All I can think about this week is music.
On Saturdays, my dad would go on his run and come home with a bakmie ayam and fried wantons that I’d call Saturday Breakfast. My mum would blast The Very Best of Broadway CD while she cleaned, and I’d watch morning cartoons that I’d only mute for Christine’s bit during The Phantom of the Opera.
In cars, my dad would play cassette tapes of Michael Jackson and a mix of dad rock jams (I liked Jessie’s Girl the most). When I got my first MP3, my mum helped me download a bunch of Korean ballads and folk songs alongside whatever song was on the top 100 list that year.
I cried listening to the Dreamland album by Glass Animals after my big breakup when I was 20 - my ex had introduced me to them and that infuriated me because they were just so good.
I listened to the 2014 Hozier album to go to sleep for a good 2 years - I swear the day I watch him live might actually be my final day on Earth. (Have you SEEN that video of him performing Francesca?)
Music carries me through life, and today I wanted to do nothing but write about some of the music that I actually listened to in 2023. Some new finds, some oldies, a whole lot of gooood good good music. And it’s only a fragment of what I listened to all year!
Unreal Unearth - Hozier
The entire thing. The whole thing. It dropped a day before my birthday and I knew it was willed by the universe that it would absolutely change my life one sha-la-la at a time. My most listened to songs off the album would be these two:
How could he just ‘anyway’ us after hitting us with the most insane lyrics I’ve set my eyes and ears on all year -
These days I think I owe my life
To flowers that were left here by my mother
Ain't that like them? Gifting life to you again
This life lived mostly underground
Unknowing either sight not sound
'Til reaching up for sunlight
Just to be ripped out by the stem
Sensing only now it's dying
Drying out, then drowning blindly
Blooming forth its every colour
In the moments it has left
To share the space with simple living things
Infinitely suffering, but fighting off
Like all creation
The absence of itself
Anyway
His brain scares me, yall. Go listen to First Time for the first time, and wish you could go back in time to listen to it for the first time again. Jesus.
The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill - Ms. Lauryn Hill
Ms. Lauryn Hill was more of a later find in the year.
I’d listened to some Fugees songs before, but I genuinely can’t remember how I’d come across them. Rap or reggae was never something I intersected with a lot when I was growing up, on account of my background being an East Asian living in a South East Asian country whilst attending an international high school with a bunch of SEA and EA kids, and a sprinkling of White kids. (Not a lot of people to introduce me to the culture.)
I’m gonna be fully honest with you, I saw a bunch of beautiful Black creators on TikTok lip-syncing to Doo Wop and fell into a rabbit hole. God, are they cool.
Snow Angel - Renee Rapp
Renee Rapp and I are the same age. She is funny, potty-mouthed, grumpy and lovely and so talented it makes MY tummy hurt.
I don’t think I breathed at all during my first listen-through of the album - her emotions are so palpable, shimmering at the surface. Her lyricism made me laugh, cry, and ache inside all at once.
Also, the Tummy Hurts remix with Coco Jones is velvet to your ears.
So Much (For) Stardust - Fall Out Boy
Fall Out Boy’s come back album was a theatrical, apocalyptic, zingy disco-y mess and it was DELIGHTFUL.
Good album to put on in the car was the main verdict. What A Time to Be Alive is so fun to sing along, as is Fake Out and the title track.
How does Patrick Stump sound SO good? I have no idea, but this was a solid album that I found myself gravitating towards when I needed to zone in at work.
EPIC: The Musical - Jorge Rivera-Herrans
I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t have a single (or a dozen) musical theatre song on the list.
Meet Jorge Rivera-Herrans’ much awaited musical - EPIC.
I have so much to say about this musical, the first being that I have no words in my lexicon to describe how blown away I am at this man’s genius.
EPIC is a musical adaptation of Odysseus’s journey back home post Trojan war, structured in a way very much inspired by classic video games and anime (think ascending levels, boss battles, etc.) Every character has their own musical signature (Odysseus is represented by the guitar! Athena by the piano! Poseidon by trumpets/brass instruments! It is menacing and great!)
Central themes to the musical involves traditional literary conflicts - man vs. man, man vs. nature, man vs. self - whilst exploring the circumstances in which a man goes through a slow descent/devolvement into the conceptual ‘monster’.
But when does a comet become a meteor?
When does a candlе become a blaze?
Whеn does a man become a monster?
When does a ripple become a tidal wave?
When does the reason become the blame?
When does a man become a monster?
There is truly not much to criticise about EPIC - all the casting choices for the characters that we know of have been spot on, the background chorus has been INSANE, the production and sound mixing have been a joy to listen to.
The concept album is being released in fragments as different Sagas; as of right now there is the Troy Saga, the Cyclops Saga and the Ocean Saga out for you to have a listen to.
I also genuinely recommend that you visit Jorge’s page to deep-dive into the world of EPIC - I am simply unable to capture all the little nuances and the sheer amount of thought being put into this incredible project.
Fun fact: The Ocean Saga came out around the time the new Percy Jackson show did and I just about was frothing at the mouth, clawing at my enclosure, etc. etc.
I LOVE MUSIC.
Every year I feel melancholy and overwhelmed all at once, because there is simply too much to ‘catch up’ with in the hellscape that is the internet.
But the beauty of music is that you don’t HAVE to listen to something the moment it comes out. You fall into it when you do, in the exact moment that you can, and it is equally as monumental and beautiful as it would have been any other time.
The moment I decide to post biweekly, I think I might dedicate one of the posts to more music and film things! A real hodge podge of Things Kim Loves to Yap About!!
If you listened to any of the stuff I did, or have any recommendations for me, leave me a comment! I will always try to listen to anything and everything.