Tag Archives: music artists

P1Harmony Music Review

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I wanted to discuss the K-pop boy group, P1Harmony, and their newest album Killin’ It released in February 2024, as well as them as a group! P1Harmony is a boy band consisting of six members, Keeho, Theo, Jiung, Intak, Soul, and Jongseob. Their music is a mix of hip-hop and R&B which is both lively and calm depending on the songs.

In their most recent album, their title track, “Killin’ It,” is fun and upbeat. The rapping parts in this song are so prominent and truly make the song lively and fun to listen to. Their other song, “Late Night Calls,” is on the calmer side, relating more towards R&B. I would say this is my favorite song in the entire album, as its meaning is sweet and the melody is mellow and is perfect for a night drive. Lastly, I like “Countdown to Love” as it is also upbeat and uplifting. I listened to this song while studying for my AP United States History exam that I actually took today, May 10th. The beat is so much fun and really wakes me up! Overall, the album is one of their best, and I’m looking forward to seeing them on June 16th when they come to LA!

I also love watching them perform as well as viewing their content as they are very down-to-earth people who are close to me in terms of age. I find it easy to relate to them and fun to watch as most of them are fluent in English! Although I understand and speak Korean, it’s always exciting to see K-pop idols learn and speak English, especially Keeho who is from Canada and speaks fluently. I personally like Jiung the most, as he quiet and more reserved. He is also known to be smart and more logical which I relate to the most. Keeho and Theo are also fun to watch as I find them funny and they never fail to make me laugh. Ultimately, P1Harmony is such a talented and exciting group to listen to and watch, and I would recommend their music to anyone who is willing to give K-pop a listen!

Kaiya T.

Band Review: Coldplay

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I have another artist I would like to share with everyone, except this time you’ve probably heard of them! This band is Coldplay!

Coldplay is a British alt rock/pop rock band formed in 1997. They released their first album, Parachutes, in 2000. Parachutes, in my opinion, is their best album to date. It has one of their more well-known songs, Yellow, but also what I consider to be their best songs, like Shiver, Spies, High Speed, and Don’t Panic. I feel like it’s their most unique album and they sort of fell into more poppy music down the line. I really like the feel of the album all the way through, it’s a very chill album and it makes you feel like you’re just aimlessly drifting.

Their second album, A Rush of Blood to the Head,  was released two years later and is my second favorite album by them. This album also has two pretty popular songs by them, Clocks and The Scientist. I like A Rush of Blood to the Head because of its unique instrumentals. This album is noticeably less calm and a little sadder, or at least melancholic, shown with songs like Politik, The Scientist, and Warning Sign.

I’d like to skip forward to their 6th album, A Head Full of Dreams, released in 2015. A Head Full of Dreams is much more of a pop rock album than an alt rock album. This one has a few popular songs like Hymn for the Weekend and Adventure of a Lifetime, which I would actually agree are the best songs on this album. A lot of the other songs are pretty forgettable, but I don’t hate them. The two songs make me feel like I’m flying through some sort of city or some big spectacular scene, and I think it’s really neat how they were able to write music like that that.

Skipping forward again to their 8th and most recent album released in 2021, Music Of The Spheres. Each song from this album is meant to represent a song from each planet in this theoretical solar system, but all of them are pretty poppy. A good portion of them are collaborations with other artists, such as Selena Gomez (in Let Somebody Go) and BTS (in My Universe). I like the idea behind this album, but I feel like it was executed poorly and I don’t really like any of the songs. However, there is one song on this album that breaks that rule: Coloratura. Coloratura is a 10 minute masterpiece that I feel perfectly ends the story they were trying to tell. I would highly recommend skipping the album and just listening to that song.

In conclusion, Coldplay is a talented band that sort of fell off, but their older songs are still very good and worth a listen. That’s not to say all of their newer songs are bad, as there’s still some pretty great ones.

Why is Taylor Swift rerecording her albums?

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Fearless (Taylor’s Version)

As famed singer-songwriter Taylor Swift continues to expand her discography as a prominent influence on the 21st-century music industry, you may be wondering why she is releasing a “Taylor’s Version” of her past albums. The short answer is, she is rerecording and rereleasing her first six albums, of which she does not own the original recordings.

In 2005, Swift signed with Big Machine Records, which owns the masters (original recordings) of her first six albums. Under Big Machine, Swift did not own her music and was thus unable to control the way her songs were used. Big Machine sold to music manager Scooter Braun, who then sold Swift’s masters to Shamrock Holdings. As a result, each time Swift’s original recordings from her first six albums are streamed or bought, profits are gained by Braun. In 2018, when the Big Machine contract expired, Swift made the switch to Republic Records, where she made sure to acquire possession of her future masters. She now owns the four albums she has released since then—Lover, folklore, evermore, and Midnights.

Red (Taylor’s Version)

Taylor Swift is now in the process of rereleasing her first six albums—Taylor Swift, Fearless, Speak Now, Red, 1989, and reputation. She released Fearless (Taylor’s Version) as her first rerecording in April of 2021, Red (Taylor’s Version) in November of 2021, and most recently Speak Now (Taylor’s Version). The rereleases of these albums showcase her stronger and more mature vocals on all the songs she has written throughout her career.

As part of the rereleased albums, Swift has released new tracks “from the vault,” called “vault tracks,” which are songs she wrote for the original album that were never released. She has released six vault tracks for Fearless (Taylor’s Version), nine for Red (Taylor’s Version), and six for Speak Now (Taylor’s Version).

Speak Now (Taylor’s Version)

Swift is three album rereleases away from owning all her masters. She writes, “Artists should own their own work for so many reasons. But the most screamingly obvious one is that the artist is the only one who really knows that body of work.” So if you want to support Taylor Swift in her journey as an artist to own her art, make sure you stream Taylor’s Version!

-Lam T.

Literary References in Taylor Swift Songs

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Taylor Swift is undoubtedly a spectacular songwriter and an outstanding singer, but what if she wasn’t? In Vogue’s 73 question interview, Taylor states that if she were a teacher, she would teach English. It’s no surprise that this is the subject Swift would choose, because she’s referenced many literary classics in her songs. Here are some of them:

Romeo & Juliet: It would be hard not to know this one, unless you’re living under a rock of course! in Swift’s song “Love Story” from her sophomore Grammy winning album Fearless, the song follows a romance similarly to that of Romeo and Juliet’s. However, Swift ends the song with a happy ending, allowing the two lovers to get married. The song, Swift said to the Los Angeles Times, was inspired by Romeo & Juliet, and Swift states that “I was going through a situation like that where I could relate.” Though her inspiration from Shakespeare, Swift was able to release a chart topping and timeless hit which peaked at #4 on the Billboard Hot 100.

The Scarlet Letter: Swift references this novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne in two of her songs, one of them being “Love Story” once again and the other being “New Romantics”, a track on the deluxe version of Swift’s fifth and Grammy winning album 1989. In “Love Story”, Swift describes her romance as a scarlet letter because of the fact that it is kept secret in shame with the lyric “Cause you were Romeo, I was a scarlet letter.” In “New Romantics”, which peaked on Billboard”s Alternative Streaming Songs at #5, Swift sings “We show off our different scarlet letters, Trust me, mine is better.” Using the scarlet letter as a symbol of one’s problems, Swift explores the mindset that many people have where they believe that their issues are worse than everyone else’s. So the use of this novel in Swift’s two songs interestingly contrasts one another, as in one, the scarlet letter is a symbol of shame, and the other a symbol of resilience and proud struggles. This interestingly fits the novel’s depiction of the letter “A”, which is at first a shameful symbol which represented adultery, but then was later a symbol of the protagonist’s, Hester’s, strength and ability to endure all the pain she went through. Hawthorne’s novel provided a framework for Swift’s ideas, as she states in an interview, “I was a big fan of a fairy tales growing up, and you’ll see a lot of references to like Romeo and Juliet and The Scarlet Letter, and that’s from my reading.”

The Great Gatsby: Swift makes references to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel in two of her songs, one being from “happiness” , Swift’s 7th track in her 9th album Evermore, and the other being “This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things”, Swift’s 13th track on her 6th album, Reputation. In “happiness”, Swift references The Great Gatsby in a lyric saying “I hope she’ll be a beautiful fool.” This parallels Daisy Buchanan’s line in the Great Gatsby where Daisy acknowledges that there is no hope for her daughter because of the fact that she is a girl and not a boy. Swift uses the line a little differently, telling her past lover that whoever loves him next is “a beautiful fool.” Swift knows that this next lover will have no luck with this man, and she uses the reference from the Great Gatsby to introduce more context into the song. As for “This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things”, the ode to Fitzgerald’s novel comes in the first verse, as Swift says “Feeling so Gatsby for that whole year,” while describing an extravagant party scene which she hosts just as Gatsby did. This song explores a very similar theme to the Great Gatsby, both being about how being kind to others makes them skeptical about you. In the novel, when Jay Gatsby throws parties for his guests, generously gifts them expensive things, and is willingly kind to them, they do not seem to appreciate him but rather just speculate about his past and make offensive assumptions about him. Swift, who tried her best to be generous with others, let her friends come on stage with her on tour as a nice gesture, threw parties for them, and got them gifts. However, many of her friends turned their backs on her, and when discussing the song, Swift states “It’s about when people take nice things for granted. Like friendship, or trusting people, or being open or whatever. Letting people in on your life, trusting people, respect – those are all really nice things.”

Taylor Swift is clearly a well read singer and songwriter, as these are just three of many literary references in her 100+ songs. Some more of these include:

Rebecca: “tolerate it” “no body, no crime”

A Tale of Two Cities: “Getaway Car”

Alice in Wonderland: “Wonderland”

The Road Not Taken: “illicit affairs”

Jane Eyre: “invisible string” “mad woman”

All’s Well That Ends Well: “Lover”

-Chan T.