#abarryorchestraplaylist

[barryorchestra]

barryorchestra presents...2020: A Playlist - #58.

#58. “Everyday Life” by Coldplay

20 years after their classic debut album, and few detours into pop, EDM, as well as art rock, Coldplay find themselves on their 8th album without a smash hit single (although the Max Martin produced “Orphans” is certainly a worthy candidate), and without the cultural relevance that they carried on previous album rollouts. They are certainly capable of writing the anthemic hits we’ve known them for, but this album shies away from that for the majority of its running time. Instead, the focus is on social issues like gun violence and political unrest. If you listen to this album, you’re definitely going to come away feeling the band’s yearning for unity, and their willingness to confront uncomfortable subject matter. The album never gets preachy, but we do get some explicit references to spirituality and religion ("Broken” is an original gospel tune). In spite of that, the religious references are not too overwhelming for listeners who may not ascribe to a particular faith. There’s so much about this album that is heartbreaking (”Daddy” in particular, a somber ballad from the perspective of an immigrant child being separated from his parents at the border, brings tears to my eyes), while also maintaining a sense of joy and optimism. The title track brings things home, and message-wise, echoes the sentiment of the classic R.E.M song “Everybody Hurts”. From the build of the strings, to the soaring chorus, to Chris Martin’s soft repetition of “Hallelujah” in the song’s closing, I’m finding this is just as anthemic as their previous work, but the distractions and the escapism of their recent pop experiments are stripped away. All that’s left is the desire to bring people from different walks of life and cultures together and provide a space for healing.

[barryorchestra]

barryorchestra presents 2020: a playlist - #29.

#29. "MAGA? (featuring Angela Rye)" - PJ Morton

Most people don't know that Maroon 5 has a black member in it, and that man is the keyboardist/vocalist PJ Morton. He joined the band full time right after their "Moves Like Jagger" days (which is ironically when they went full power pop and ditched the majority of their early soul influences), but to his credit he has been racking up an impressive catalog of neo-soul, R&B, and gospel records as a solo artist and a producer. His album "PAUL" consists of chemistry rich collaborations with other soulful vocalists and finds him trying to redefine him from his previous releases by presenting his most honest version of himself. In the song "MAGA?" he nails it, pouring out his heart out about the present state of politics in the United States. This is the response to the Make America Great Again movement brought on by the 45th U.S. President Donald Trump and other conservative pundits from a black man's point of view. PJ Morton connects the ongoing movement and culture ignited by the Trump campaign to the ongoing unjust murder of citizens by police for no reason other than racial profiling, and also racial injustice. He asks the question "When was America great and for who?" and even brings on legislative advocate Angela Rye who further drives the point home on the outro of the song. I know that there's a completely different world that exists where people laugh and mock songs like this, but trust, the sentiment behind it comes from a very real place. Kudos for PJ Morton for not holding back his feelings and using his platform to give a perspective on issues that affect him deeply on a personal level.

[barryorchestra]

barryorchestra presents...2020: A Playlist - #31.

#31. "I Need $$$" - Jessica Nicole Brown

Jessica Nicole Brown is an independent artist that resides in Chattanooga, Tennessee. How did I find out about her you ask? The power of social media, of course! A friend of mine was sharing some of her music online, and me being the naturally curious person that I am decided to give a try. I was surprised to find her sound to be a refreshing acoustic approach to R&B. Sure she's still developing her sound and her voice as a songwriter, and doesn't even have a proper album out. But her warm vocals married with the earnest vulnerability she shares in the stories about her personal life and self growth scratch a certain itch for me that is rarely found in the mainstream (in spite of us existing in the relatable pop star era). She captures the essence of an artist that is just beginning to realize her worth but still wrestles with the question of "Can I really make money doing something that I love? Is this it?" Every creative goes through this phase, and many never make it past this barrier. I can relate to this on a personal level, and as much as I hope for my own progression, I'm hoping that Jessica doesn't give up on her passion, but continues to grow and progress as an artist.

[barryorchestra]

barryorchestra presents...2020: A Playlist - #32.

#32. “Born Without A Heart” by Faouzia

The thing about a pop singer with a big voice is that they can be given almost any kind of material and it’s still going to sound amazing. Faouzia is a 20 year old Moroccan-Canadian singer who I stumbled upon and immediately had to hear everything she’s sung on (which isn’t much at present) off of the strength of her voice. The soaring textures of vibrato, her ability to sink into her lower register and still come back up and nail whistle notes blows my mind. I can only blame the current music scene that doesn’t value actual pop music for her not being an A-list vocalist yet, but as she continues to drop collaborative singles, people are taking notice. Her live acoustic takes and covers sound even better as the polished studio songs she’s cut, which is often a rarity. 

“Born Without A Heart” strikes a particular nerve for me as it speaks on numbing out in order to deal with trauma, but having a hard time softening up when it’s time to. In this case, she’s in a relationship and has been told that she’s cold and heartless. She wants to love and recognizes that she’s flawed, but she also knows she didn’t get this way on her own. Having been on the receiving end of such commentary, I understand every bit of the conflict this dilemma presents. A solution isn’t presented, but maybe that’s not the goal of this song. I think, perhaps it’s the expression and desire to be seen as a real human being with flaws, rather than a reprehensible person worthy of being demonized. After all, isn’t that what we all want?

[barryorchestra]

barryorchestra presents...2020: A Playlist - #33.

#33. “PRACTICE” by DaBaby

As much as I love hip hop and rap music, I don’t keep my ‘ears to the streets’. I like to hear artists when they’ve found their sound and matured a bit. Also, I’m getting older. I used to listen to way more obnoxious and ridiculous things on a regular basis in my 20s, and now I’m at a point where it’s still fun, but I gotta leave the club setting after a while because it just doesn’t resonate like it used to. However, in the past couple years I can’t think of another character on the scene who has been more entertaining than DaBaby. By combining his relentless flow and seamless mixing of vocal takes one after another, he creates the feel of him literally devouring the beats he raps on within seconds of the song’s beginning. The level of work ethic and commitment to approaching every facet of his life as subject matter for his music is impressive. If he loses a family member, if he’s reflecting on his life, or steps out to party...it’s all going to be used as content for a song. Between March 2019 and November 2020, DaBaby dropped 4 albums, with each single becoming as relentlessly popular as his flow. “ROCKSTAR” was his global smash, and also a record that he repurposed as a protest anthem during the police brutality protests of the past summer. However, there’s something about “PRACTICE” that grabbed my attention. It’s a 2 minute song, that stomps through your speakers with 808 drums and carefully selected high hats. For the majority of it, he’s staking his claim as being one of the best rappers out and acknowledging he’s on a whole different level of visibility than he was a year prior. His blunt wittiness even extends to him questioning whether he should stop using the N word in his music since his audience now consists of more white people before dismissing the idea entirely.

This is 2 minutes of audible IDGAF energy that I didn’t know I needed.

P.S: The title of this song references a rant from professional NBA player Allen Iverson that I didn’t catch until now since I’m completely ignorant when it comes to sports.

[barryorchestra]

barryorchestra presents...2020: A Playlist - #35.

#35. “Lucky Me” by Big Sean

Big Sean effectively joined the scene when his debut album dropped 10 years ago and I was not impressed. Aside from the witty line or two, most of his lyrics made me cringe, and his flow was not impressive, etc. I only moderately paid attention to his career over the years in between then and now because there was just very little that was interesting, let alone compelling about him. Fast forward to 2020, and I had to walk all of that back, and when I say all of it, I mean ALL. “Detroit 2″ was an excellent album in terms of flow, delivery, content, production, pacing, sequencing, and pretty much any other metric you can measure a hip hop album by. I loved this record. “Lucky Me” is the second track on the album, and it embodies the victory lap, the sermon, personal struggles, and some keen advice on staying focused on your goals. The track gets off to a slow start as Sean talks about his personal life, getting into break ups, failures, and even being diagnosed with a heart disease at 19 years old. The slow and lumbering beat we started out with cuts out in the middle and transitions into an epic trap banger with intense energy. Sean casually switches his flow to match that energy and hits a Eminem worthy double time streak that doesn’t let up much for the duration of the song. All I want to know is, where has this Sean been?! If you can’t keep up with fast cadences, you’re probably going to get lost on the second half of this track, but Sean isn’t just rapping fast without saying anything. He’s still giving out just as many witty bars and personal anecdotes as he was in the beginning of the song. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Sean rap with the clarity of focus and message as he does on this record. It’s a great deal of fun, but there’s nuggets of truth for the youth that are listening, and on top of sharpening up his technical skills as a rapper, that makes all the difference for me.

[barryorchestra]

barryorchestra presents...2020: A Playlist - #40.

#40. “Enemies” by Terror Jr

Terror Jr is an indie pop band that I’ve followed and admired for the past few years for their ability to make quirky, catchy pop songs that are as ridiculous and socially aware all at the same time. While I don’t come to their music for the social commentary, it makes their tracks bite just a little bit more than their peers. The glitchy and auto-tuned electronic sounds of their first EPs have slowly unraveled to full fledged ballads, urgent raps, and production mirroring the experimental flavors of SOPHIE on their recent releases. They’ve touched on topics like agnostic atheism, body positivity, and homophobia without derailing the momentum of a zany dance pop song. It’s a refreshing take on the bombast of what the pop scene has been, with a meta twist.

“Enemies” finds the band on a smooth synthpop groove, while the lead singer contrasts the negative effects of social media, former president Donald J. Trump (in the lyric, “there’s a shitty person that we’ve all been worshipping”), and societal expectations of women with befriending and sleeping with an enemy of hers. This conflation with things that don’t seem to go together, but end up working well as metaphors is a common theme for much of the band’s songwriting. What I appreciate the most about this band is their ability to continue to reinvent their sound, and their commitment to having something worthwhile to say, while having an insane amount of fun doing it. There were one of the last concerts I got to see before the pandemic hit, and they brought that same wild energy that comes through on the records to the stage.

[barryorchestra]

barryorchestra presents...2020: A Playlist - #42.

#42. “I Can’t Breathe” by H.E.R.

Gabriella Wilson has been perfecting her musical skills since she was a child, but didn’t breakthrough into the mainstream until 2016, when she began releasing mixtapes to the internet without her real name or any pictures of herself. Instead, she went by the stage name H.E.R. (which means Having Everything Revealed). Her original motivation to keeping her identity a secret was so that listeners could focus on the music, the emotion, and the stories she was telling, rather than her appearance, clothes, or who she was dating at the time. The strategy paid off well as her music picked up enough traction to get recognition at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards. Whether she’s pouring her heart out vocally, shredding on the guitar, or behind the keys of a piano, she has proven herself to be one of the most versatile R&B artists out in recent years. This eclectic nature comes through in her songwriting as well. She is perfectly capable of writing a ballad, or a hip-hop banger for the radio, but I find her most compelling material to be when she speaks on the social issues of the times.

“I Can’t Breathe” is a blues/spoken word tune that targets police brutality and systematic racism without pulling any punches. After composing a strong melodic chorus, and presenting her audience with verses that ask biting questions about the role of policing towards people of color, she takes things a step further. She breaks the song down and does an extended spoken word verse that gets in your face. Expressing anger and frustration at the murder of black people at the hands of police, white supremacy, and the hypocrisy of Christians justifying the situation while at the same time claiming all men are created equal in the eyes of God. While there is definitely an edge to her delivery that might make some listeners uncomfortable, she brings home the point that injustice has been happening in front of our eyes, and will continue if nothing changes from this point onward. The death of George Floyd ignited a fire across the world. It’s a shame to think that it might have been another statistic we would’ve glossed over if we hadn’t been living through a global pandemic at the time. H.E.R. is begging us to confront the issue, echoing the cries of black and brown people across the nation of the United States and the world over. 

We are tired.