wa v e volume V influences
s
the team Alex Lee
David Peck
Meghana Kandlur
contents
Kaitlin Chan
Aissa Gueye
Rachel Santee
Max Friedlich
kiss me on the bus
isabel bartholomew
1
chocolate davis
alexandra white
3
on goldlink
david peck
5
seeing sound
rachel santee
7
fashion x music
kaitlin chan
11
the shared influences between visual media and music
meghana kandlur
13
Trisha Arora
this issue of Waves was produced in Fall 2014 Š 2014 Waves Magazine
Not pictured: Alexandra White, Isabel Bartholomew, Bryan Schiavone Photos by Trisha Arora
We try our best to fact check and cite any photographs or sources used. If you have any comments or suggestions, please email weswavesmagazine@gmail.com This issue is dedicated to Iman and Sarah, for everything.
kiss me on the bus isabel bartholomew
This
September, the Replacements played their first show in New York since 1991. Beginning in 2012, their reunion tour has taken them to stadiums, baseball parks, and Riot Fest. They play spirited and long-lasting sets to large crowds, festival crowds, and, generally speaking, aging crowds.
Westerberg once said, “We’d much rather play for fifty people who know us than a thousand who don’t care.” Style, as much as sound, is a critical element of the Replacements’ influence on other bands. They pinned down punk, and its no-bullshit-total-bullshit element of sincerity. There is no selling out, but of course, there is. There has to be.
The Replacements are getting old. Frontman Paul Westerberg is 54. Billie Joe Armstrong (a longtime fan) made an appearance with the band at Coachella last April, and in 2014, even Green Day is somewhat outdated. It’s a strange in-between the band finds itself in. Pioneers of alternative rock, punks in the truest sense, the Replacements already have a place in music history. The band formed in 1979, an emblem of the underground. They influenced acts across the board, from Wilco to the Hold Steady to Nirvana. Now, in this position of post-history-making, who are the Replacements as a band on tour? Their legacy, as wild, messy punks from Minneapolis, is as brilliant as it is unruly. They played sloppy-drunk shows in bars that later refused them entry; their bass player was a kid; they were dropouts and addicts and misfits. In 1986, the Replacements were banned from Saturday Night Live for their drunken antics during a live broadcast. What could be more punk than getting banned from national television at the peak of your career?
When it is, it’s necessary and it’s practical; it can’t be cool in the time-honored sense. The Replacements started playing shows again, in 2012, after Slim Dunlap, guitarist from ‘87 to ‘91, suffered a serious stroke. Westerberg and Tommy Stinson recorded an EP, Songs for Slim, to raise money for Dunlap’s medical bills, and the reunion tour began from there. It was a moving gesture. At the same time, it’s a buzzkill. Punks get old and need medical attention, and we don’t want to know this; we expect immortality. We want them to be youthful and vicious, to fuck shit up, forever. In a 2013 interview with Spin, Westerberg told a story: “The other day, I was helping coach my son’s basketball team. I had this SpongeBob hat on, and this kid came up to me and said, ‘Why are you wearing that? You’re a rock star.’ And I was like, ‘I’m the coach, dude. Go do a lap.’ If I’m here, I’m not Steven fucking Tyler, y’know?” 1
illustration by Bryan Schiavone
and smart phones, and comfortable jobs. And this is the way it goes. For what it’s worth, it’s okay. The Replacements played an exceptional show. The spirit of slapdash, exuberant fuck-all, of dirty rotten punk, remains. It won’t sour, and it won’t age. As an eighteen-year-old, I felt certain that I was the youngest person at the show. It was a little bit weird, a little bit sad, perhaps. Mostly, though, it was exciting to participate in something so much bigger than myself, something so deeply written into music history.
Westerberg doesn’t drink anymore. Before going on tour again, he was living quietly, recording in his basement. He did dad things. This is what happens when you survive the Replacements. You sober up, you rekindle friendships, and you only tour again because you need the money. “We owe the Mob,” Westerberg told Jon Dolan of Rolling Stone. “Dead rats in the mail.” The audience of the recent New York show was polite. They clapped, and they cheered, and they did not mosh. People did the swayingwith-the-iPhone-lighter thing during the band’s 1984 hit “Androgynous.” As the Replacements age, so do their fan base, and dudes who used to be hard motherfuckers now have families,
As Westerberg will tell you, “The fucker still lives… alive and ready to suck anybody down who wants to be a part of it.”
Dolan, Jon. "The Replacements: The Greatest Band That Never Was." Rolling Stone. Rolling Stone Magazine, 22 Sept. 2014. Web. 29 Sept. 2014. Mehr, Bob. "The World's Most Unsatisfied Band." SPIN. SPIN Magazine, 13 June 2013. Web. 29 Sept. 2014. "The Replacements (band)." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 27 Sept. 2014. Web. 29 Sept. 2014. 2
chocolate davis
to certain phrases and words”.
But Rhys isn’t giving the people what they want--he’s simply adapting his music so that people can receive it well: “In a world of 100,000 YouTube uploads a day, you can’t, obviously, be a slave to expectations, but you have to present it in the best way possible for people to receive it”. Rhys still plays with language--in fact that is his mission. “My intent is to break down how we speak or like how we think about rap…and what people should be saying and how people should be saying it… to maybe get people to question or at least to think about, you know, why are we saying the things we are and why are we more receptive
alexandra white
On October 9th, Rhys Langston dropped his
new album Chocolate Davis Sessions Volume I. Waves caught up with him to talk about the album.
I think this is Rhys’ best album yet, because it is aesthetically pleasing while also having a profound message. The aesthetics of each song pull you in and suddenly you are internalizing and analyzing the lyrical content. You can listen to Chocolate Davis Sessions Volume I on SoundCloud and download it on Bandcamp. https://soundcloud.com/rhyslangstonmusic http://rhyslangston.bandcamp.com/
Photo provided by Rhys Langston
Rhys began working on it in May and finished it in August. He admits that the development of this project was a very natural process, “It was the most organic project I’ve ever done because things just fell into place.” In the past, Rhys has produced all of his beats but this time he decided to experiment with bringing in other producers. “I went through SoundCloud…I got inspired by this guy Papppa…I was listening to his music and it kind of inspired feeling and thoughts.” Rhys reached out to Papppa and Rhys was surprised that he was willing to give him some of his beats for Chocolate Davis: “I expected him to be one of those guys that would ignore me, but he didn’t. He was more than willing to give me exclusive rights to use the beats.” As soon as Rhys selected the beats he wanted to use, he began writing in June. By August Rhys was done with the project and waited until his birthday, October 9th, to release his album. “I released it on my birthday because that’s when most people pay attention to me,” he joked. “Although next year I don’t think I’m going to release it on my birthday”.
ability, as a way to connect with his audience, “If it’s more listenable” Rhys explains, “they can interpret the lyrics better”. The album is eighteen minutes long divided into 8 tracks. Each song never exceeds 3 and half minutes and most of the tracks are about 2 minutes long. Rhys admits that this method has been working for him, “So far it has been successful in pulling people in for the time that they can handle and keeping them there...With only about two minute songs that’s just about enough time before people click the next song on SoundCloud.” Rhys also attributes its listenability to his development of musical skills. “I’m more focused…I know what I’m doing now. I’m technically more savvy…when I produced these tracks I had a better mastery of Logic Pro and when I was writing the lyrics I just, you know... through proofs and reading in school and outside school, being a receptive and observant person in the world, my writing was a much more...not natural process but a much more refined process”.
On this album Rhys experiments with listen 3
4
on goldlink, DC, and the beat that rings a bell
Poster by Derrick Holman
I was trying to embody it. All I knew was DMV, so I made this tape from the DMV perspective.” Still, cognizant of an era of Youtube and its “related searches,” the outside always seems to seep in in an era of “We had no template so we had to create something new through and through.”
torn jeans and a denim jacket like nobody else since ’98. Picturing him back in DC (my city as well), I saw that he would have stuck out like a sore thumb. Sitting near the back of the stage, he nonetheless had an immediate air of someone with an endless amount of energy.
david peck photo by charlie martin
Everyone knows how that fateful night built
as were the others who helped organize what was sure to be an incredible show. But I’m not about to make this a whining diatribe about Public Safety, concert logistics, or other things out of the control of individual students. Rather, I want to talk about the artist himself--who proved to be an extremely genuine and perceptive guy--as well as our remarkable experience with him here.
up to, and turned down with, an alarm. Or a couple. The DMV rapper was practically in the process of climbing onstage, with his DJ and right hand man, Kidd Marvel, taking the turntables. He was to perform for a sardine-packed Psi U, with a ready crowd bouncing together hard enough it somewhat resembled one of the Jurassic Park stampedes. Especially for the lackluster Saturday night scene plaguing Wes this year, it seemed the perfect show in that moment. Then the flashing lights again. From my perspective at the right side of the stage, it was like, “That’s… not part of the show.” For the second time, that grim buzzing sensation wafted in over the music. Cornelius+ (aka Derrick Holman) with Izzy Coleman, at that point hyping the crowd after the opening set, waved everybody out, and sardonically saluted the kid that pulled the fire alarm. I was pretty crushed, 5
It was evening when Goldlink showed up on campus, after a day of various venue-related fiascos, none of which foreshadowed in any particular manner how the night would end up. But finally I strolled back down to Psi U for the soundcheck a little before 7:30 to find Goldlink’s crew already filling the space with the jittery electronic hop they call “future bounce.” If the tracks on his debut album The God Complex made him into a tall swaggering bloke, in person he was a surprisingly little guy rocking
When we sat down to talk with him later on, he spoke of his vision with such great precision and conviction: Goldlink--the Exception, the Imminent--had fully emerged, with the same charming hubris present in his tracks. The God Complex embodies his mission to attain a larger-than-life state through the act of inventing a new sound. That new sound, future bounce, has so far been purported by music media, including an article from Complex, to be house-derived. But this would be highly unusual from a city that historically isolated itself—and in some ways still does—from the diffusion of hip hop in favor of its own floor-pounding style called “go go.” Having begun rapping at age 19 (he’s 21), Goldlink has explored a progressively broad range of influences in a wild couple of years, staying . cognizant of the possibilities in what he noted to be an era of Youtube and “related searches.” But by no means was he aiming or even able to divorce himself from the District music. Pretty casually dropping this bomb, he reflected on DC life: “We have our own lingo, our own everything. And then the go go… That was it. Just the rhythm, the bounce of go go.
DC music hasn’t really had an innovative face to it since the days of Chuck Brown. Out of an exclusive tradition however, Goldlink balances the radical with the pragmatic, especially in regards to the future of rap nationwide. Namely, he means to take influence from the 90s hip hop greats, but also to look forward using those inputs. “Traditional rap is dead: [Joey Bada$$], dead to me. Because it’s like he’s taking something we’ve done already. He’s a great rapper. But what is he doing that’s so new that’s resonating with people? I did the Men in Black sample in ‘Ay Ay,’ that’s as 90s as I’m going.” This kind of insight and astuteness from Goldlink in fact did more than just pique my interest, but gave me an uncanny spark of hope. Could he very well be part of a crop of new creative leaders raising their voices out of a decentralized, chaotic, even insecure rap scene? At the least, it was a relief to hear him think of himself as such a leader. Given the question, “Where do you see [the city’s] music headed?”, he coolly replied, “Following me.” 6
seeing sound an interview with philadelphia-based illustrator/music aficionado, nikki lacey rachel santee
She says the music leaks into her art. She
ram skulls in a bed of leaves, figures rising from lakes… The youthfulness of these pieces is not seen in an immature way, but rather in the way that depicts the raw unfiltered emotions that children experience. Forest scenes with darkened figures are painted in pink and orange with skies of cyan. Lime-colored evils and soft edges of the sharpest stock transfix the viewer. The jovial feel of the colors juxtaposed with the somber mood of the subject matter itself gives rise to a curiosity in the viewer—a sense of, “what next?”
says she never stops listening; the potential art circulates throughout her body, waiting to drip onto the page, waiting for her to orchestrate the paints into a symphony of silhouettes drenched in phosphorescence. 24-year-old Nikki Lacey is an illustrator with a hankering for music. She has a knack for incorporating the music into her work, either literally, with portraits of musicians, or figuratively, through the electric-pink mountainscapes found throughout her notebook. Her musical pieces range from behind-thescenes comics to highly detailed paintings of concept art starring Iceland’s musically-versatile queen, Björk. Her illustrations feature big and little names in multiple different music scenes. While her true craving is doodling, painting, and illustrating Radiohead’s frontman, Thom Yorke, her work features other artists such as iamamiwhoami, St. Vincent, Nick Cave, and even Nicki Minaj and Beyoncé.
H2 digital painting inspired by thom yorke
This otherworldly attraction, however, is by no means absent in her musician-related illustrations. The ghosts, panic, and sense of no escape that surround the music video of Thom Yorke’s, “Harrowdown Hill” are also exemplified in her two-part illustration of the same name. The malachite water into which he descends is hypnotic. His facial expression and body position in the first image show his helplessness alongside subtle hints of the viewer’s—and the artist’s—possible schadenfreude. In the second image, the voyeuristic
Geode digital painting inspired by björk’s 2011 album, Biophilia
Nikki’s youth peeks through the dark mood of some of her less-musically oriented pieces, many of which focus on beings in the forest, 7
8
moved here as a teenager out of high school. I actually grew up in central New Jersey, by the Pine Barrens, and I think spending so much of my childhood playing in the woods has left a big effect on me. My sketchbooks are full of forest scenes and monsters…
position of the viewer makes one feel like a sea-monster observing its prey, or watching alien bodies from a safe distance—either way, you’re already a part of the work, and you’re trapped. Even looking at Nikki herself is bewitching. Her long brown hair is buzzed on one side asymmetrically framing her heart-shaped face and by no means hiding her wide, nascent eyes, which give her a mystifying, almost-elvish look of earnest, blossoming melancholy.
RS: Oh, I can definitely see that… your forest pieces give the idea of memory, as if you saw these horrors—or treasures maybe?—yourself. Who’s to say… But alongside the forests, where do you generally get your inspiration from? NL: Music, folk lore, and the way that people look.
After attending the University of the Arts in Philadelphia as an Illustration major for a little over a year, she then decided collegiate life wasn’t for her. Since then she has been working as a freelance illustrator. I got the chance to interview Nikki and take a peek behind the curtain to discover how music influences her art and see how she takes her coffee—answer to both: in large quantities.
RS: Speaking of, how do you look? I guess to put it plainly, how would you describe your style? NL: I have no idea what my style would be! I wear a lot of black and I have some cool jackets, is that a thing?
RS: Thom Yorke… of course, I should have known! How does his music—or music in general— influence your art? NL: I’m always listening to something— I do hours and hours of walking in the city every day, always with my headphones in, and I’m sure whatever I’m listening to influences the ideas I’m coming up with as I’m going around. All of my favorite artists, like Radiohead and Björk, also have a sort of mythos surrounding their music, and I feel a huge connection to their themes.
Y; digital painting inspired by iamamiwhoami’s 2013 album, Bounty
RS: I guess we’ll go ahead and get started with a basic question. Where do you consider home base? NL: Well I’ve been living in Philadelphia for about six years now, so I guess I’d consider that my home. To be completely honest, though, I don’t think it has influenced me as much as I originally hoped it would when I 9
RS: Wow, so you can slam it out. Do you have any bad habits? Or other good ones? NL: Worst habit: I’m easily distracted, and if I don’t have a strict schedule down I’ll waste hours researching useless information. Best habit: I do yoga, running, and/or weight training every day.
RS: Well, I know that with illustration medium is a major factor. Do you have a favorite medium? NL: In terms of convenience, it’s nice to just plug in my tablet and go digitally, but given the time and patience, I absolutely love working with watercolor and gouache. There’s something about the atmosphere when you’re working with traditional paints— it becomes a very personal space, very meditative.
RS: Do you ever struggle with artist’s block? Your work seems very free-of-mind—do you ever find yourself trapped? NL: Frequently! I hit a roadblock once every couple of months, and they last about a week or two. I try to let them run their course—I’ll doodle a little bit, but won’t try too hard to force a full piece of artwork if nothing’s coming to me. In the meantime, I try to get inspired by movies or cartoons, video games, books…
RS: Is there a medium you want to try to work more with in the future? NL: To be honest I’ve never even touched oils before! I guess I should try them out at some point…
RS: All right, last question: do you have any advice for artists just starting out? NL: Soak in all the inspiration you can. Be observant of the world around you. Draw as much as possible. Share what you make.
RS: Going back to what you said about paints being meditative, do you have a specific ritual when painting or drawing to get you in the mood? Lights at a certain brightness? Certain cup of tea? Certain time of day? Et cetera et cetera. NL: I’m drawing all day long in my sketchbook regardless of where I am, but I like to have a cup of ginger tea with me if I’m sitting down to work at my desk. I also used to work better mid-morning, but I’m slowly becoming a late-afternoon/evening person.
photo by Nikki Lacey
RS: Of course that’s a thing! Now, moving laterally, I also want to know about your music style—what have you been listening to lately? NL: I just got Perfume Genius’ new album, which is fantastic, and just yesterday Thom Yorke dropped his new album out of the blue. It’s incredible!
though.
RS: Which artists—musical or visual—would you say are your biggest influences? NL: I’ve been into Andrew Hem’s work for a really long time now, and Sachin Teng’s illustration is pretty unbelievable, too.
RS: It seems like you have a process. How long would you say it generally takes you to complete a piece from first sketches to selling it? NL: It depends on the piece. Given free range, I would work on something in bits and pieces for about a week, but with enough focus I can sketch and render something completely in a couple of hours. Naturally, I’m very slow
To find out more about the enigmatic Miss Lacey, visit her art blog at frankiesnotbad.tumblr.com or follow her personal/Radiohead blog the-king-of-ponytails.tumblr.com. Prints of her works (and more!) can be found at society6. com/nikkilaceyarts. 10
Rama Nakib fennesz+sakamoto, rhye, jai paul and Marilyn Manson
what music do
Chris Gortmaker minimalist art punk
get dressed
Louise Zhu K-pop, Top 40
Jonah Toussaint Kid Cudi and Black Milk
you
to? photos by kaitlin chan
11
12
score for King Kong, written by Max Steiner. Original film scores began as simple reinforcement for the visual media on the screen, but toward the end of the 1930s, they began to be used by composers as a form of experimentation in order to further develop the plot and characters of the film. The popularization of jazz in the 1950s caused a major shift in the world of film scoring as well; scores that were previously entirely symphonic now became more contemporary and required fewer instrumentalists. As new genres and forms of music developed and evolved, so did the process of film scoring; scores began to be based
The Shared Influences
Between
Visual Media and Music by Meghana Kandlur Overlap often exists between various forms of media in the entertainment industry today. Whether through the pairing of music to a film or television show or else a music video to a new single, forms of visual and auditory media oftentimes go hand in hand, with each exerting influence over the other as well as over audience perceptions. Though a consensus has not been reached as to why music was first infused into the venue of film, speculation has produced a few plausible reasons as to what necessitated the first film score. Early films that were devoid of dialogue were forced to rely on external auditory sources in order to add extra dimension and depth to the images that appeared on screen. These silent films were accompanied by live musicians, ranging from a full orchestra to merely organists and pianists. Books were published for the accompanying performers that were arranged and divided by mood, event, or element to aid performers in selecting fitting scene music; films often came with suggestions of what piece to play with which scene. Even before scores began to be specifically compiled for films (a practice that began with the 1915 classic, The Birth of a Nation), music was being utilized to aid in conveying the tonal or thematic elements displayed on screen. The practice of film score compilation soon evolved into the practice of original score composition, in which entirely new music was composed specifically for the purpose of scoring a film. The first such example was the 1933
gent, and The Heat, collaborated closely with Anderson in an effort to “shap[e] characters and film tones through the music.” Though he is just one example, Poster’s work with Anderson likely parallels the work of other music supervisors in the industry today, others who are forced to consider the message or impression the audience is meant to be receiving from each scene in selecting music in order to cause emotional investment on the parts of audience members. Poster’s interview also reveals the ability of a film’s soundtrack to convey a coherent thematic idea. He details how Anderson wanted his 1998 release Rushmore to visually pay homage to the British invasion, a phenomenon when U.K. music acts and culture became popular in the U.S.; this is shown not only through the main character Max Fischer, who is seen dressed in a suit
actions and dialogue taking place on screen. These soundtracks contain songs either written and performed specifically in the context of the film, songs previously released as singles or parts of albums by professional recording artists that are selected and paired with scenes within a film by the film’s music supervisor, or songs performed by artists who were specifically commissioned to write and perform for the film.
Max Steiner conducting a recording session for 1939’s Gone with the Wind
entirely off of popular rock songs due to the advent of synthesized sounds in films in the 1980s that allowed a single performer to produce the sounds of multiple instrumentalists. Though their compositional processes have evolved over time, film scores have consistently been used in creating a more immersive and emotional viewing experience for audiences worldwide and continue to do so to this day. Aside from mostly instrumental scores, films and television shows also employ prerecorded and preexisting music in order to enhance the 13
The character Max Fischer from Wes Anderson’s Rushmore.
and tie but contains a hidden passionate spirit, but also through the tracks chosen, such as The Creation’s “Making Time” and The Who’s “A Quick One, While He’s Away.” A similar thought process led to the soundtrack of The Royal Tenenbaums: the opening cover of The Beatles’ “Hey Jude,” performed by the Mutato Muzika Orchestra, evokes a feeling of familiarity in something that is brand new, a feeling mimicked by the film itself. In the same vein, David Bowie’s “Life on Mars” was chosen for The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou as a way
Wes Anderson, director
Prior to the release of Wes Anderson’s latest film The Grand Budapest Hotel in March of 2014, the online subset of the New York Magazine, Vulture, conducted an interview with Anderson’s longtime collaborator and music supervisor Randall Poster in which Poster walked the reader through the song selection process for iconic Anderson scenes. Poster, whose work spans across a wide variety of films including The Wolf of Wall Street, Diver14
ing to The Huffington Post prior to the show’s final season, Thomas Golubic, the music su-
of entering the character Zissou’s mind. Bobby Fuller Four’s “Let Her Dance” was chosen for Fantastic Mr. Fox because it makes audience members “feel like [they’ve] known it [their] whole [lives],” which may hold true of the film’s plot for audience members who grew up reading the source material for the film, the 1970 Roald Dahl classic of the same name. A bond is formed between a film’s soundtrack and the film itself that solidifies the bond between the film and the participating audience. The soundtrack is used to ease scene transitions and to convey emotions, impressions, and themes chosen by the filmmaker during the production process.
Jesse Pinkman from Breaking Bad
pervisor for AMC’s Breaking Bad, discussed how the music he chose between seasons had to reflect the overarching theme of the show: change. As the show itself evolved, the music ideas delivered by Golubic had to as well in order to continue to represent the transforming characters. Golubic also explains how music established a relationship between the main character Walter White, and a character whom the creators knew was meant to be doomed from the start, Gale Boetticher, in order to further the development of another character, Jesse Pinkman. In order to incite an emotional response and attachment for audience members to Boetticher, Golubic chose music that created a tone of “professional romance” between White and Boetticher to introduce him as a sympathetic character prior to his death at the hands of the now more morally gray Pinkman. As with film, music plays an integral role in the production of a television show, aiding in the development of character and plot and influencing audience perceptions of even minor characters. The use of music in television, film, and advertisement also serves a role in furthering the careers of smaller, independent artists. Due to difficulties and expenses associated with acquiring the rights to well known artists’ music, shows with tight budgets often favor the work of independent artists, giving them the name
Walter White from Breaking Bad
In television shows, soundtracks are used to create background stories for characters, including secondary characters, as well as to establish relationships between them. Speak15
recognition needed to expand their fan bases. MTV’s Teen Wolf, through its music supervisor Laura Webb, has exposed audience members in the teenage demographic to artists ranging from The Vaccines to Zola Jesus and Early Winters to Hozier. The show displays the name of the track and the artist at the bottom of the screen as it is playing in a scene, and also maintains a Spotify playlist of every track that it has used in the show across the past four seasons, making it easy for fans to discover and then continue listening to music used in the show. The promotion of smaller acts within television and film influences what the general populace listens to on its own time, thereby potentially shaping the direction in which artists choose to take their future music in order to appeal to a wider audience and increasing the likelihood of a gain in popularity for other similar artists.
You probably know what this is from.
themes within the album of disillusionment mixed in with a nostalgia for the place where one grows up, and was equally successful as the album was in evoking the feeling of growing up in a suburban environment. Music videos rose to popularity in the tail end of the 1980s through the rise of MTV. Though music videos have since become less prevalent and are now primarily viewed by consumers on video sites such as YouTube and Vevo, they still fulfill their original purpose of conveying the concepts of the songs in a visual medium. In December of 2013, Beyoncé dropped her latest album, the self-titled Beyoncé, as a surprise, complete with a “visual album” consisting of music videos for each individual song. The music videos aid in creating a fully immersive experience for its auvdience, expanding on the lyrical content of the album. The accompanying videos delve further into themes including female empowerment, the subjectiveness of modern day beauty standards for women, and the lack of mutual exclusivity between motherhood and sex appeal. This content is reflected in the videos themselves, including the explicit sexual content of the video for “Drunk in Love” and the confidence exuded by the singer herself in the video for “Flawless.” The pairing of music with music videos and short films furthers the themes and messages intended to come across from the album or song.
A still from Spike Jonze’s Scenes from the Suburbs
Film equally influences musical artists by serving as a visual representation of the thematic elements and content of the tracks. Arcade Fire’s 2010 release The Suburbs, a concept album loosely autobiographical for members Win and Will Butler about the Texan suburbs they grew up in, had its own visual accompaniment in the form of a Spike Jonze-directed short film, Scenes from the Suburbs, cowritten by Win and Will. The film expanded upon the 16
waves is looking for writers,
Natalie Portman as Mathilda in Léon
both with subtlety in the form of the mentions of Midnight Cowboy and Catwoman in Vance Joy’s “Riptide” and more directly in the form of alt-J choosing a line from American Psycho as their debut album title and writing the single “Matilda” about Natalie Portman’s character in Léon. Forms of visual media, from television shows to films and artwork, serve as inspiration for musical artists and allow them to expand upon the original artists’ interpretation as well as offer their own.
On the set of Twin Peaks
Visual media can also serve as a source of inspiration for the creation of new music.The cult hitTwin Peaks, for example, has influenced music from a slew of contemporary artists despite going off the air 23 years ago. Bastille, for one, have been greatly influenced by David Lynch works, including Twin Peaks and Mulholland Drive; a track on their debut album Bad Blood centers on the main character Laura Palmer and is told from her perspective, intended to act as a love letter from the band to the series and creator. Lead singer and songwriter Dan Smith has been so vocal about Lynch’s influence on his work that he was approached to remix a track from Lynch’s most recent album; the resulting Bastille remix of “Are You Sure?” was released earlier this year. Bastille’s track is
The perspective lens gained through songs written about forms of visual media allows listeners a broader range of interpretations and perspectives by which they may choose to craft their own interpretation of the media. Thus, the pairing of visual media and music allows for a more immersive and interactive listening experience as listeners are forced to grapple with multiple interpretations of the subject matter. The multiple creative minds that collaborate on film scores, soundtracks, and music videos offer a similar multitude of perspectives that ultimately enhance the experience of listening to music or consuming visual media for the audience by aiding in solidifying the emotional reaction of an audience to a work. The collaborative and symbiotically influential relationship shared by auditory and visual media forms is likely to continue and evolve moving into the future, bringing with it new ways to experience media and thematic content as well as new music that offers multiple perspectives on a subject.
both an homage to the abilities of David Lynch as well as songwriter Dan Smith’s interpretation of the show and the character of Laura. In this regard, the influence came not only from the show’s premise and dialogue but also from how the artists perceived and interpreted the source material of the show. Visual media has served to influence the creation of new music, 17
illustrators, layout designers and musicians to feature. get in touch at weswavesmagazine@gmail.com
18
Photo by Trisha Arora