The lyrics are really indirect. I always assumed i knew what Californication was about, and that it was painfully obvious. Some of these songs might not mean anything but create a vibe. They're certainly about something.
The mixture of rapping and singing does feel very 90s california. Like the melodies themselves are part of speech.
Some good grooves in here. I like Easily and Scar Tissue best. These are just rock bops. Easy to jam to. Driving and moving forward. Some fun bass stuff in here.
None of the lyrical imagery grabs me well. So many lines feel unhinged from the line before them. They're not taking the time to build a scene or story. They create a feeling or a sense of what the song is about.
This is so quintessentially southern. It's incredible these guys arent from the south like at all.
Wrote a Song For Everyone is so profoundly sad to me. To dive into work and insist on communicating these big ideas to the world because you cant bear to discuss your failing marriage with your wife. That's tough. Such a soul bearing tune.
This album has so many bops. Goddamn i love ccr. And also 9 songs at a tight 30 minutes. These boys were professionals.
The disparity between the cheeriness of the music and the doom in the lyrics of Bad Moon to me sort of speak to the anxiety of surely impending doom when things are going well. The lyrics are all predictions of things to come, not sure things. It feels like the paranoia one can feel when everything's going right.
Sidenote, Commotion is not that interesting of a social commentary song. Lots of stuff going on but nothing means much (both a description of the song and its thesis statement). A fine song, but nowhere near Fortunate Son (which would come out in their next album literally 3 months later, which is an insane pace).
I very much could've gone my life without listening to this album. I'm struggling to pick a song to put on my playlist, if any make the cut.
I cant tell if he likes nightclubbing or is making fun of it? I cant tell what of this album is ironic or sarcastic. Bowie's version of china girl, while still containing problems, smartly cuts the uncomfortable feeling part about giving her blue eyes and sort of colonizing her.
I dont know at all what he's trynna say in Dum Dum Boys, a fully 7 minute track.
It's hard to believe this is the same guy who, years earlier, wrote a song that began "I'm a streetwalkin' cheater with a heart full of napalm." Like, maybe it's just the punk in me that prefers his stooges work, but this is also at least half bowie and i looove a bunch of bowie songs.
The music is sort of lethargic and feels like it's creating a larger vibe that it hasnt earned. Like, maybe some of these tracks work behind better lyrics, but you can feel that this was an album of two different influences. When bowie works on his own stuff, the music lines up way better to the lyrics and it makes for some truly wonderful songs. Even when bowie's lyrics are nonsensical, at least they tonally work with the music.
I think Sister Midnight goes on the playlist but what in the fuck is the part where he has sex with his mom i think? Weird album, ig. I dont get it.
This album seems like it what it must be to have bipolar disorder. It's honestly a little reminiscent of the later parts in The Wall. It's a singer songwriter who got so big they started writing arena rock. So many of these songs create huge moments about being unfathomably huge, which at this point is true to kanye's life. And these songs, of course, are hits. All of the Lights, Power, Monster (which really is the most important for introducing us to nikki minaj and cor revealing what jay z thinks monsters are). It's like the best wrestling. It blends the line between real and fiction to the point where it matters more than either.
But like in The Wall, and like Soldier Field Presents: The Mountain Goats, there are moments of cracks and they are so heavy when you properly see them. The next line usually comes quickly as if to plaster over them, but it's not quick enough. The biggest glimpse is in the song that was too long to be a hit, maybe intentionally (it is a full 20 seconds before we hear anything besides that singular piano note), but to me the most well regarded in retrospect, Runaway. This song is brutal. It's a lament and a warning of the lot in life he spent the first half of this album glamorizing, but with the knowledge and certainty that it will not be heeded. Not by people dreaming for it, not by the people around him, not by himself. So many lines in this album really make you stop in your tracks when you finally stop grooving long enough to listen, but in this one he desperately pleads for you to hear him, but he knows nobody will.
Idk if kanye's a sympathetic figure irl, probably not. I dont know how much of this is truth and how much is presented fiction. But this is a seminal work of art. And fun to listen to throughout. Shame where he ended up, but he told us here exactly what would happen.
Dark Fantasy, Power, Monster, and Runaway make the playlist.
