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.
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