The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Wednesday, January 29, 2020 — 5A

Unchained to 
curating a group 
of songs into an 
album, Shelton 
can release 
whatever he 
wants, whenever 
he wants.

For better or for worse, it 
seems like we won’t be getting 
any new Blake Shelton albums 
for a long time … or maybe 
ever. Whether that possibility 
bums you out or makes you sigh 
in relief — keep in mind that 
Shelton isn’t going anywhere.
In 
an 
interview 
with 
Entertainment 
Tonight, 
Shelton 
admitted, 
“I 
don’t 
want to put out another album, 
I really don’t.” Instead, he 
hinted that his plan is to keep 
releasing music as it comes 
to him, to just put out single 
after single. “Do people care 
about 
[albums] 
anymore?” 
Shelton asked himself during 
his decision-making process. “I 
don’t know,” he concluded. But 
in an industry where streaming 
reigns supreme and singles 
drop like wildfire, Shelton can’t 
be alone in having doubts.
At the same time Shelton was 
swearing off releasing albums, 
his single “God’s Country” was 
climbing to its eventual spot 
atop Billboard’s Hot Country 
Songs 
chart. 
Dark, 
moody 
and more southern rock than 
country pop, “God’s Country” 
was a departure for Shelton. 
Then came “Hell Right,” a 
nauseating return to his usual, 
featuring 
Trace 
Adkins. 
As 
of Jan. 21, his latest single is 

“Nobody But You,” a pleasant yet 
forgettable duet with Shelton’s 
girlfriend Gwen Stefani.
One read on Shelton’s latest 
offerings is freedom. Another 
is chaos. Unchained to curating 
a group of songs into an album, 
Shelton can release whatever he 
wants, whenever he wants. As a 
listener, I was refreshed to hear 
“God’s Country.” I thought that 
I was being introduced to a new 

side of Shelton — the serious 
side. But I was misled. His 
next two singles sound nothing 
like “God’s Country” and the 

promising direction suggested 
by that song became a missed 
opportunity.
This is precisely what Shelton 
is losing out on by forgoing 
albums — the chance to dive into 
a new sound, to be pulled in an 
artistic direction and stick with 
it long enough to explore where 
it could lead him. Making an 
album has the ability to improve 
the overall quality of the singles. 
More importantly, this prevents 
listeners from getting whiplash 
every time they hear new music 
from an artist. Albums are meant 
to anchor. They contextualize, 
constructing a world the singles 
can thrive in. In order to really 
sink your teeth into a new sound 
or idea or artist, you need more 
than three minutes with them.
Blake 
Shelton’s 
unique 
position within country music, 
and the greater music industry 
itself, 
cannot 
be 
ignored 
when analyzing his business 
strategies. Shelton holds the 
record for the most consecutive 
number ones on the country 
airplay chart. He’s a beloved 
personality inside and outside of 
the genre with gigs like hosting 
the American Country Music 
Awards and judging The Voice. 
Shelton 
could 
release 
static 
to country radio, and it would 
get airtime. Maybe that’s why 
Shelton is actually the perfect 
candidate to experiment with 
how he releases music — he 
doesn’t need an album to glue 
his songs together, his brand is 

enough.
Shelton isn’t the only country 
artist to have challenged the 
value of albums. In 2017, up-and-
comer Hunter Hayes decided 
that he would simply release 
songs when he felt their stories 
needed to be heard, without any 
kind of album agenda. “It’s gonna 
be a little bit of everything,” he 
announced at the CMT Music 
Awards that year, “the big singles 
and the songs that just matter 
to me.” But none of the songs 
he ended up releasing, single or 
not, ended up catching speed. 
Eventually, Hayes relented. In 
October of 2019 he released his 
first album in five years, Wild 
Blue, and found himself further 
back in his country music career 
than where he left off with his 
sophomore record. 
Pop artists have tried the 
same 
technique 
with 
great 
success. Selena Gomez released 
a string of hit singles in 2017 

with “It Ain’t Me,” “Bad Liar,” 
“Fetish” and “Wolves” before 
eventually placing them on the 
Target edition of her album 
Rare two years later. Gomez’s 
success points to the artist being 
the key to pursuing the “single 
strategy.” Additionally, because 
of country radio’s dominance in 
determining what gets heard by 
which country artists, country 
music may be an even more 
conducive format to releasing 
album-less singles than pop — if 
you’re the right artist.
At the end of the day, I 
will always root for albums. 
Listening to a carefully crafted 
collection of songs from top to 
bottom is an experience; one 
that isn’t worth sacrificing for 
an already popular artist to 
boost their streams. Many of 
my favorite songs are album 
cuts — experimental tracks that 
wouldn’t quite make it on radio 
but still deserve to be heard. 

Albums set the tone for artists’ 
subsequent tours and live shows. 
I think the best concerts create 
an atmosphere where an artist’s 
latest album and biggest hits can 
exist together. Playing a set of 
detached singles doesn’t have 
the same affect. 
While 
researching 
this 
article, I came across the names 
of a few of Shelton’s latest tours. 
There’s the incredibly creative 
“Blake 
Shelton 
2016 
Tour,” 
the cringeworthy “Doing It to 
Country Songs Tour” and the 
downright odd “Country Music 
Freaks Tour.” And then it hit me. 
Just releasing singles is perfect 
for an artist like Shelton. He 
isn’t interested in making any 
grand artistic statements, he’s 
interested in singing the songs 
he likes, entertaining crowds 
and making money. And maybe 
that’s OK. Maybe there’s room 
for all kinds of artists and 
release strategies in music.

Blake Shelton claims he’s 
done releasing full albums

MUSIC NOTEBOOK
MUSIC NOTEBOOK

KATIE BEEKMAN
Daily Arts Writer

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

A white girl is murdered 
in a small town in the South. 
The police have no leads and 
are under pressure to arrest a 
suspect. Who easier to convict 
than a Black man from a poor 
neighborhood?
“Just 
Mercy” 
follows 
the 
true story of Walter “Johnny 
D.” McMillian (Jamie Foxx, 
“Robin Hood”), a Black man 
who 
is 
sentenced 
to 
death 
for a crime he couldn’t have 
possibly committed, and Bryan 
Stevenson (Michael B. Jordan, 
“Black Panther”), the young 
upstart lawyer who fights for 
his freedom. Stevenson and his 
newly-formed law firm face fierce 
opposition from the district 
attorney, the county sheriff and 
the deeply entrenched racism 
of a small southern community. 
Set in Monroeville, Alabama in 
the late ’80s and early ’90s, the 
film is an exhibition of police 
corruption, judicial malpractice 
and a shattered system of justice.
From the very beginning, 
Stevenson sees the glaring holes 
in the case against McMillian, 
just from reading the court 
documents. 
When 
Stevenson 
goes 
to 
county 
prosecutor 
Tommy Chapman (Rafe Spall, 
“Men In Black: International”), 
he 
warns 
against 
opening 
old 
wounds. 
According 
to 
him, nobody in town believes 
McMillian is innocent. But when 
Stevenson goes to McMillian’s 

family, he is welcomed by a crowd 
of community members who 
know 
McMillian’s 
innocence 
for a fact. There’s overwhelming 
evidence to clear McMillian’s 
name, and when word spreads 
that Stevenson is digging up 
that evidence, the intimidation 
begins: 
the 
unlawful 
arrest 
of 
a 
witness 
testifying 
to 
McMillian’s innocence, a bomb 
threat 
against 
Stevenson’s 

partner Eva Ansley (Brie Larson, 
“Avengers: Endgame”), police 
officers who hold Stevenson 
at gunpoint at a traffic stop. 
However, Stevenson’s resolve is 
unshakeable and he refuses to 
walk away from the case.
While the movie principally 
follows 
the 
case 
of 
Walter 
McMillian, it also covers a 
concurrent case handled by 
Stevenson, the story of death 
row inmate Herbert “Herb” 
Richardson 
(Rob 
Morgan, 
“The Last Black Man In San 
Francisco”). Richardson’s case 
is different from McMillian’s. 
Richardson did in fact commit 
the crime he was charged with: 
planting a bomb that killed a 

young girl. Yet he was jailed 
with no acknowledgment of his 
service in Vietnam or his obvious 
and untreated PTSD.
“Just 
Mercy” 
would 
be 
incomplete without Richardson’s 
inclusion. It’s one thing to show 
how the death penalty has been 
doled out wrongly on a racial 
pretext. It’s another to expose 
just how wrong the death penalty 
is, even when the charges are 
accurate. Morgan’s performance 
as the haunted, death-destined 
inmate compels compassion in 
the audience. He encapsulates 
the hopelessness of death row in 
a brutally frank comparison to 
being in war: “It’s different than 
‘Nam. At least I had a chance 
there.”
Given the dramatized nature 
of the story, it’s easy to suspect 
there are many artistic liberties 
at play. But “Just Mercy” sticks 
to the facts with surprising 
accuracy. A fact vs. fiction piece 
by Slate highlights this, noting 
most changes to Stevenson’s 
story are “matters of dramatic 
compression.” That being said, 
the movie is not 100% accurate. 
If 
anything, 
it 
underplays 
much of the stark racism; what 
real-life Sheriff Tate (Michael 
Harding, “Halt and Catch Fire”) 
said upon arresting McMillian 
is far more egregious than his 
film 
counterpart. 
Ironically, 
“Just Mercy” is merciful in 
its depiction of its most guilty 
characters.

‘Mercy’ portrays racism of 
criminal justice system

WARNER BROS. PICTURES

The 
atmosphere 
before 
Saturday 
night’s 
Minnesota 
Orchestra 
concert 
at 
Hill 
Auditorium was electric. The 
orchestra was dressed in white-
tie attire, the choir in black ties. 
This was the University Musical 
Society’s first performance of 
the decade in Hill Auditorium. 
It was an all-Sibelius concert 
conducted 
by 
Finnish 
conductor (and noted Sibelius 
enthusiast) Osmo Vänskä. The 
stage was artificially extended 
to fit the large orchestra, as 
well as the choir and narrator 
required for the opening work: 
composer 
Jean 
Sibelius’s 
“Snöfrid,” a choral melodrama 
rarely performed in the United 
States.
In 
a 
pre-concert 
talk, 
the audience got a sense for 
the 
musical 
and 
linguistic 
challenges that went behind 
programming 
this 
rarely-
performed 
work. 
Not 
only 
were the choral and narratorial 
parts 
in 
Swedish, 
they 
were in Old Swedish. The 
UMS Choral Union, a UMS 
employee 
explained, 
spent 
months learning to sing in 
this language. Along with the 
narrator, Sassa Åkervall, they 
were more than up to the task.
Though the work dragged at 
a few points, particularly when 
the audience’s attention was 
split between the supertitles 
projected above the ensemble 
and 
the 
narrator 
speaking 
over 
simple 
orchestral 
textures, the overall effect 
was 
quite 
convincing. 
For 
those 
American 
audiences 
that know little of Sibelius’s 
work besides his symphonies 
and violin concerto, this was 
a reminder of Sibelius’s tone 
poems, melodramas and other 
programmatic pieces.
After a brief pause, the 
orchestra launched into my 
favorite performance of the 
evening, Sibelius’s “Concerto 
in d minor for Violin and 
Orchestra.” The soloist was 
US-born Finnish violinist Elina 
Vähälä. 
Coming from the triumphant 
ending of the first work, it 
took a few seconds to adjust 
to the orchestra’s new sound. 

Sibelius’s 
concerto 
starts 
almost as quiet as possible 
— in the transition between 
“Snöfrid” 
and 
the 
Violin 
Concerto, the full dynamic 
range of the ensemble was on 
display.
From her first entrance, 
Vähälä’s 
sound 
was 
as 
commanding as her presence 
was unassuming. Unlike many 
concerto soloists, she didn’t use 
physical gestures to emphasize 
her performance abilities. She 
made her part look easy, almost 
effortless at times.
At one point, for example, the 
violinist is called upon to play 
four notes at once; by quickly 
curling the bow along the four 
strings, they can approximate 
these 
four-note 
harmonies. 
Vähälä navigated this passage 

with ease, even managing to 
compliment the inner-harmony 
melodies she was playing that 
were also sounding in the upper 
woodwinds.
The orchestra, particularly 
the upper strings, seemed to 
build off of Vähälä’s energy. 
A 
performance 
that 
began 
tentative and fragile ended 
bright and triumphant. The 
Minnesota Orchestra clearly 
knows its Sibelius, from the 
sweeping melodic lines double 
by the strings to the occasional 
brass melodies and woodwind 
solos that briefly come to the 
fore.
After 
Vähälä’s 
stellar 
performance and the audience’s 
two 
rounds 
of 
applause, 
the orchestra began one of 
Sibelius’s 
most 
performed 
works: the “Symphony No. 5 
in E-flat Major.” Yet again, the 

opening minutes felt tentative 
and 
rushed. 
Some 
of 
the 
accelerandos and ritardandos 
(increases 
and 
decreases 
in 
tempo) 
were 
slightly 
exaggerated.
Once 
the 
orchestra 
hit 
their 
stride, 
though, 
they 
never 
lost 
it. 
The 
ending 
of the first movement was 
executed perfectly. It was the 
quintessential Sibelius ending: 
loud, proud melodic lines over 
simple pedal harmonies. 
The 
second 
and 
third 
movements 
unfolded 
in 
a 
similar manner to the first. 
I was surprised, at first, at 
how little the volume and 
expressive contour of these two 
movements changed. But this 
was not a quiet, unassuming 
concert opener. This was the 
confident end to the concert 
and the orchestra interpreted 
the work at such.
And in the middle of the third 
movement, when the orchestra 
finally played the sweeping, 
soaring theme the symphony is 
famous for, I couldn’t help but 
close my eyes to revel in the 
sound. If this had been all that 
the orchestra performed, it still 
would have made the evening 
worth it.
After two rounds of applause, 
the 
orchestra 
performed 
a 
brief encore: Sibelius’s “Valse 
Triste.” This quirky little waltz 
was an appropriate end to an 
evening of Sibelius. We’d heard 
his dramatic choral music, his 
virtuosic instrumental music, 
his 
magnificent 
symphonic 
music 
and 
now 
his 
fun 
character pieces. 
This 
all-Sibelius 
concert 
drew 
my 
attention 
to 
a 
number of these archetypical 
Sibelius techniques. Frequent 
fluctuations 
between 
arco 
and pizzicato string sections, 
for one thing, as a means of 
repeating melodic lines but 
varying 
color 
and 
texture. 
Sparing 
use 
of 
brass 
and 
woodwinds 
was 
another. 
Above all, it was Sibelius’s 
simple, diatonic melodies, the 
kind that are doubled by three 
string 
sections 
(sometimes 
even at the octave) that most 
stuck out to me. I left with a 
newfound interest in Sibelius 
— a composer that I thought I 
knew very well — which is quite 
a statement about the quality of 
the performance I’d witnessed.

Minnesota Orchestra hit 
their stride with Sibelius

Just Mercy

GQT Quality 16

Warner Bros. Pictures

FILM REVIEW
FILM REVIEW
COMMUNITY CULTURE REVIEW

DYLAN YONO
Daily Arts Writer

SAMMY SUSSMAN
Daily Arts Writer

It was the 
quintessential 
Sibelius ending: 
loud, proud 
melodic lines 
over simple pedal 
harmonies.

Read more online at 
michigandaily.com

