The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
14 — Monday, August 31, 2020
Not
a
month
before
quarantine started, my Taylor
Swift™ snake ring snapped in
half. After anxiously twisting it
on and off my finger for nearly
two years, the silvery metal
fittingly relented in therapy.
Bulky, obnoxious and glittery
green — I had come to think
of it as a secret signal (“I knew
you were a Swiftie!”) and a
conversation starter. “Oh,” I
began when anyone asked me
about it, “I’m a really big Taylor
Swift fan.”
So it’s hard to overstate the
unconscionable joy and sheer
terror I felt Thursday morning
when I saw that Taylor’s eighth
album,
folklore,
was
going
to be released in less than 24
hours. Pre-album release rituals
out the window (listen to all
previous albums in consecutive
order, wear all possible Taylor
merch during release week, etc.,
etc.), all I could do was take a
few selfies with the sepia-toned
folklore™ filter on Instagram —
and wait.
To
anyone
well-versed
in
Taylor’s
meticulous
release routine, folklore is an
interruption. Her lead singles
are expected to roll out three to
four months in advance of each
new album, which are released
every two years in autumn, and
followed by a year-and-a-half
long tour. Right on schedule,
if it wasn’t for COVID-19, I
would have been preparing to
attend LoverFest this week,
the accompanying festival to
Taylor’s 2019 effort.
But more explicitly, folklore
is an interruption full stop.
The pastel palette of Lover
has been washed over with
a
melancholy
gray.
Sugary
anthemic pop replaced with
atmospheric
strings,
piano
and acoustic guitar. Taylor has
always been a poet, but with a
subdued backdrop her lyrics
have room to shine. While I’m
not sure that one of the biggest
pop stars in the world can, by
definition, create something
“alternative” or “indie,” folklore
is certainly the closest Taylor’s
ever come. With the help of The
National member, songwriter
and producer Aaron Dessner,
and longtime collaborator Jack
Antonoff, every song on folklore
sounds like it could be made
into a movie. The drama of love
and loss is Taylor’s wheelhouse,
but she’s never addressed these
same themes with this kind of
weight or maturity.
Take “my tears ricochet” for
example. Any Swiftie worth
their salt knows the significance
that its placement as “track five”
holds — the fifth track of any
Taylor album is its emotional
compass. From her self-titled
debut to 1989, they were the Big
Heartbreak Songs. reputation
broke the mold with the hopeful
“Delicate,” clueing fans in on
the fact that she and her current
boyfriend were in it for the
long-haul. And on Lover, “The
Archer” gives insight to Taylor’s
struggle with loving herself.
This time around, track five
invites the listener to a funeral.
Potentially Taylor’s.
“I didn’t have it in myself
to go with grace” she admits,
backed by ghoulish “oohs” and a
gloomy keyboard, “ ‘cause when
I’d fight you used to tell me I
was brave.”
‘Folklore’ and intimate isolation
KATIE BEEKMAN
Daily Arts Writer
Review: ‘How
I’m Feeling Now’
DYLAN YONO
Daily Arts Writer
This piece is a part of a
series on “Art during COVID,”
an exploration of art forms to
keep our idle minds creative
during this pandemic. With
many of us at home, our minds
have ample time to wander,
wonder and create. This series
highlights
accessible
and
immersive art forms to both
produce and consume during
the pandemic months and
beyond.
Summer graciously lends
us picturesque lazy evenings,
and I use them to create art.
Sitting on my deck with a
packet of oil pastels, or on
my driveway with a palette
of watercolors, is my way
of winding down against
the background of a warm
summer twilight.
I usually let my mind
wander as I create, and
recently I’ve been thinking
about what exactly art is.
Even dictionary definitions
are ambiguous, and rightfully
so: How can you define
something that encompasses
such
a
diverse
range
of
personal expression? If I had
to define it, I would settle for
“a form of expression that
holds meaning to the creator
and the viewer.” Under that
label, the Black Lives Matter
protests I’ve been attending
fit squarely under the art
umbrella.
I attended two protests last
week, one in my hometown
of Canton and the other in
neighboring
Northville,
towns that are 69.6 percent
and
95.2
percent
white
respectively,
according
to
the
U.S.
Census
Bureau.
Despite their proximity to
each other, both protests
were different — I marched
with a diverse crowd in
Canton, but stared out into
a sea of white in Northville.
Regardless of demographics,
in each protest I felt a pull to
those I walked with — a sense
of solidarity, as if the world
was crumbling but we were
creating something beautiful
out of the ashes.
Protests can be a form
of communal art, often the
most powerful of art forms.
Community-oriented
types
of art, such as collaborative
murals
or
community
dialogues, can be a poignant
way to create bonds within
a
neighborhood,
and
its
message is heard with more
vigor than art created by one
person. Everyone has a piece
to add, a role to play, a story to
tell. I love the conversations
that arise when I create art
with a friend or loved one
sitting by my side. It seems
natural
to
share
such
a
gratifying experience with
another person.
Protests
are
making
national headlines in part
because of the sheer number
of people turning out and
the
enormous
geographic
range they cover. I’ve lived
in the suburbs of metro-
Detroit all of my pre-college
life, and I’ve never seen
protests like these before in
my own hometown. I feel an
undeniable connection with
the strangers I march side
by side with, even though I
know next to nothing about
them. Linked by invisible
threads,
protesters
create
a
visible
movement,
a
passionate piece of art that is
now receiving international
recognition. This intangible
art
can
be
turned
into
something concrete as well,
such as the wall of protest art
now surrounding the White
House, but the intangible is
just as valuable.
Activism
isn’t
unknown
territory for me. I was raised
by
a
family
of
political
activists,
and
I’ve
been
campaigning
for
political
causes around my hometown
before I was old enough to
vote. But today’s Black Lives
Matter
movement
feels
different to me. Half of my
battle is getting someone to
listen and be agitated enough
to care about topics close
to my heart, like voting or
the environment. I struggle
every November to get my
friends to the polls, and many
of my attempts to engage
my friends politically end in
frustration. Now, I finally feel
the tide turning. We’re angry,
but eager to channel this
exasperation
into
change.
The art of protesting allows
us to express this frustration,
and each local march adds
to the larger, international,
illustration.
There’s
still
mountains of work ahead of
us, but, as I see open ears and
accepting hearts around me,
in my mind a small part of the
battle is already won.
The arts as a form of protest
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com
How and why
we save the arts
TRINA PAL
Daily Arts Writer
ZOE PHILLIPS
Senior Arts Editor
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com
COVID-19
has
given
the
phrase “bedroom pop” a whole
new
meaning.
High
profile
musicians across the world have
flocked to video conferencing
and streaming platforms like
Zoom and Instagram Live to
perform and chat with fans more
than ever before, often from
the comfort of their bedrooms.
British singer and experimental-
pop superstar Charli XCX took
this ascending intimacy between
artist and listener and cranked
it up to the max. Her new record
how i’m feeling now was recorded
and produced at lightspeed — all
from scratch over the course of a
month — and Charli documented
the process live all along the way.
Fans were able to tune in as she
wrote lyrics, filmed music videos
and collaborated with pop music’s
most
cutting-edge
producers,
providing an intimate look into
the synthesis of an electropop
gem.
The project began on April 6
when Charli announced it on a
Zoom call. She simply said she
was starting a new album from
scratch, promised to open up the
creative process to her fans and
set a release date just over a month
away. And thus Charli and her fans
embarked on a grand pop music
experiment, every day between
announcement and release being
a part of the journey to how i’m
feeling now. Charli modeled
in “photoshoots” (pictures her
boyfriend took on his phone in
their bedroom) that were shared
with and edited by countless
artists to make alternate covers
for each new single, ranging from
professionally designed album
covers to humble fanart. She
live streamed with an eclectic
bunch of musicians, celebrities
and public figures including
Paris Hilton and 100 gecs. And
maybe most impressively, Charli
stuck to the arbitrarily imminent
finish line she set for herself: The
polished, full-length LP released
without delay on May 15.
Making
how
i’m
feeling
now was not just a cute idea
or an experiment — it was an
unbelievable success. The final
album is a weirdly 21st-century
product
of
a
pandemic,
an
unbelievably relevant concoction
and nothing short of brilliant.
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com
It’s said every theatre is
inhabited
by
at
least
one
ghost, and contrary to legends
propagated
by
Halloween,
these ghosts do not like the
dark. Thus, when the curtain
falls and a theatre’s house
empties, an employee will leave
a light — a ghost light — to burn
onstage until the performers
return. Across the world, ghost
lights have remained on and
untouched for months. But the
lives of performers continue
offstage,
each
day
adding
pressure to find performance
spaces on digital platforms.
What
happens
when
the
ghost lights keep burning and
we’re left with a stage wholly
mediated
by
posts,
shares,
comments and likes?
In
late
May,
superstar
ballerina Maria Kochetkova
posted a ghostly photo of the
Berliner
Ensemble
theatre
on her Instagram: An aerial
shot of what was supposed
to be the audience’s thicket
of red velvet seats was now
an
otherworldly
scene
of
deforestation.
Every
third
or
fourth
seat
had
been
unbolted and ripped from
the ground, leaving socially
distant pods of one and two-
seat arrangements scattered
across the floor. The photo
was originally posted on the
Berliner’s Instagram account
with a caption that translated
to “the new normal,” but
Kochetkova’s thoughts proved
more striking: “Why are the
theaters forced to do this,” she
wrote, “and not the airlines?”
The
controversy
began
immediately: Some praised
Kochetkova
for
making
a
political
statement,
others
accused her of advocating for
the violation of health codes.
In reality, her question fell
into neither category and the
curiosity was well-founded.
Like in theatres, airplane
passengers sit in seats next
to each other, wrestling over
elbow room and breathing
each other’s exhales.
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com
Photo from Wikimedia Commons