So Casually Cruel in the Name of Being Honest: A Closer Look at ‘Red (Taylor’s Version)’

Red Double

When Taylor Swift launched her unprecedented catalog re-record project this past spring with Fearless (Taylor’s Version), the three resident Swifties on the Chorus.fm staff – Craig Manning, Anna Acosta, and Garrett Lemons – dove deep to dissect the plethora of revisited songs, b-sides, and vault tracks. Seven months later, Taylor is back with part two of her backward-looking series, which means we’re back too! And while we all love Fearless, the second album Taylor has deigned to revisit – her fourth LP, 2012’s Red – holds a significantly more special place in all our hearts. At the end of 2019, when we submitted ballots for the Chorus.fm end-of-decade staff list, all three of us shared a number-one pick: Red.

So, the question becomes: Can Taylor recapture the magic of Red for three people who love it beyond all reason? We spent some (read: a lot) of time with Red (Taylor’s Version) to find the answer.

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Full Bush – “Wild Heart” (Song Premiere)

Full Bush

Today I’m excited to share the latest single, called “Wild Heart” from Philly’s Riot Grrl band, Full Bush. In this blazing single, the band is able to grasp the spirit of early Riot Grrl bands and put their unique stamp on it for today’s audiences. Kate shared this about “Wild Heart:”

Learning to embrace what sets you apart and how you can embody those parts of yourself that perhaps you were told weren’t socially acceptable for one reason or another is what ‘Wild Heart’ is all about.  I wrote it at a time when I was struggling to find answers to why I was stuck repeating habits that weren’t serving me, and beginning to do inner child and shadow work helped make sense of the cognitive dissonance I’d been experiencing. The culmination of the song’s message is to stop fighting the lies you tell yourself and instead listen to and feed the pieces of yourself that are screaming to break free and embrace the wildness of who you are without fear.

If you’re still rocking out to this song, their new EP is out on December 3rd, and pre-orders are available here.

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Interview: Snarls

Snarls

Recently I was able to chat with the band Snarls before they embarked on a comprehensive US tour supporting The Happy Fits and their label mates M.A.G.S. In this interview, we discussed what it was like recording their new EP What About Flowers? with producer Chris Walla, their direct influences in their sound, and what makes the direction they took on their new EP so exciting. What About Flowers? will be hitting all streaming services on November 12th, and different vinyl options are still available at their Bandcamp store here.

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Review: Snail Mail – Valentine

Lindsey Jordan sounds like a young woman possessed. Possessed with purpose, direction, and a more rounded out sound than what came through the speakers of the bedroom pop classic debut album, Lush. Snail Mail, which is also comprised of bassist Alex Bass and drummer Ray Brown, sounds like a band pushing the boundaries of the “bedroom pop” label, and breaking down the damn door in the same process. Jordan has been put in the same vein as other artists like Soccer Mommy, Phoebe Bridgers, with even some comparisons to Fiona Apple, yet Snail Mail has found a way to break free of these similarities and created a lush (no pun intended) and rounded out sound on Valentine.

The Ellicott City, Maryland based artist is ready to explode out of the indie rock scene, and has already collected several high album ratings for Valentine from other music publications (and rightfully so). From the initial chords on the title track as Jordan croons, “Let’s go be alone / Where no one can see us, honey / Careful in that room / Those parasitic cameras, don’t they stop to stare at you,” it’s almost as if Snail Mail is making the conscious choice to leave that “room” that trapped her in the bedroom pop label, and leave that scene far behind as Jordan establishes herself as one of the better artists in the indie pop realm. As Jordan explodes into the chorus of, “So why’d you wanna erase me, darling valentine? / You always know where to find me when you change your mind,” it becomes crystal clear that she has the songwriting chops to elevate her game at just the right time.

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Review: Sellout – Dan Ozzi

Sellout

When I last chatted with author Dan Ozzi about his book called Sellout, I asked him, “What does the word “Sellout” mean to you today?” And the author barely blinked by telling me, “Probably nothing!…And so I saw that word still out going around a lot recently, but I don’t see it as much for musicians anymore, because there’s no money in music now, right? How do you sell out?” What I wasn’t expecting from that answer was for Dan Ozzi to be completely on point with his description on the state of the music scene in this comprehensive look at eleven bands’ trajectory into dipping their toes into the major labels’ waters.

The book is carefully and thoughtfully organized into 11 succinct chapters following each of the eleven bands’ major label debuts. As you can imagine from the back cover stating the albums covered in the book, not all of these records were major label success stories. In fact, only a handful of them could be considered to be the record that put those bands on the map and would change their lives for the better (or worse). The book is incredibly entertaining, well-researched and Ozzi lives up to the hype of describing himself as “America’s Only Music Writer.”

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Interview: Right On, Kid

Right On, Kid

Recently I was able to catch up with the band Right On, Kid for an interview about their new album, Life is a Movie, as well as a music video (that feels like a movie) for the song “Stay Close.” In this feature, I asked thew band about how their touring regimen has been going, the band’s core influences, as well as what the rest of the year looks like for the band. Be sure to check out their new music video for “Stay Close” linked in this article.

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Review: PLEXXAGLASS – Where Is Your God, Knowing What You Know Now?

Welcome to the world of Plexxaglass! This brooding collection of songs found on the singer’s debut is filled with raw emotion, great vocals, and killer production as well. Where is Your God, Knowing What You Know Now? is simply put an artistic statement to the boldest degree, as the nonbinary vocalist shines all over the LP. Led by the first song, “Lilith,” produced by Mike Shinoda, it becomes crystal clear that this artist is here for the long haul. The ultra-talented vocalist sways from one song to the next with veteran poise not normally seen this early on in a career.

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Interview: Dan Ozzi

Dan Ozzi

A couple of weeks ago, I was able to schedule a Zoom interview with the extremely busy, Dan Ozzi. In this interview, we discussed his unique writing process for his new book called Sellout, some unique stories of his time working in the music industry, advice he would give to other writers, as well as his process for preparing for an interview. Be sure to check out Sellout, which is available for purchase here.

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Interview: Keep It A Secret

Keep it a Secret

Recently I was able to catch up with the band Keep It A Secret before they released their latest single, “Middle With My Thumbs Up.” In this Zoom interview, I asked each of the band members about their core influences, their dream show on what bands they think they would be best to open for, as well as some of the back story on how they became the band they are today. The band has been steadily releasing new material, and is considering an EP at some point soon.

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Review: Incubus – Morning View

It’s amazing what a little visual perspective can do for a band. While many of the 90’s Alt-Rock and nu-metal scene were sledging away in the studio, Incubus decided to create an environment most conducive to the music they wanted to create. The band decided to live in a large, spacious house in Malibu, California. This would be the last record made with bassist Alex “Dirk” Katunich, and he described in interviews that the band, “tried to do that for at least the writing portion of Make Yourself, but we didn’t have enough clout at the time. The idea was to not feel as if you were driving [somewhere] to work on a record. You could just get up and it was a natural extension of your day.” Vocalist Brandon Boyd shared that sentiment in other ways by saying, “every time we’d pull into the street we had the view of the ocean and Pacific Coast Highway. I got a big creative boner every time I’d show up to the house.” And from that, Incubus would give birth to the record now known as Morning View. If Make Yourself was an introduction to the sound that the band would start to round out their repertoire for their career, Morning View was them becoming true artists in every sense of the word.

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Interview: Keith Buckley of Every Time I Die

It’s been five long years but the new gods of Buffalo are set to return with their most complete and powerful album yet. RadicalEvery Time I Die’s ninth full-length – features 16 of the band’s most personal, vulnerable, and heaviest songs yet with a couple of new wrinkles and twists thrown in for good measure. Vocalist Keith Buckley has been to hell and back and has lived to tell it, as the veteran frontman took time out of his busy schedule to cut it up with me about sitting on the record during a pandemic, his newfound writing style, and Malignant.

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Review: Sweep Echo – Moments Before The Wind

The New Jersey based emo band called Sweep Echo is really onto something great on Moments Before the Wind, an EP that was just released and is filled with stylistic, brooding hooks and that sound that is inescapably familiar for those who grew up during the emo boom of the 00’s. Comprised of guitarist/vocalist Dan Holden, guitarist Eddie Flynn, bassist Vince Mannino, and drummer Ty Perle, Sweep Echo does a great job of putting the best parts of the genre into a three song collection filled with purpose.

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Review: Smallpools – Life in a Simulation

After countless stand-alone singles, EPs, and relentless touring, Smallpools have finally returned with their proper sophomore release called Life in a Simulation. The pop-rock band consisting of vocalist/keyboardist Sean Scanlon, drummer Beau Kuther, and guitarist/producer Mike Kamerman released their debut, Lovetap! in 2015, which seems like forever in regards to following up a popular debut. The marketing strategy for Life in a Simulation was fairly unique in that many of the singles released from the record slowly trickled out over the last year or so, including a great collaboration with Morgxn on the song “Slowdown.” While I feel the best may still be to come for Smallpools, this album definitely feels like a rebirth and a celebration of the uncertainty to the days that lie ahead.

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Review: Counting Crows – Recovering the Satellites

Few trends scream “nineties” more loudly than the “rebellion against fame” album. Nirvana made In Utero. Pearl Jam made Vitalogy. R.E.M. made Monster. Nowadays, it’s hard to imagine a rock band ever becoming famous enough in the mainstream to then justify the creation of a “rebellion against fame” album. For awhile there, though, making this type of album—usually a louder, more abrasive follow-up to a cleaner, more tasteful, massively successful predecessor—was a rock ‘n’ roll rite of passage. Few bands ever steered into the skid quite as much as Counting Crows did on Recovering the Satellites.

It’s difficult, from the vantage point of 2021’s pop music status quo, to describe how absolutely massive Counting Crows were in the mid-90s. The band’s debut, 1993’s August & Everything After, is certified seven-times platinum in the United States and has sold well north of 10 million copies worldwide. The flagship single, “Mr. Jones,” made it to number 2 on the Billboard Mainstream Top 40 chart. Ironically, “Mr. Jones” was a song about wanting to be famous; to be “big, big stars.” “When I look at the television I wanna see me/Staring right back at me,” frontman Adam Duritz sang in the song.

Be careful what you wish for, Adam.

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Interview: Michael Kamerman of Smallpools

Smallpools

Recently I was able to connect with Michael Kamerman of the pop rock band Smallpools before he and his bandmates embarked on a comprehensive U.S. headlining tour. In this interview, I asked Michael about the songwriting process evolution with his band, the material found in Smallpools sophomore record Life in a Simulation, as well as what’s he’s most looking forward to with getting back on the road. Life in a Simulation will be released this Friday on all of your favorite streaming services.

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