our parents claiming its
independence and asserting its
perspective.
But why embrace the styles
of what many considered one of
the blandest eras in the history
of fashion? I don’t think it’s a
coincidence that the ’90s was
arguably one of the most stable
and uncontroversial decades
in modern US history, a clear
contrast to the political and
social volatility that our society
finds itself in today. I also don’t
think it’s a coincidence that
many young trendsetters are
striving for a generic aesthetic,
rather
than
name-brand
and highly stylized trends.
I can’t help but see parallels
to a rejection of the lines of
demarcation that have recently
marked our national landscape.
The euphoria of being part of a
group is gone.
The key trendsetters here
are millennials, a group often
maligned for feeling entitled.
Alternatively, millennials can
be seen as individualists who
feel they have the power to
make change when they see
that their society is not living
up to its potential. They’ve
been developing platforms to
express
themselves
through
social media, and this is simply
another platform. In this way,
Normcore should not be viewed
as another eye-rolling attempt
by many of us to show that
we’re “retro,” but that we are,
in fact, proactive.
Of
course,
my
armchair
psychological analysis may not
apply to all — maybe people
just really liked the outfit that
Elaine wore in that “Seinfeld”
episode
they
binge-watched
last night.
NBC
The resurgence of normal:
‘Seinfeld,’ ’90s, The Gap
SOPHIA HUGHES
Daily Arts Writer
“New House”
Rex Orange County
Lakeshore Records
SINGLE REVIEW: ‘NEW HOUSE’
At its root, a suburban
house
is
known
as
a
residential accommodation.
The
undercurrents
of
a
suburban
house
are
plentiful, with connotations
of what is a domicile and
ordinary.
Moreover,
a
suburban house is perhaps
“what came before,” as in
what came before fame,
or what came before a big
move to LA or NYC.
Rex
Orange
County
interrogates this suburban
space as an entity he
wishes to recreate in his
single “New House.” The
homespun
familiarity
of picking out décor is
the exact, genuine space
of
groundedness
that
he seemingly feels went
missing since striking fame.
The release of “New House,”
and Rex’s subsequent tweet
stating his gratefulness for
his career, elaborates on his
difficulty in achieving fame,
and successively struggling
to find a honesty to which he
has a substantial connection.
By releasing “New House”
on
Valentine’s
Day,
Rex
reminds us that love is not
about
dinner
dates,
but
rather
about
recognizing
the people in your life who
build up a house around
you and ground you. “New
House” elaborates on an
apparent lack of inspiration
to impress, with lyrics like
“Every time I try, it never
feels the way it did at the
start.” “New House” is Rex’s
plea to strip to the basics,
away from the nepotism and
consistent hype of the music
industry.
Rex himself has always
served as a suburban house
to his fans. He’s a staple of
ordinary and attainable, but
certainly not in a colorless
manner. The authenticity of
his simple striped tee and
jeans at every performance,
and
his
unpretentious
themes of coming of age
woes
(self-deprecation,
depression, youthful love)
come
naturally.
“New
House” yearns for a territory
of authenticity from which
the suburban house cover
art and symbolism is born.
Rex offers an intimate
and
important
reminder
for Valentine’s Day: The
importance of facilitating
and creating spaces where
our loved ones feel grounded
and real.
— Samantha Cantie, Daily
Arts Writer
LAKESHORE RECORDS
B-SIDE: STYLE
Music today isn’t physical like
it used to be. Gone are the days
when every release demanded
a walk down to the record
store or even to Target for the
newest Taylor Swift CD, gone
are the collections that take up
whole walls in living rooms or
scatter themselves across the
floor in precarious towers. No
one is handing out mixtapes
that you can turn over in your
hand, a little thoughtful gift for
a friend or a potential romantic
interest. Instead, today’s music
is
becoming
increasingly
more abstract in the wake of
streaming services and has been
since the birth of software like
iTunes and Napster.
Music is in the airwaves,
online
—
everywhere.
We
have millions of songs at our
fingertips, but they’re never
quite tangible. This makes it
hard to pass down the tunes
that make us us to those who
matter. You can send someone a
Spotify playlist, but can they find
it when they dig through their
college
mementos?
Probably
not. In this way, the songs that
soundtrack our lives are much
less tokens to be collected,
and more ephemeral in nature
than they’ve ever been before.
Because of that, more and more
people are returning to the
physical in fear of losing that
kinetic connection to music,
including me.
The summer before I came
to college, the record player
that I had bought on a whim
during sophomore year finally
reintegrated into my life. The
needle was broken, sure, but
finding the orange turntable and
my family’s old TV speakers gave
me a project for once that could
potentially turn into something
great.
I
hooked
everything
up in my room, (including a
subwoofer,
to
my
mother’s
chagrin), and there it was — a
true old-fashioned record setup
ready to play anything I wanted.
The problem was, of course, that
I had no actual records. The only
obvious choice was to steal them
from my father.
And so I ventured deep into
the cluttered basement at his
house, with the blessing that I
could take anything that wasn’t
either incredibly valuable or
literally his own music that had
been released in the ’80s. Don’t
worry about those, I assured
him, I could hear that for free
when he practiced in our living
room, sounding through the
house with a deep baritone buzz.
What I was really looking for was
everything else; the music that
had soundtracked my childhood,
the James Taylors and Joni
Mitchells and Tom Pettys of my
past. In that basement, I found
these and even more records
that I could call mine, though
they were technically his. And
in that handover of the music
we both shared, I discovered a
very particular kind of nostalgia,
hidden in the grooves of each
well-played pressing.
I threw them all into a
shopping bag and lugged the
weight of 30 records to my
mother’s
house,
where
the
newly-connected sound system
waited. They looked nice on
my shelf, a dingy rainbow of
everything from Suzanne Vega
to Talking Heads. He even had a
pressing of Prince’s 1999, a funny
connection to my birth year even
when the album came out in
1982. I sunk into my bed and let
the music ring out in the summer
afternoon, laughing when I came
upon a song that had been played
so much it skipped. I realized
that my father and I liked the
same tunes 40 years apart, as
“The Boy in the Bubble” by Paul
Simon and “The Boho Dance” by
Joni Mitchell refused to finish
without the needle wobbling
into another track. It made me
smile, and appreciate the things
that these physical versions of
music could tell me that just
listening to the songs couldn’t:
With every record I felt heavy
in my hands as I put it on the
turntable, I could feel the weight
of my father’s love for each song,
entangled with my own so many
years down the line.
They echoed into my room
and I closed my eyes, finally
understanding why people loved
vinyl so much. Sure, it is pretty,
and a symbol of the old-soul
mentality many hipsters boast
today, but there’s more to it than
that. Sitting on my bed in the
July sun, I imagined my father
listening to the same records
after buying them from the
store new, in his dorm room, in
a friend’s apartment, in his first
house. There was something
comforting about that image,
something that I didn’t feel
just hearing the songs in my
headphones. But the thing that
really got me was the fact that
the songs I had stolen from my
dad’s basement weren’t only just
noise, they were wrapped up in
memory too, sentiment that had
the same place in each record
that the music did.
PEXELS
Vinyl, talisman to the past
B-SIDE: MUSIC
CLARA SCOTT
Senior Arts Editor
You’re sitting on a bench
swinging your legs that hang
several inches from the ground,
leaning your weight on your
left hand as your right hand
holds a Strawberry Shortcake
Bar. Although your hands have
picked up all sorts of dirt from
the asphalt, the sandbox and the
public bench you now sit on, this
doesn’t prevent you from licking
the quickly-melting vanilla ice
cream that flows from the bar
off of your fingers. Your skin
is already sticky anyway from
hours-old sunscreen and sweat.
The sun is blindingly hot, but
your moistened bangs serve as
a visor and a sort of cool mop
atop your head. A grey squirrel
shuffles over to within a foot
or so of your feet, gazing up
at you with a look that wants
something but doesn’t seem to
remember what exactly. Being
possessive of your ice cream,
you kick your foot to motion the
animal away.
Just as quickly as you got the
urge to ask your dad to spend
$1.50 on an ice cream bar, it’s
done, and you hop off the bench
to run back to the sandbox and
the two friends you just made.
They have a green castle-shaped
bucket to make sandcastles
and they need the materials.
You dig like a madman under
the assumption that this box
contains an unlimited supply of
sand running straight through
to the earth’s core — if only
you put in the effort to get it.
Sure enough, though, you fairly
quickly knock your scratching
nails against a solid layer of
wood that is the bottom of the
box.
As the shadows of trees
in
early
August
begin
to
creep over the sandbox, you
enthusiastically propose that
you and your friends race to the
top of the jungle gym. Without
hearing an answer back, you run
barefoot over hot black rubber
(in your mind molten lava) to
claim victory at the top. From
here, you cover your eyes as you
look out through the trees to the
river. It glistens in the distance,
allowing
for
the
passing
silhouettes of runners, bikers
and dog walkers to be seen as
they block its shine. From this
great height of 10 feet, a wind
suddenly whips up, blowing
leaves from trees and prompting
you and your pals to scream
and and run for the ground.
You jump down the slide, never
admitting that you’re scared of
sliding down the fire pole.
A game of tag breaks out in
a sudden frenzy. Everyone is
“it.” You’re feeling the sugar
rush from that ice cream bar —
those other kids are in trouble,
because you just became Dash
from “The Incredibles.” You run
tirelessly about the jungle gym,
the strong wind at your face an
indicator of your speed, until
you’ve huffed and puffed and
can’t any longer. As you take a
seat on the first step up to the
slide, Dad comes over to say that
you have to go in a minute.
In this sobering moment,
you look around and see that
the once luminous sun is now a
blood orange orb nestled against
the horizon. You notice that your
exposed calves and forearms are
now cool to the touch, a gentle
graze provoking goosebumps.
You look back at Dad and accept
your return to reality as you get
up to go. Time flies when you’re
having fun.
Sitting on a small plastic seat
in front of Dad on his bike, you
casually drift down the park’s
main strip with his sweater
wrapped around you. As he
turns on the front and rear lights,
fireflies begin to glow. Instead of
pondering the reasons for their
glow, you instinctively grab
for them as they come closer
and closer to being within your
grasp. You notice one or two
dogs doing the same as you pass.
After a bit of biking, your eyes
begin to itch as if it were early
April, as your eyelashes have
failed to prevent unfiltered park
and city air from carrying debris
into their realm. You close your
eyes for a bit, still able to make
out the impressions of passing
lights. You hear the occasional
jangle of a dog’s leash or the cry
of a far-off siren, but mostly just
the low hum of the tires running
on asphalt. You notice the park’s
constant earthy scent — a scent
of old wood, grass and soil —
and become aware of whenever
this is interrupted by aromas
of subway vents, dog feces or
sweaty runners. You open your
eyes every so often, guessing
where you are based on these
clues. You’re forming memories
in this moment and you don’t
even know it.
An ode to the playground
BEN VASSAR
Daily Arts Writer
B-SIDE: COMMUNITY CULTURE