Author: Kyle Batra

Avicii

For my final blog, I wanted to talk about the recently deceased artist Avicii. Tim Bergling, known by his stage name Avicii was a Swedish DJ and artist who began writing music when he was 18. He has had many number one song singles and top albums in his short, 10-year career and he has totally redefined what it means to be a DJ and producer. Sadly Avicii had a lot of health problems hand had to retire from touring a few years ago and just passed away at the age of 28.

Avicii had released a six-song EP late 2017.

I am honored to be able to say that I was able to go to one of his concerts before he retired, and it was one of the most fun days of my life. I was with my best friend and my dad, and I couldn’t help but dance and sing along. The atmosphere at the event was spectacular, and Avicii’s music is some of my favorite.

Avicii has written so many standout songs that are lyrically meaningful and enjoyable to listen to, and I just wanted to share my appreciation in this last blog post.

 

 

 

Although Avicii has passed away, his music will live on forever in everyone that listens to it.

Thank you, Tim.

Owl City – Cinematic

You might know the musician Owl City from his hit single “Fireflies” off his freshman record album Ocean Eyes back in 2009, or maybe you know him from his collaboration with Carly Rae Jepsen in the song “Good Time”. But not a lot of people have actually listened to a lot of the Owl City discography, which I think is a shame since he has produced so much good music. Owl City is one of my top five favorite artists, so I wanted to talk about his upcoming concept album “Cinematic” releasing on June 1st.

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Adam Young is the name of the musician who goes by the name Owl City. His music is fairly poppy but doesn’t fit into just that genre. The majority of his songs electronic based, featuring lots of synths and beat pads which Adam sings over, although there have been some guitar oriented songs with rock and country influences. Most of his songs are upbeat, although many are emotional and tell stories. Young has been making music way before his first album released with a label, he had produced multiple projects and albums before which ended up getting him the deal. Some albums that I would recommend form Adam’s early career include Owl City’s Maybe I’m Dreaming and the album An Airplane Carried Me to Bed by Sky Sailing (a different name Young went by).

While half of the new album Cinematic has not yet been released, nine songs have already been featured in three different EPs called reels to build up to the album release. As you might be able to tell from the title, but the album is movie themed and is in a sense, a documentary of Adam’s life. This project is nothing like anything he has done before, but from the released songs, it already sounds great. In my opinion, the coolest part of it is how Adam integrating past sounds and musicals styles into his new music in order to tell his stories, yet still evolving and experimenting with new sounds.

Some standout tracks that have been released so far include “Fiji Water” which talks about him signing his first record label, and “New York City” which tells the tale of Adam’s first big road trip. Both these songs have very reminiscent sythes but have a unique style which makes me want to sing along. The song The 5th of July stands out because it is focusing on Adam’s birth, which is a cool concept that I have never heard explored before. Finally, Lucid Dream experiments with a trance edm style beat that builds up to a magical chorus, this song shows how Adam has matured as an artist and expanded his sound.

Owl City has always been meaningful to me because of the beauty and magic his songs invoke, and I hope you can look forward to the release as well and share some of the positivity.

Songs About Jane

Maroon V is one of the most known pop bands across the world, with lead singer Adam Levine starring as a model and one of the head coaches of the popular show “The Voice”.

The band’s sound has changed significantly since they signed a record deal in 2001, developing into the poppy sound we can hear today in songs like Payphone, Sugar, and What Lovers Do. However, the band formed primarily as a rock and alternative band that then later into a pop music band as their popularity increased.

Their first album, Songs About Jane, is, in my opinion, their best work and features the rock elements of their music that they later lost. In fact, Songs About Jane ranks in my personal top twenty favorite albums. Don’t get me wrong, Maroon V has always had some pop music and Songs About Jane had many chill pop-rock songs, yet in their new music, they have lost their rock influences entirely to appeal to a bigger crowd. No more guitars. Their loss I guess.

Songs About Jane was still a very successful album, it was released in 2002 and became known as a sleeper hit since no one at the time knew of the band and five of the album’s 12 tracks had chart success. The album has sold over 10 million copies worldwide.

Adam Levine wrote the entire album, inspired by his relationship and breakup with his ex-girlfriend Jane (duh right?). Levine confirmed that every song on the record was written about his past “muse”.

The first song on the album, Harder To Breathe deals with the breakup and how it was an ugly end to the relationship. Yet after the relationship is over the two realize how much they had been relying on the other. The song which features a catchy guitar riff also subliminally criticizes the music industry for suffocating artists and forcing them to produce music too quickly.

This Love was the second single from the album and actually charted in 2004, almost two years after the albums release. It reached number five in the US and one in many other countries. The song, which again discusses Levine’s turbulent breakup also became the band’s first grammy award for Best Duo Vocals Performance. Levine stated in his acceptance speech that the song was written during the end of the breakup and that it was an emotionally trying time.

She Will Be Loved was another single that gained much success long after its release. It is my favorite song on the record and discusses Levine’s appreciation of his ex after they broke up, singing about the good times and how she supported him.

Sunday Morning was the song that got Maroon V their first record deal. Although it was not as successful as the previous two singles it still became very popular and was a critical success. The song has a happy beat discusses the relationship again in a positive light, mentioning the good times he had.

I hope you liked this album as much as I did!

A Shipwreck In the Sand

A Shipwreck in the Sand

A Shipwreck in the Sand was the Canadian band Silverstein’s (named after Shel Silverstein) fourth studio album released in 2009, and one of their most successful albums to date. Silverstein is a heavy band, infusing elements of rock, punk, and hardcore music to establish their own version of the “post core” genre, which many other artists have now mimicked from Silverstein’s success.

The concept alum actually tells two stories, one overlaying tale with another story in the middle, and both stories follow the same theme of betrayal and problems with the world around them. The album is divided into four logical chapters based on the storyline. The small story in the middle of the album is contained in the title track, A Shipwreck in the Sand, which describes a captain of a ship sailing for a new land and begins a new world, but when he is unsuccessful the crew stages a mutiny against him. This short is a metaphor for the entire album storyline of failure and betrayal, which depicts a failed relationship between a family. The man is sick and cannot afford health care and realizes that his wife has betrayed and is cheating on him the first chapter, in the songs: A Great Fire, Vices, and Broken Stars. In the second chapter, it displays the main character’s anger at his family and the world around him for putting him in the situation he is in, while he has not done anything to hurt anyone. This chapter called Liars, Cheaters, Thieves gets political as the character criticizes the American dream, corrupt politicians, and war for the trouble it had caused the world and the character himself. He feels hopeless and angry because it appeared like life was ending.

The next chapter, Fight Fire with Fire, describes the main character’s rash reaction to everything going on in his life, where in a fit of rage he lights his own house in the fire with his wife and child still inside. This fit of blinding rage is described in the heaviest song of the album, I am the Arsonist. However upon doing so instantly rightfully regrets his action and runs into the burning save his family, especially his daughter who was caught in the middle of the conflict. The last song on the chapter, You’re All I Have, is a song targeted at his daughter as he saves her, explaining how she is the only one who hasn’t hurt him.

The final chapter, Death and Taxes, cuts directly to the character in court for his crimes in the song We Are Not the World, where his wife calls him crazy and he loses custody of his daughter. The second verse of the song again attacks the American government for putting the character in the position he is in. The next song, A Hero Loses Everyday, tells the story of the main character the night after court. He is defeated and has given up on everything, and eventually commits suicide. Interestingly, the song makes the listener feel sad for the protagonist, even after the crime he committed. The final and best song on the record, named The End, features Canadian singer Lights. This semi-acoustic duet is a conversation between the husband and the wife, as they apologize to each other, reminisce, and admit that they will miss and love each other forever, for what that is worth.Although the main character dies in the track before, The End is the perfect ending track as it fills in the gaps of the story and incorporates thematic and stylistic choices heard earlier in the album, unifying it. The End is the final conclusion to the metaphor of betrayal on the record and the sad, chilling chorus perfectly evokes the emotions onto the listener.

This album is really interesting because the protagonist is not a good person, just a miserable one who made a rash decision based on the horrible things occurring around him. At the end where he loses, you still feel bad for him.

American Idiot

The seventh studio album by Green Day, American Idiot is a rocking, politically driven concept album about an American anti-hero, the teenager Jesus of Suburbia. This “punk rock opera” contained five extremely successful singles and discusses the generational dissent and disapproval of the current American government which had been involved with many controversial things like the Iraq war. The punk rock album’s success is not to be understated as it won best rock album at the Grammys in 2005 and inspired a successful Broadway act.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpVUc2GOdK0&t=2527s

Some important political themes on the album include criticising American politics especially President George W. Bush and how he has caused American dysfunction. Billie Joe Armstrong, the lead singer, also focuses on American warmongering throughout the record and large corporations that “destroy” small businesses. In a sense, Green Day was trying to use this character, Jesus of Suburbia, in order to demonstrate to the world what they saw was wrong with the country, in the hope to bring awareness and change. The album was inspired by other rock operas like  David Bowie‘s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars and The Wall by Pink Floyd.

The five most notable best tracks on the record include the title track American Idiot, Jesus of Suburbia, Holiday, Boulevard of Broken Dreams, and Wake Me Up When September Ends.

American Idiot, the track, criticises the American approach to the Iraq war as well as the media coverage of it and the mass perception and paranoia from the event. It is very political and establishes that America is not great by juxtaposing it with words such as f*aggot and propaganda.

Boulevard of Broken Dreams is the second single and my favorite song of the album. This song has an amazing guitar riff and discusses how the Jesus of Suburbia feels alone in the American society. How isolation and fear can split people apart, leaving them restless and without opportunity, which is what many Americans experienced at the time.

Holliday is another extremely political song of the record and criticized the Republican party for alienating groups of Americans (such as the gay community) for political gain. Armstrong later said in an interview that the song was an FU to President Bush for the “disaster” of a country he had caused.

Wake Me Up When September Ends was written by Armstrong reflecting on the death of his father when he was ten. This is the only song that doesn’t relate to Jesus of Suburbia, although the metaphor of “September” being a tough time compared to the political and social climate of America at the time, as Armstrong calls to be woken up after the pain and suffering has ended.

Finally, Jesus of Suburbia is a nine-minute song which introduces the life of the anti-hero of the same name.

A Thousand Suns

I decided to continue my trend of discussing concept albums for my passion blog this week since they have so much depth even in between songs. And what better way to continue then to discuss the most followed band on social media, Linkin Park’s, concept album released in 2010 named “A Thousand Suns”. To the everyday listener, the title of the album may not stand out, yet the astute historian will realize that the title is based on a quote from J. Robert Oppenheimer, the creator of the atomic bomb. As this title suggests, the concept album discusses war, dissension, and oppression, warning especially about the use of nuclear weapons.

This album sounds nothing like anything else that Linkin Park has done. It is a lot mellower than the eviscerating screams and guitar riffs that are present in their famous freshman release Hybrid Theory and is not pop like their newest album One More Light in 2017. Linkin Park has always experimented with their sound as they continually have evolved as a band, but their sound in A Thousand Suns stands out because it fits the story they are trying to tell. The echo effect in some of the vocals, the overlapped synths, and mixed guitars, and even the isolated piano found on the record all sounds like it is coming out of an apocalypse, yet it still sounds excellent. Iridescent, for example, was the lead song in of the transformers movies.

The story of the album which discusses the consequences of war is an important one and makes sense since Mike Shinoda, the band’s rapper and main writer is Japanese-American. He had family in Japan during WWII as well as family in internment camps in the US. Although he never experienced this himself, the albums warning is related to this conflict and gets deeply personal at times.

The beginning of the album begins with a speech from Oppenheimer discussing the devastation his invention could create, calling it “Death, the destroyer of worlds”. Next, the song Burning in the Skies discusses the fire and devastation that war can cause. The song’s perspective is from someone who has started a war a conflict but has been retaliated against and is now facing the same devastation that they had initially created. The haunting chorus calls out “So don’t apologize, I’m losing what I don’t deserve”. In between the tracks of the album, there is gunfire and people yelling for cover, continuing the theme of war. Next, songs like Robot Boy and

Iridescent talk more about the consequences of war. How it can isolate people, making them lose hope and emotions and give up. Robot Boy, in particular, is my favorite song from the album as the singer calls to the boy to “hold on”.

The album concludes with a quote from Martin Luther King Jr. calling for people to stand up to stop the cruel wars that have killed people with napalm and bombs, and the track: The Catalyst. This was the first single from the album and calls out for forgiveness for the terrible deeds that humans have done.“God save us everyone, will we burn inside the fires of a thousand suns? For the sins of hand, the sins of our tongue, the sins of our father, the sins of our young.” (A Thousand Suns). It criticizes the use of nuclear weapons as it concludes the albums’ anti-war message.

This album is one of my favorite albums ever and it relays a good message that is difficult to convey. I would recommend you check it out when you have the time!

 

Everybody – Logic

For this semester’s passion blogs, I decided to write about something completely different from last semester’s scientific blog posts. I intend to write about different music albums that I think are impactful, both to me and the community, and why they are important. The music albums will be from all genres and encompass many different themes. Some will be concept albums and some will not. I will not only be listening to the albums in full but also watching interviews with the artists on their inspirations.

The first album I that I wanted to talk about is the rapper Logic’s third studio album Everybody, not just because I have been listening to it a lot recently, but also because of its message. The album was initially named AfricAryaN before it was released, since Bobby Tarantino (Logic) was exploring topics about himself, like the fact that he was biracial. However, as he developed the concept of the album, it focused more on the social and racial injustices around him that affect everyone. So the title of the album evolved to become “Everybody” as the focus changed.

Everybody is a concept album based on Andy Weir’s short story The Egg which depicted a very futuristic explanation for God, religion, and how every person is connected. The original three-page story can be found here: http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html

An alteration of this story can be heard throughout the album in the tracks Hallelujah, Waiting Room, and AfricAryaN where famous astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson is narrating the perspective of God.

The general message of the album is an inclusive call to celebrate people’s lives instead of degrading them. That everyone is equal and loved “regardless of race, religion, color, creed, and sexual orientation” even if some people do not want to accept the fact (Take It Back).

I wanted to go into a little more detail investigating a couple of songs from the album that stood out to me and explains their meaning.

Everybody – Everybody is not only the title of the album but also the name of the second track. It is distinct because it is a powerful introductory track, not only explaining Logic’s own biracial past and the discrimination he has faced but also the powerful chorus where he calls out “Everybody people, Everybody bleed, Everybody need something, Everybody love” (Everybody). The title track effectively establishes the basic concept of the album, calling to unite every person, which later is expanded on.

Killing Spree – Killing Spree focuses on institutional discrimination and racial prejudices, where Logic discusses human social biases and prejudices where people instinctively degrade or blame a certain race or religion for problems. This is apparent in his line “All the things they wanted me to be, Is all the things that I turned out to be” where he focuses on how negative social expectations can influence a person’s life (Killing Spree). This message is mirrored in later tracks such as America. Logic also criticizes social media and people’s inseparable attachment to technology in the song and mentions people’s insecurities that stem from the technology. He analyzes how other people can judge everything you do online which is apparent in the lines “Everybody scrollin’, scrollin’, thru they life, I wish they would love me like I like they pictures”. The song stood out to me because of how deep it is as it discusses how insane our societal priorities have become where every day is measured in likes as we are engrossed in our phones.

Take It Back – Take It Back is a positive song which elaborates on Logic’s own life story which the song Everybody begins. It talks racial tensions between black and white people and his personal experiences as biracial. His mother was racist, his father was addicted to drugs and left him, and at school, he was bullied because both black and white kids didn’t accept him. It then talks about how he persevered and wants to preach equality because he has experienced hatred and prejudice from both sides. The song ends with him calling for “peace, love, and positivity” in spite of everything he has faced (Take It Back).

1-800-273-8255 – 1-800 is the radio single from the album and is by far Logic’s most popular track. But just because it is popular does not in any way demean its lyrical quality. The song investigates an individual who is suicidal and their internal feelings about how they are not loved or appreciated. The song title is actually the national suicide prevention hotline and attempts to relate to people who have faced these struggles. The song switches perspectives between someone who is suicidal calling the hotline in verse one, to the operator begging the person to stay alive in verse two. The song is fascinating because it tackles such a hard subject so effectively and calls for people to fight against their depression and anxieties and look to the positives in their life instead of the negatives. I would highly recommend watching the music video for this as well, it is extremely powerful and aids to the story.

I hope this was interesting and you as the reader were able to learn and appreciate a little more of the depth that Logic put into this album which spread a positive message of equality for everyone. I highly recommend listening to the album in full, and if you do, listen to it in order, since the order of the songs matters when listening to the full story of the concept album.

Mars

The red planet is arguably the most interesting planet to us as humans, after Earth, of course. Mars is the next planet in our solar system and its radius is almost half of Earth’s, so it is smaller. This means that Mars exerts a lot less gravity than the Earth does. Yet Mars is the planet that astronomers always set their sights on as the first planet to colonize. Why is that?

Well, Mars is interesting because it is right at the edge of the goldilocks zone. It barely has an atmosphere, but if that atmosphere was developed and there were more greenhouse gasses in it, it could have liquid water exist naturally. Yet that is a long term goal with terraforming; shorter term goals would just have people living in a massive bubble colony and underground. Mars does have ice so there is water to use there. But more importantly, Mars is our next destination because life could have existed there too, a billion years ago. Mars used to be a lot more like earth, with rivers and rain, but over time solar wind’s stripped its atmosphere so now it only has a weak shell left. But in our search to find one of life’s greatest mysteries- are we alone- we might be able to find aliens in our own solar system on Mars or a moon like Europa and Enceladus. Of course, these aliens, which might just be fossils now, would not be like us. They wouldn’t be intelligent, instead, more like bacteria and other life from the RNA world. They would be extremophiles, most likely, that could survive in extreme conditions, just like the bacteria that live in heat vents and volcanoes.Of course, this is a big maybe, but this investigation would give humans a huge insight into how rare- or abundant life is in the universe.

What other reasons are there for humans to live on Mars? First, humans have always been a species built by exploration. If we hadn’t, most of us would not be in America today. Now that we have explored the Earth, the rest of our solar system is the next step. Exploration drives innovation, NASA has created so many inventions that are used by everyone today, including commercial cell phones, GPS, and microwaves. Finally, we should go to Mars for the simple selfish reason of species preservation. Organisms evolved over time to adapt and survive, and we must do so as well. The phrase “don’t keep all of your eggs in one basket” gets thrown around a lot, but it makes sense because we never know when the next meteor is going to hit the planet, and for all we know it could create an extinction level event like the dinosaurs. Getting humans on multiple planets ensures that humans will survive.

So why Mars? Because it is there.

Stellar evolution

Stars are massive balls of hot gas (mostly hydrogen and helium) and generate light and heat using nuclear fusion. They range from about 10,000 km (white dwarfs) to supergiant stars which are over a billion km in diameter. The sun, for comparison, is Approximately 700000 km across.

Birth of stars: After the big bang released all matter and energy into the universe, stars began to form. Stars are formed from clouds which have high concentrations of gas and other matter. These clouds are also known as a nebula. Nebula can be millions of light years in diameter and clump matter together, slowly becoming denser and the birthplace of stars.

Lifespan: In general, the larger the star, the shorter its lifespan.  Most massive stars live for about 10 billion years. Our sun is 4.5 billion years old has most likely another 5 billion years of life left. Some of the smallest red dwarf stars are believed to survive for 10 trillion years (although this cannot be tested since the universe is only 13.82 billion years old)Some supergiant stars have very short lifespans ranging from a few hundred thousand years to 30 million years.

Death: At the end of a star’s life, they die; Most normal sized stars (our sun included) will expand into a larger red giant at the end of their lifespan, after using up all of their hydrogen. When our sun does this, it will swallow up mercury and venus as it expands. After it expands, it collapses into an extremely small,  yet very dense white dwarf. Over time that white dwarf cools and dims (Earth-sized).

Supernovas: After massive stars run out of hydrogen and expand, they continue to complete nuclear fusion with more massive elements. The star cannot support itself with this fusion and explodes in dramatic fashion, shooting elements across the universe. Supernovas outshine stars and are the brightest thing in the sky for a couple weeks and then darken. Beatlegeuse is an example in our sky, where a supernova will occur soon. After a supernova explosion, all that is left of the past star is a very massive center. That can either result in a neutron star or a black hole depending on the mass of the initial star.

Neutron stars are about the size of a city and rotate very fast – multiple times a second. We can detect the rotation from the magnetic poles of the stars, and with telescopes, can “hear” the pulse of the star. They are therefore called pulsars.

Black Holes: When more massive stars supernova, they become black holes. They are super massive and dense spheres that are so massive that even light cannot escape its gravitational pull. Black holes can be tiny, or also massive; it is thought that there is a black hole at the center of each galaxy, which the rest of the galaxy orbits.

Habitable Planets – What is TRAPPIST-1?

Life is precious, yet on Earth it is abundant. As it turns out, our planet is the perfect place for life to exist and thrive. We have water, a major building block of life as we know it, on our planet in its liquid form. From what biologists know about life on Earth, it needs this liquid water to survive. That is why many scientists theorize that the might have been life on Mars at one point since it used to have flowing rivers and that there might even be life on Europa, one of the four Galilean moons of Jupiter. What is so interesting about Earth, is that we fit directly in the middle orbit of our Sun’s Goldilocks zone. A Goldilocks zone is basically the orbital boundaries where water can form in its liquid state, thus making the planet a potential host of life. Mars is also at the far edge of our Sun’s Goldilocks zone because the majority of Mars’ water is frozen in ice caps or underground. Yet theoretically with a stronger atmosphere, Mars could once again harbor liquid water. Below is an image of our solar system demonstrating the goldilocks zone boundaries. 

When astronomers look into the stars and search for exoplanets, planets, not in our solar system, they have begun looking for potential planets that might just be able to harbor life. They do this through many methods such as the transit method and by solar radial velocity and from this have detected thousands of exoplanets from advanced telescopes. However, scientists have found that detecting potential life-harboring exoplanets is more difficult than it seems. First off, the majority of exoplanets are gas giants, just because they are easier to detect. These gaseous planets can be many times the size of Jupiter- our biggest planet. Next, the rocky planets detected have to have inside the star’s habitable zone- and have an atmosphere. The orbit can be determined by the planet’s period around the star, and atmosphere can be measured by light diffraction. So detecting these rocky “Super-Earths” that could have water was a fairly rare occurrence.

That was true until NASA developed new technology and sent up better telescopes to look for these specific exoplanets. A few months later, NASA had huge news- they had discovered TRAPPIST-1, a solar system with seven terrestrial planets, with three of them being in their dwarf star’s Goldilocks zone. This is a huge achievement and demonstrates how planetary systems can be common and also demonstrates how there must be life outside of Earth- if we keep finding planets that can house life as we know it, then there must be more life. Although TRAPPIST-1 is a little too far to get to (almost 40 light years) with current technology, it is an important system to study and hopefully travel to once technology gets better.