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Arts
Wednesday, February 12, 2020 — 5
Hayley Williams’ Petals for Armor I EP
is great. If the name is recognizable, some
might recall Williams’ time as lead singer
for pop-punk band Paramore. Her debut
EP is short and sweet, five tracks in all. But
Petals for Armor I isn’t simply Paramore’s
punk-angst refashioned for a new decade.
Williams’ EP combines the signature high-
energy of her trademark songs (think “Still
into You”) with a dash of weird and a heap
of fun.
My time spent listening to Paramore
was largely defined by the characteristic
angst of puberty, middle school insecurity
and chihuahua-style yapping frustrations
with the world. You know, that pre-teen
phase spent staring emotionally out the car
window, pretending to be in a Kelly Clarkson
music video. Petals for Armor I manages to
salvage something worthwhile from the
aforementioned cringe-fest: the satisfaction
of calling out the world, and revelling a bit in
our anger. I’m not saying that Paramore isn’t
cool –– but I know that my own previous
Paramore-days were decidedly not cool.
Take the gut-punch opening lines of
“Leave It Alone”: “Don’t nobody tell me that
God don’t have a sense of humor / Cause
now that I want to live, well, everybody
around me is dyin.” The biting, morbid
humor recalls that absolutely delicious “take
that!” of Paramore’s hit “Misery Business” or
“Brick by Boring Brick.” But “Leave It Alone”
is quiet. The “umph” of the lyrics doesn’t
come from the blasting of drums or scream
of the electric guitar, as with Paramore.
Rather, Williams’ punch is as sobering as it
is satisfying. The softly whispered confession
finds catharsis in that fact that somebody
finally said it –– no offense, God.
Williams’ EP, however, isn’t just good
because it strikes parallels to her classic hits
with Paramore. In fact, Petals for Armor I is
good because of how different it is. Williams
has managed to fashion together sounds,
feelings and styles in a Frankenstein manner
that feels more alive than anything that came
before it (or after).
Take, for instance, “Creepin,’” a song
destined to become 2020’s “Monster-Mash.”
You know all the “Sexy Vampires” will be
sing-shouting this song at the clubs come
October 31st. The song is undeniably a bit
weird, but refreshing. Williams’ imaginative,
spooky lyrics and her deep drawl strikes a
vague echo of Marina and the Diamonds
(think “Primadonna”). Beneath her haunting
lullaby Williams alludes to the parasites of
our lives that feast on our misery, “Oh just
keep suckin’ on the memory of him.”
“Cinnamon,” strangely enough, can’t help
but feel reminiscent of Frozen 2’s “Into the
Unknown.” Don’t worry, they’re nothing
alike –– except for William’s haunting siren
call that acts as a wordless chorus. For those
that haven’t seen Disney’s latest animated
release, Princess Elsa has a mind-blowingly
awesome duet with an ominous siren call
of her own. The song narrowly balances
between
comforting
and
warm
(like
cinnamon) and a tinge hair-raising. Perhaps
it’s the belly-deep laugh that chases after her
voice, sitting out-of-sight in the undercurrent
of the song.
The opening song, “Simmer,” is the most
promising of what’s to come with Williams’
future solo work. The track starts off with
layered sounds, adding on top of one another,
like an engine slowly warming up. Immersed
throughout are breathy gasps, reminiscent
of Serge Gainsbourg’s infamously banned-
by-the-Vatican “Je t’aime moi non plus.”
Here, too, is Williams’ voice unmistakable
as distinctly Paramore. “Rage is a quiet thing
/ you think you’ve tamed it / But it’s just in
lying in wait,” the song shifting dynamically,
whisper-soft then louder the next minute,
mimicking the wavering control of the anger
she sings of. The song features a unique call-
and-response structure, Williams’ singing
answered by robotic-like voices –– emotion
versus reason, an unending battle.
Petals For Armor I presents a seemingly
irreconcilable contrast, one side soft and
sweet, the other hard and unyielding.
Williams’ EP is as beautiful, soft and alluring
as petals; her words are as biting, assertive
and powerful as steel armor. Williams has
a knack for presenting the unexpected,
twisting and weaving songs that, while
impossible on paper, take flight with the
life she breathes into them. Undoubtedly,
whatever Williams delivers next will
be just as hypnotic and soul-clenching.
Whether it’s 13-year-old angst or the wacky
misadventures of adulthood, I’m sure she
won’t disappoint.
The weird and the fun
in Hayley Williams’ EP
My attention span has always
been questionable — hour-and-
a-half lectures often send me
scrolling through Twitter for
a quick “break.” Even when I
watch films at home, I have to
be doing something to occupy
myself for two hours. Focusing on
a single story or set of characters
for reviews is a weekly feat that I
somehow manage to achieve. The
2020 Oscar Live Action Shorts,
however, provided a haven that
I didn’t know existed. Averaging
around 25 minutes, each short
developed
wholly
individual
stories and characters in such an
effective and efficient time frame
that there was little time to be
bored.
From the dangerously funny
lines of “laundry detergent” in
“NEFTA Football Club” to the
devastating end of “Saria,” these
shorts prove that niche concepts
create better and more engaging
stories than the more general,
mainstream messages often seen
in popular feature-length films.
Even the two more generic shorts,
“A Sister” and “The Neighbor’s
Window,” were able to create
nuanced experiences for their
audience.
Discussing
the
female
experience
in
a
patriarchal
world has grown in popularity
in the last few years. Though this
conversation has been ongoing,
it has yet to lose its emotional
strength, especially when films
like “A Sister” continually provide
new and relevant perspectives.
Delphine
Girard’s
(“Caverne”)
newest
piece
maintains
an
anonymous air — focusing on the
shared experience of an emergency
services worker and a woman in
danger — reminding her audience
that it could be any one of us sitting
in that perilous passenger seat.
The tension builds throughout the
car ride — characters speaking in
code, frantically searching for each
other — creating an environment
where, at this point, the audience
really
only
cares
about
the
woman’s survival. It’s a new take
on an old fear that lends itself to a
compelling story.
In contrast, “The Neighbor’s
Window”
does
the
opposite:
Clearly
identified
characters
are developed and defined by
the confines of their adjacent
apartment
buildings.
On
the
surface,
“The
Neighbor’s
Window” is like any other film
about marriage and relationships
as we age. Jealousy flies, wives
are envious of their younger
counterparts while husbands are
yelled at for lounging around the
house. But what distinguishes “The
Neighbor’s Window” from other
family dramas is the relationship
between the two couples: There
is no direct contact between the
two. The audience and the main
characters only know about this
second couple because of a lack
of drapes, the windows of the
building across the street creating
small movie panels within the
viewing screen itself. Eventually,
as these two parallel lives unfold,
it
becomes
clear
that
“The
Neighbor’s Window” is trying to
highlight an age-old idea: You’re
just watching through a window,
everyone’s life seems perfect, but
in reality, we’re all going through
it. It’s a timely message in this age
of social media.
The other three nominated
shorts, “Brotherhood,” “Saria” and
“NEFTA Football Club,” take us all
over the world, spanning a series
of extremely specific scenarios
that are still perfectly capable of
connecting with their audiences.
“Brotherhood,” for instance, looks
at a family broken by ISIS. An
estranged son returns home to
a hostile environment, finding a
disapproving father. The film asks
us to consider what unconditional
love means — would you forgive
a child for abandoning family to
pursue a cause? The story unfolds
over a series of tense dinners and
fun, brotherly activities. We see
the relief of a mother who gets
her child back and the excitement
that a brother has returned.
“Brotherhood”
examines
this
family’s
complicated
dynamic,
ultimately leaving its audience
aching for the fleeting nature of
their reunion.
“Saria,” however, looks at what
happens when someone doesn’t
have a family at all. Based on the
true story of the deaths at the
Virgen de La Asuncion orphanage,
“Saria”
develops
hopeful
characters only to rip them away
from the audience in a fire. The
2017 tragedy on which the film is
based took 41 lives, all of which
were listed in the credits following
the film. With pointed hints at the
timeline, “Saria” highlighted just
how focused on America we can
be. The fire occurred in January
2017, a month full of women’s
marches and turmoil in the United
States, ultimately resulting in a
broad, baffling ignorance of the
tragedies these girls faced.
Live action Oscar short
films are perfecty nuanced
MUSIC NOTEBOOK
MADELEINE GANNON
Daily Arts Writer
KATIE BEEKMAN
Daily Arts Writer
FILM REVIEW
FILM REVIEW
KARI ANDERSON
Daily Arts Writer
EMMA CHANG
Daily Arts Writer
Each of the 2020 animated
Oscar short films, ranked
Read more online at
michigandaily.com
This year’s group of Oscar-
nominated Animated Shorts are
not lighthearted. There’s death,
illness and abuse packed into their
brief runtimes. Yet the ability to
convey a moving story in a short
amount of time is an achievement
that should not be understated. This
year’s shorts are beautifully and
artistically created by hard-working
teams from around the globe, labors
of love that packed an emotional
punch into short runtimes. Here are
the Animated Shorts nominated for
the 2020 Oscars, ranked.
5. “Kitbull” — USA, Directed
by Rosana Sullivan
Pixar has been consistently
creating short films since 1984,
many of which have received
Oscars. “Kitbull” is the third film in
Pixar’s latest “SparkShorts” series,
a program where they give their
employees six months and limited
funding to create an animated
short. For this film, the result is a
heartwarming tale of a scrappy
stray kitten and a pit bull who form
an unlikely friendship. The pitbull,
who is abused by his owners, is
still kind and loving. Watching
the kitten grow to trust the dog is
uplifting. The story is told through
a more traditional form of hand-
drawn animation, which gives it a
pleasing and comfortable feel.
4. “Dcera (Daughter)” — Czech
Republic, Directed by Daria
Kashcheeva
“Dcera,” Czech for “Daughter,”
is emotional and visceral, telling the
story of a daughter’s complicated
relationship
with
her
father,
showing their estrangement before
their eventual reconciliation. The
stop-motion animation style is
different and tangible, with the
two character’s faces covered with
streaks of black that add a sense of
grime and imperfection. Despite
being the longest of the nominated
films at 15 minutes, “Dcera” is silent,
conveying the father and daughter’s
emotions through the movement of
their eyes and their body language
as they struggle to figure out who
they are to each other.
3. “Sister (meimei)” — China/
USA, Directed by Siqi Song
“Sister” is narrated by a boy
telling stories about his little sister
in the 1990s — how they would fight
over the remote or do silly things,
like water a tooth to help it grow.
Yet, partway through, it’s revealed
that the sister is a figment of his
imagination as he wonders what
it would have been like to have a
sister, since the one-child policy in
China forced his mother to have
an abortion when he was younger.
The film’s team dedicated “Sister”
to “the siblings we never had” from
1980 to 2015, while the policy was in
place. Using carefully crafted stop-
motion figures made of felt, “Sister”
tells a story of what could have been.
2. “Hair Love” — USA, Directed
by Matthew A. Cherry
“Hair Love” is an incredibly
sweet story of a father-daughter
relationship that made me tear up
almost immediately. Zuri, a young
African-American girl, is trying
to style her hair by watching a
YouTube tutorial and is failing
impressively. When her dad walks in
and tries to help her, he is way out of
his comfort zone: There’s a hilarious
sequence where her hair appears
to take on a life of its own and the
dad has to literally fight it. As a
daughter of a dad who’d sometimes
tried — and often failed — to do my
pigtails when I was younger, it’s a
sequence that dads and daughters
can understand, even as the dad
persists through his struggle and
emerges triumphant. The short is
the shortest of the nominees (seven
minutes), but “Hair Love” has a
whole lot of heart.
1. “Mémorable” — France,
Directed by Bruno Collet
“Mémorable”
is
emotional
and visually stunning, with an
innovative
use
of
animation.
The figures are heavily textured
and painted with thick, visible
brushstrokes, giving it a sense
that art has been embedded into
the reality of this world. As Louis
(a painter) begins to forget, his
mental degeneration is expressed
through the ways the animation
changes: People appear misshapen
and disfigured, objects appear to
be melting around him, and soon
he struggles to recognize his wife.
It’s a heartbreaking depiction of
a mind falling apart, told through
a beautifully crafted medium as
Louis’s artist’s brain morphs and
shapes things into what they are not.
This year’s shorts
are beautifully
and artistically
created by hard-
working teams
from around the
globe
From Musgraves to Shorr, an
intro to the women of country
A lot has been written about the
mistreatment of female artists in the
country music industry. But for all of
the headlines about TomatoGate, bro-
country and “rules” forbidding DJs from
playing women back-to-back on their
radio stations — nothing has changed.
So, instead of rehashing the same tired
narratives that highlight men’s power
in the music world, I figured I would
shed some light on the artists who, in a
more just and equitable world, should be
dominating modern country music right
now.
The Essentials
It’s a shame, but even these legendary
artists barely get any airplay.
Carrie Underwood — From the
moment she stepped off the American
Idol stage in 2005, Underwood has
proven herself to be contemporary
country music’s golden girl. She can play
the revenge-hungry ex, all-American
housewife and everything in-between
with vocals that have an equally
impressive range to match.
Miranda Lambert — The first time
I remember seeing Lambert, she was
setting a town on fire in her music video
for “Kerosene.” She’s managed to keep
up this rebellious image while tending
to her softer side on some of her biggest
hits like the vulnerable track “The
House That Built Me.”
Kacey Musgraves — Even before the
internet fell in love with Musgraves
after her 2019 Album of the Year win at
the Grammys, Kacey was doing country
music
her
way.
Always
lyrically-
clever, instrumentally wholesome and
thematically outspoken, Kacey’s no
stranger to going up against the powers
that be. Her LGBTQ+ affirming anthem
“Follow Your Arrow ‘’ was banned from
country radio in 2013.
Mostly Radio-friendly
It isn’t shocking to hear these women
on country radio, but it’s not quite
normal either.
Maren Morris — Between her monster
pop hit “The Middle” with Zedd and
her membership in The Highwomen
— you’ve definitely heard Maren’s
powerhouse vocals before. Sonically,
her solo work lives at the center of those
sounds. She’s bubbly in love on her latest
GIRL: A glossy but forceful display of
pop country.
Kelsea Ballerini — I discovered Kelsea
when Taylor Swift tweeted her approval
of her first single “Love Me Like You
Mean It” in 2015. Taking it as a sign
that the next princess in Taylor’s line of
pop country royalty had been crowned
— I dove right in, and I’m glad I did.
Ballerini’s music is fun, glittery and, as
a student of Swift, very catchy.
Carly Pearce — Pearce’s music is
addictive. Her first album Every Little
Thing came out in 2017 and I’ve returned
to it at least a couple times a month ever
since. Her songs sound like Southern
hospitality and her voice is like honey.
Fresh Pop Country
A breath of fresh air in a snap-track,
boom-clap world.
Kelleigh Bannen — Sometimes a song
will stop you in its tracks and that’s what
Bannen’s “Damn I Still Love You” did to
me. She has a talent for simultaneously
sounding playful and soulful, masking
her heartbreak with word play.
Jillian Jacqueline — Like so many of
these women, Jacqueline is a storyteller
— the difference is that she has a way
of sounding like your best friend while
doing it. Whether she’s poking fun at
her own drama on “Tragic” or narrating
the crumbling of a relationship on
“Sad Girls,” she gets what you’re going
through.
Country that Rocks
These women are badasses. That’s all.
Ashley McBryde —The songs released
thus far from her upcoming album
Never Will include a murderous, rocking
warning to her Dad’s mistress “Martha
Divine” and a catchy “it is what it is”
admission of her “One Night Standards.”
What’s more intriguing (or country)
than that?
Kalie Shorr — Shorr is true to the
title of her album Open Book. Addiction,
depression, her sister’s death and her
own eating disorder — it gets messy, but
that also means it gets real.
Singer-Songwriters
Maybe they aren’t officially “country,”
but they’re so good I’m claiming them
anyway.
Caitlyn Smith — Smith has presence.
Her voice is like liquid gold and with
top-notch songwriting, the stories she
tells are worth every penny. I still can’t
get enough of her debut album Starfire.
Emily Scott Robinson — Listening to
Robinson is like walking alongside a
babbling brook. Her voice immediately
grounds you in the present, but her
storytelling takes your mind elsewhere.
She’s a wanderer and her clear, rootsy
voice invites you with her.
The Almost Break-Throughs
If they were men, things would be
different.
Cam — Her song “Burning House”
was a Grammy nominated hit in 2015
and her album Untamed is just that:
Bursting with energy and unafraid to
break boundaries into pop and folk.
Somehow Cam can do everything at
once and still make it sound organic.
Read more online at
michigandaily.com
ALBUM REVIEW
Williams’ punch is
as sobering as it is
satisfying
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS