Of course, it’s also a lot of fun to listen to music! It can make you want to get up out of your seat and dance, and it can help you pass the time when you’re driving or taking the subway to work.
Just turning on the radio is one way to listen, but if you want to get the most out of the tunes you listen to, there are things you can do to make listening to music even better.
Get the Right Pair of Headphones
Listening to music through the speakers of your car or phone is completely different than listening to music through a state-of-the-art sound system which can transform your desired space into a robust and innovative sound experience. However, not even that can compare to listening to music through the right pair of headphones.
Skip the earbuds and go straight for the earmuff headphones. It’s even better if you choose headphones with hearing protection and Bluetooth connectivity. With this type of headphones, there’s no need to mess around with an annoying cord. Because they block out sound, they can protect your hearing while providing you with an immersive experience at the same time.
Shut Down Your Other Senses
One of the best things about wearing headphones is the fact that they can block out other noises when you’re trying to listen to music, but it’s not just extraneous noises that you should control if you want to enhance your experience. You should find ways to limit your other senses as well.
For example, if you close your eyes, listening is enhanced, and you’ll understand more. That’s true when you’re talking to another person, but it’s also true when you’re listening to music. You’re more likely to understand the lyrics, and you’re more likely to notice notes, instruments, and musical flow that you never noticed before, even if you have heard the song many times before.
Not only should you try to limit your vision, you should limit your other senses too! Lay or sit quietly in a dark room and avoid perfume and candles to get the most out of your experience.
Research the Song
A lot goes into writing a song. Do you know what inspired your favorite songs? Researching them can provide you with a new sense of appreciation.
For example, did you know the Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” was inspired by a drawing done by John Lennon’s son, while “Dude Looks Like a Lady” by Aerosmith was inspired by the mistaken identity of Vince Neil from Mötley Crüe?
Don’t forget about looking up the lyrics to your favorite songs! Digging into the lyrics can potentially change your life. Even if you aren’t listening to that kind of song, you’ll likely discover a phrase or instrumentation that you never noticed while you were listening to the same song casually.
Learn How to Play an Instrument
Learning how to play an instrument comes with many benefits, but it can affect how you listen to music too. As you learn how to play, you’ll start to see music through a musician’s eyes, which can make for a very different kind of listening experience.
Learning how to play an instrument can open you up to different kinds of music too. If you’re learning the trumpet, you may discover jazz, learning how to play the clarinet may make classical music more appealing to you, while learning how to play the guitar may expose you to greats you may not have heard of before, like Steve Vai or Stevie Ray Vaughan.
Listen to Music With Others
Listening to music while you’re alone provides you with a completely different experience, but listening with others can enhance your listening experience too. The key is to pay attention to the music being played.
It’s not enough to turn on some background music at a party. Instead, bring some tunes to share with a friend over pizza or a glass of wine, and ask them to bring a few of their favorite tunes. Talk about what you like or know about the songs you are sharing. You just may find a new appreciation for a type of music that you never thought much about before.
Listening to music is always an enjoyable experience, but you can make it even better when you find new ways to listen to both new and old favorites!
Most artists have to remind themselves that creativity comes in waves. For Porter Robinson, capturing that spark once felt like an insurmountable task – touted as the wunderkind of the EDM scene at age 18, the Atlanta-born DJ and producer’s meteoric rise to international stardom was followed by an intense period of depression and creative drought, where he struggled to overcome feelings of self-doubt and questioned whether he’d ever make music again. As hinted by the title of his 2014 Astralwerks debut, Worlds, Robinson was starting to inject more fantastical and atmospheric elements into his music, but suddenly that universe felt punishingly empty. A few years later, he launched a side project under the alias Virtual Self, exploring different corners of electronic music and finding almost as much popularity as his solo work.
With a Grammy nomination for his 2017 track ‘Ghost Voices’, things were looking up, and in early 2020 Robinson returned with what would be the first in a series of singles leading up to the release of his sophomore album, Nurture. “So tell me how it felt/ When you walked on water/ Did you get your wish?/ Floating to the surface/ Quicker than you sank,” he sings on that track, an alien voice forcing him to confront his deepest insecurities. The rest of the singles – ‘Something Comforting’, ‘Look at the Sky’, ‘Mirror’, and ‘Musician’ – offered ample proof of the producer’s newfound inspiration, channelling the imaginative spirit of his debut while reaching for a sound both irresistibly catchy and strikingly intimate. If these songs were any indication, Nurture was going to be packed with bangers – and while they do indeed stand as the most memorable, blissful highlights on the 1-hour LP, the project takes on a new shape when experienced from front to back.
What elevates the album is the way Robinson accents these soaring sing-along moments with instrumental pieces that are less reminiscent of Japanese culture and video game soundtracks than Bon Iver’s 22, A Million, from the stunning piano riff and string arrangements on ‘Wind Tempos’ to the more fragmented and anxious ‘dullscythe’. The album’s progression doesn’t so much mirror the highs and lows of success as it does the pure rush of experimentation and discovery, like stepping into the outside world for the first time. It’s in this exploratory environment, bustling with colour and possibility, that the more conventional compositions truly come to life. Even if the songwriting is obviously indebted to Robinson’s influences and occasionally hinges on mawkish, he pulls it off with such sincerity and childlike wonder that each sentiment and melody feels utterly new and exciting. On ‘do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do’, his processed vocals climb up the C major scale over a chirpy, playful instrumental and what sounds like field recordings of kids in nature; “There’s too much I want to say, so,” an older voice explains, letting the music work its ancient magic.
Nurture is clearly an artistic leap from Robinson’s previous material – it’s more cohesive and ambitious as well as personal, avoiding the use of guest vocalists (with the exception of the climactic ‘Unfold’, a collaboration with Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs) to unlock the full potential of his own voice, pitch-shifted to the point where fans were initially shocked to find that it wasn’t a female singer. Using Vocaloid, Robinson has found the perfect range of tones that allow him to bring out the humanity in his voice, imbuing the songs with a sense of quiet optimism while alternately serving as a vessel for his negative thoughts. Whether carrying a burst of creative ecstasy on ‘Musician’ or relaying an inner battle on ‘Mirror’, there’s a sense that the different versions of himself aren’t separate entities but end up blending into one, a fascinating way of portraying the divided self.
But in pushing his own sound forward, Robinson is also challenging the conventions of the genre from which it emerged. Beyond the self-imposed rule of “no supersaws no 808 subs no classic breakbeats,” he places more emphasis on the album’s lyrics, making their pronounced sentimentality feel like not just a push against the occasional hollowness of EDM but a genuine attempt at capturing the overwhelming intensity as well as the darkness that lurks beneath each rush. The album’s tonal fluctuations are a brilliant reflection of that restless mental state: its infectious choruses and pyrotechnic synths sweep you up in a tide of euphoria, while its ambient, minimalist passages pull you back down, gently floating in a stream of incoherent thoughts and disembodied memories.
Like much of the album, two of Nurture‘s most poignant tracks shoulder the weight of new emotions – ‘Mother’, about growing up and the changing nature of parent-child relationships, and ‘Sweet Time’, about falling in love so hard you experience the fear of dying for the first time – but they’re also sonically its weakest cuts, unable to fully evoke their depth and immensity. Yet Robinson’s vision is so bright and kaleidoscopic, so raw and unpretentious in its expression of both joy and sadness, that any slight misstep isn’t enough to ruin its sense of direction or focus; it’s still a magnificent, life-affirming journey throughout. While the album sometimes ventures into wonderfully strange, abstract territory, its most heartfelt moment demonstrates Robinson’s ability to distil complex emotions into the purest form of love: on the indie folk piece ‘Blossom’, he pictures a life of happiness for his girlfriend, vowing to “build a world where God cannot take us.”
It’s here that the heart of Nurture is laid bare. Robinson has earned a reputation for his world-building soundscapes, but everything shifts when his partner urges him not to spend so much time in his head. “I was so lost in thought,” he realizes in the middle of a walk, “But you were there living.” The simple transcendence of the moment – “you sang to me the beauty you’d been seeing” – causes him to reconsider his worldview, which seeps into the art itself. One of the album’s most compelling attributes is how it juxtaposes the artificial and the organic; Robinson frequently calls attention to that and other dualities, from the album title to the way he lays a piano melody on top of the synthetic chorus of ‘Get Your Wish’ or exposes his “real” voice at the end of ‘Unfold’. He’s described the use of sampled instruments as “more like a photograph than a painting,” but the overall effect is not so much nostalgic as it is hyperreal, like watching the beauty of the world unfold right before your eyes, leaving you awash with hope and longing. Not to build a world, but to truly see it. “I put my pictures down/ They’re not as good as the real thing,” he sings. “So be here with me.”
Roger Deakins’ cinematography perfectly captures the cold, bleak setting of Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners, the acclaimed director‘s first English-language film. The story begins when two young girls go missing under suspicious circumstances. When the police investigation drags on, Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman) decides to search for his daughter and her friend himself. Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) warns Dover against meddling, especially when Dover shows signs of physical and mental anguish.
As Dover buries himself deeper and deeper in the mystery, the word “prisoners” begins to take on more meanings. All the while, Deakins’ masterful cinematography keeps viewers captivated by the film’s quiet suspense, spurts of action, and unexpected flashes of violence. Here are thirteen of the best stills from Prisoners.
In European cities, flowers on windows are not uncommon. Bright pelargoniums or begonias delight not only the owner, but also passers-by, and at the same time, they do not take away the useful area in the house. Good soil and properly selected plants are all that is needed to create a flower garden on a windowsill.
The indisputable advantage of flower boxes on the windows is their size: the capacity is enough for using gardening skills, but it is compact enough to fit in a modest area. It is a good idea to choose flowers that will bloom for several years and will not require peculiar attention. Check special offers on perennial plants on Dutch-bulbs.com and choose several plants to arrange on your window.
Here are several tips to follow in order to successfully grow various plants:
Color spectrum
It is difficult to resist the desire to plant everything at once, but a harmonious composition will turn out only when using combined shades. Otherwise, you run the risk of getting something that looks like weeds. Red, yellow, orange, white, and bright pink flowers look best from a distance. Close up, petals of blue and purple tones, as well as rich greens, are more advantageous.
Composition
An obvious rule, which for some reason many overlook: in flower boxes on the windowsill, taller plants should be planted from the side of the window so that they do not obscure miniature specimens. Ampel flowers have the most place at the outer edge of the container.
By the way, it is generally better to be careful with tall plants: if the calculation turns out to be inaccurate, the flowers will interfere with the penetration of light into the room where it is required by house plants.
Plants
Many plants, including indoor ones, are suitable for growing in a box on an external windowsill. Annual flowers feel more than comfortable under such conditions. It is also a great place to grow herbs and even some vegetables on a modest scale.
If you have not yet decided on the plants, you can do it easier: put indoor flowers right with the pots in the box – it is possible that you will not have to invent anything else.
Substrate
You may be surprised, but you can do without earth, using a mixture of ingredients that will promote good aeration of the roots and maintain optimal moisture. Regular fertilization will stimulate root growth and prolong the flowering period.
Try mixing peat, perlite, and other ingredients that will provide nourishment and moisture to your plants. Using a mixture of vermiculite and moss will not make the box unnecessarily heavy, and the top drain can be laid out of stones to prevent moisture from evaporating too quickly.
Pot
Choosing a pot for flowers on an external window sill is perhaps the easiest task, although the range of sizes and styles is quite large. Just follow your taste and environment.
Stick to these tips and don’t hesitate to experiment and your window will attract a lot of admiring glances.
They call football ‘The Beautiful Game’. However, it isn’t just this sport that has moments of beauty to it. There are many skilled photographers out there who are capturing points in all sports that highlight the complex and graceful prowess that athletes display with each performance.
Sports photographers have the ability to forever encapsulate the things that an audience wouldn’t usually get to see. Here are some stand-out sports photographers who shine in their field.
Richard Heathcote
Making the viewer really feel like they’re at the scene, Richard Heathcote’s approach to photography is fresh and innovative. By using fascinating robotic technology, Heathcote manages to go to places where people can’t usually physically go, like alongside swimmers or boxers in the ring. This results in breath-taking images, to say the least. His photography echoes the cultural need for immediacy and immersion, and this is reflected by the different ways fans get involved with their chosen sports. Whilst not everyone can get as close to sports as Heathcote, there are other ways for fans to participate.
Betting and using a sportsbook, for example, is a great way to interact with sports as it allows you to follow a team closely and show support. If you’re wondering how to get started with barstool sportsbook, you can simply sign up and find all manner of sports, teams, and bonuses. Alternatively, even doing something like wearing your team’s football shirt or discussing analysis with fellow fans shows support and gives a feeling of greater involvement which fans fully embrace.
Stefan Wermuth
Stefan Wermuth’s work is all about subjects and people. Although this photographer doesn’t focus primarily on sports, his action shots stand out for having personality and excitement. The pictures almost become otherworldly in the way that they capture the emotion on people’s faces, as well as the electricity around them.
Although it’s taken Wermuth years to train, there are ways that people can take their first steps in learning about sports as a subject in art. Skillshare, for example, has many options in this area. If you’re wondering about ways to get involved with skillshare sports pages, there are different levels of classes with various areas of focus to get you started.
Al Bello
It’s the timing mixed with the ability to capture distinctive facial expressions that makes Al Bello’s sports photography stand out. The American photographer has a playful aspect to his work whilst also showing the seriousness of the sport he encapsulates. But it isn’t just the moments that he manages to focus on, it’s the powerful light within the image too.
With the skill that Al Bello has to bring still sports images to life, it’s almost as the viewer is at the scene alongside them. A similar experience would be doing something like listening to live events on the radio. BBC 5 Live is one of the most popular ways of following live sports. If you want to get going with BBC sports radio, then you can either listen through your TV, radio, or phone.
These three artists take photographs of some of the best moments in sports. Whether getting up close in the action or capturing expressions, they show sports in a wonderful and enticing way.
Babygirl, the Toronto-based duo of Kirsten “Kiki” Frances and Cameron “Bright” Breithaupt, make music that sits at the crossroads between Death Cab for Cutie, Alvvays, and Taylor Swift. It’s their shared admiration for artists operating both within and outside the mainstream – as well as their mutual love for Lil Wayne, whose stylings are admittedly harder to trace in their songs – that initially inspired them to write music they’ve described as “bubblegum emo,” or more simply, “pop songs with sad guitars.” Having gained traction with their debut single, ‘Overbored’, in 2016, they released two EPs, As You Wish and its 2018 follow-up Lovers Fevers, which caught the attention of Charlie Puth songwriter Jacob Kasher, who subsequently signed them to Sandlot Records.
Last week, the duo returned with the 6-track collection Losers Weepers, their strongest outing yet, along with a video for highlight ‘Million Dollar Bed’. Featuring contributions from Phoebe Bridgers collaborator Marshall Vore (Babygirl also co-produced Lauv’s Alessia Cara-featuring ‘Canada’, which was co-written by Bridgers and Vore), the EP leans more firmly on the duo’s pop influences while showcasing their artistic versatility, from the infectious ‘Easy’ to the fittingly dreamy ‘You Were in My Dream Last Night’ and the intimate ‘A Little Bit Closer’. At the core of Babygirl remains a focus on playful, melodic songwriting that’s as catchy as it is resonant.
We caught up with Babygirl for this edition of our Artist Spotlight interview series to talk about their first attempts at songwriting, Losers Weepers, being famous, and more.
I’m curious what role music played early on in your life. Cam, I read that you grew up in a very musical household, and Kiki, you started writing songs whenyouwere around nine years old.
Kiki: I was always just really drawn to it. I loved singing and performing and I loved watching people sing and perform. And yeah, I started writing pretty young, mainly just because I wanted to be a singer, and I knew that some of my favorite singers wrote their songs. I wasn’t really thinking about writing good songs, that’s for sure [laughs]. But I just started playing around and kind of mimicking things that I was hearing and trying to learn how to do it.
Cam: I think growing up with music in the family basically informed my entire identity as a person, honestly. It was everywhere, at all times, on both sides of the family. My dad did some music journalism when I was a kid, so he would get advanced copies of albums and play them around the house and we would have, like, inside scoop. So he had like, Kid A, promotional copy; Fountains of Wayne’s Welcome Interstate Managers was a big one, with ‘Stacy’s Mom’ on it, of course, we had that before it came out. So I think that was very exciting to me, the idea that we had some sort of insider thing going on with music, which probably inspired me to want to become an insider myself in music. And here I am, deep inside the belly of the beast.
Kiki: [laughs] The belly of the beast…
Did you start writing early on as well? And did you feel more pressure sharing your songs in that environment?
Cam: The earliest song I can specifically remember writing was for a school thing. Everyone at school had to write a play and we decided to make ours a musical, so me and my friends wrote this, like, terrible Sum 41 knockoff song, and I brought it to my dad to have him notate it so that one of the people who was taking piano lessons could play it on piano. So no, I was very eager to share. And then, probably around 12 or 13, I made my first full-length album, self-produced, that I sold – the school had this thing called the Entrepreneurial Fair, where all the eighth graders got to build a booth in the gym and sell their wares to the sixth and seventh graders. So, you know, something like, “I made these cupcakes,” or whatever. And mine was like, “Yeah, I have 50 copies of my debut album.” And it was really unusual music that I think disturbed a lot of people. One of my friends’ older sister, I think she was in 10th grade at the time, and I thought she was so cute –
Kiki: [laughs]
Cam: She had gotten a copy of the album, and then he showed me her texting later that day being like, “What is this weird meditation music? This sucks!” [laughter] So, I think that definitely informed my trajectory as someone trying to make music that’s gonna, like, resonate with as many people as possible, was being like, “Aw, cool older girl didn’t like my experimental music, I gotta make it a little more down the middle.”
It was probably the early exposure to Kid A.
Cam: Exactly. It was a bad approximation of Kid A by a 12-year-old boy.
So, you then met while studying at the same music program. What were some things you bonded over?
Kiki: Well, just being in an environment like that already is kind of a bonding experience because everyone that you’re there with is really obsessed with music. So, meeting on that basis I think set us up to be likely to work together at some point. But yeah, just one day we were talking about pop music and just had a really fun time talking about all the songs that we mutually admired, and that made us want to try writing together.
Cam: It’s not 100% a jazz program – they definitely touch on all corners of contemporary music, but definitely more towards the latter half. The first couple of years are super jazz intensive, so you’re hanging out all day just talking about Charlie Parker and John Coltrane, and then we start talking, it’s like, blink-182 and Taylor Swift, you know. I think it was validating – you know, you’re taking these sort of more commercial forms seriously, as they have to be taken.
Was there a reason that you gravitated more to songwriting as opposed to performing at first? How did that come later on?
Cam: I think by the time we met we both self-identified as writers.
Kiki: Yeah, and we were surrounded by so many performers that were so good at performing, and I think that I kind of started to realize that my thing that I could be really good at was writing, like, “I love performing too and I obviously want to be great at that, but what if the thing that I get really really great at is writing?”
Cam: Yeah, realizing, like, “I’m not gonna sing the highest or the loudest or do the fastest runs, but the content of what we’re singing, it can carry equal weight.”
Was there a moment where your mindset changed or you gained a bit more confidence in terms of performing?
Kiki: Totally, yeah. It’s just about getting to know yourself as an artist and accepting who you are and choosing to lean into the strengths that you have and not try to force anything that doesn’t come naturally. I mean, I really wanted to sing like Hayley Williams for a long time; I wanted to just be able to belt out these huge high loud notes, and I just kind of realized over time that that’s not my voice’s sweet spot. So I think it’s just about embracing the things about you and about your voice or your style that help you carve out who you are.
Cam: I think, especially on the performance side for us, feeling like we can embrace that we’re subdued and we don’t have to be jumping around or rocking the hardest. The live performance is a vehicle to present the songs to people who hopefully are familiar with them, and if not, present them in a way that’s going to make people want to check out the recordings. I think one of our first shows, if not our first show, everyone sang along with one of the songs, ‘Overbored’, and that was a real moment for me to feel like we wrote the song well enough that we honestly could have stopped singing and everyone would’ve sung for us. That was a really powerful moment, to be like, “The performance is about the relationship between you and people who’ve been living with the songs,” not necessarily blowing everyone’s head off with virtuosity.
Kiki: There are other bands that will do that, and thank God for that.
How did you come up with the name Babygirl?
Kiki: Babygirl was the name of an acapella girl group thing that I was in when I was in grade five. I use all that very loosely, it was just me kind of starting to write songs and then singing them with two girls at my school.
Cam: Insisting that they would –
Kiki: Yeah, insisting that they would be in my band. So I just told Cam that one day and he was like, “Oh, that’s actually a really good band name.” So it was one conversation and then we were like, “Okay.”
Cam: “Let’s start a band and use that name.”
There’s obviously this whole pattern now with indie projects having names like Soccer Mommy and Adult Mom.
Kiki: Totally, yeah, we’ve noticed that too.
Cam: Dad Sports… We should do a big tour with all of us.
Kiki: Oh my god.
Cameron: The Family Reunion Tour.
Kiki: The Family Reunion Tour [laughs]. I love it.
Cam: Mom, Dad, and Baby. We can also get Sir Babygirl.
That would be awesome. I remember seeing one of the early write-ups having to clear up any confusion between you and Sir Babygirl specifically. And I also wanted to bring this up because back then, you described your aesthetic as “bubblegum emo.” And while I think there’s still an element of that on this EP, there’s definitely a shift to a more pop-leaning sound, which maybe goes back to what Cam was saying about wanting the music to resonate with as many people as possible. First off, how do you look back on that record, and what does Losers Weepers represent for you in terms of the band’s evolution?
Kiki: Lovers Fevers for me has some really high points and some low points, and I think that Losers Weepers has fewer low points. I think with Lovers Fevers, we were still learning so much about what we wanted to sound like. There are so many songs on there that I’m obsessed with, but there are moments that I’ve learned from, that I wasn’t so sure about. Going into Losers Weepers, I felt more sure of what I didn’t want to do and there was more clarity of what we did want to do. And I think Losers Weepers definitely leans more pop, but then also, a song like ‘Today Just Isn’t My Day’ is a bit more of an outlier in that sense. We’re always going to do both, because we love pop music, but our main goal is just to have writing that feels compelling and genuine to us. And however we dress it up, at the end of the day, we’re really just caring about that melody and lyric.
Cam: But I definitely think sonically, it’s just a narrowing down – like you were saying, realizing what we don’t want to do. Listening to Lovers Fevers, ‘Soft’ was definitely a touchstone moment on that project of us learning how to make electronic drums fit in with our sound, and that sort of opened the door for songs like ‘Easy’, or for the first half of ‘You Were in My Dream Last Night’ to sound the way that they did, so I think it’s seeing the things that really worked and leaning into those.
Could you share some personal highlights or memories from the recording process?
Kiki: One funny moment was when we were recording the vocals for ‘You Were In My Dream Last Night’. We actually went to my mom’s house – she was out of town, and we recorded the vocals in my little sister’s closet because she had a bunch of clothes and stuffed animals and stuff in there, so it was actually a really absorptive environment, which is really good for recording vocals. So I remember just sitting on the floor of my little sister’s closet and recording this song that we’ve been working on for years and it was just kind of a funny weird moment to be in an environment that was just so adorable.
Cam: One that sticks out to me – I don’t know if it’s necessarily a good memory, but it was a learning experience – was when we were producing ‘Nevermind’. We’re working with Marshall Vore in his studio – it ended up being my brother Miles, who drums on all the songs on the EP, drumming on the final version, but at the time, it was Marshall. And we had this big drum solo section at the end of the song, like, 30 seconds of just going completely nuts. For the rest of the session, he had been engineering, but for this part of the session, since he was gonna be drumming, I had to engineer. And were running Pro Tools, I’m a Logic user, I was not familiar with the environment, and I was accidentally deleting takes as I was recording new ones; I was overwriting them. So he played this amazing drum solo ten times over, gave us all these options, just went nuts on the drums, came in all sweating, and he was like, “Alright, let’s hear what I did.” And it was all gone except for the most recent one. So I think that was just a learning experience for me to slow down and take inventory of what I’m doing while I’m engineering, especially if it’s a new environment, because… [laughs]
Kiki: You might not be recording.
Cam: You only get one first take and then it’s gone, especially with improvisatory elements like that.
That must have felt horrible.
Cam: I get a pit in my stomach just telling this story.
You mentioned Marshall Vore – I was going to ask you about the different collaborators you worked with on this EP. What was that process of opening up your songwriting to other people like?
Cam: We had been co-writing for other artists for a while already, so I think we started doing that and had a lot of fun with the process and we’re like, “There’s no reason we can’t now apply this to our thing just because of some ‘We’re an indie band’ authenticity thing, like let’s just do whatever is gonna get us the coolest songs.”
Kiki: Yeah, we try not to have an ego about that kind of thing. There are parts of Losers Weepers, some of my favorite moments, where it was just us writing and producing, so we’re never going to stop doing that, but I think that we’re also never going to stop getting in the room with other people and seeing what happens.
What do you think makes your dynamic unique?
Cam: Willing to be meticulous, thorough, even sometimes to the point of it slowing us down. Which I think is part of the benefit of when we co-write. We feel like, “Alright, there’s people here, we can’t sit here and hum and haw over this one line all day.” But when it’s just us, we have the privilege of patience –
Kiki: Or the insanity.
Cam: [laughs]
Kiki: I think something that happens a lot for us is, when it comes to Babygirl music, we have kind of the same radar of when something clicks; we both feel it, and no one else can really understand that in the exact same way.
Cam: It just happens to be our shared sensibility. Sometimes it’s a good thing when we have each other to bounce off of in a co-writing situation to be able to go, “You know what, everyone else in the room thinks this line sucks but we believe in it, so we’re gonna stick with it.” And it’s important for us to sort of hone that with just the two of us so that we can make sure we always have that shared understanding of what Babygirl as a band would or wouldn’t say.
I wanted to ask you about ‘Million Dollar Bed’, which deals with the idea of fame and success in the context of a relationship. Is being famous something that you often find yourselves thinking about?
Kiki: I wouldn’t say it’s something that I think about often. I think that we want our music to be heard on a level where fame would be a result of that, but it’s not… I really value just being able to, like, go for a walk, go to the grocery store, all those things. So the thought of real, actual fame happening to me seems pretty horrible [laughs]. But I also really want our songs to exist in the world in a really meaningful way. It’s kind of a complicated thing. I think there are some people that have a sweet spot, and I would really love to be in that sweet spot, where maybe sometimes someone says, “Hey, I really like that song of yours,” and I go, “Oh, that’s really nice, thanks,” but I’m not getting, like, harassed. I think there are some people that are successful musicians but aren’t necessarily dealing with some of the worst aspects. [Looks at Cam] I don’t know, what do you think about fame?
Cam: [sighs] I’ve definitely always wanted to be famous since I was a little kid. And I think part of that song is reckoning with what that would actually look like and maybe understanding that it wouldn’t solve everything. But it’s easy to idealize what that would look like from a distance as a kid.
Kiki: Oh yeah, when I was a kid I want to be famous, for sure.
Cam: Now I definitely think of it more in the terms you’re talking about, which is, it would be a really meaningful validation of the work that we’re doing, artistically, because it would mean a lot of people like it. And it would be a really useful vehicle to share new stuff.
Kiki: Unless we got famous for them hating it.
Cam: Yeah, sometimes you can get famous for being the worst thing on the planet.
Kiki: [laughs] That would suck.
This makes me think of Radiohead again, you know, because it nearly destroyed them and then they made Kid A.
Cam: I could definitely see us taking that path.
What feeling do you get when you see the reaction your music has been getting from listeners?
Kiki: Oh, it’s great. It’s so amazing now that there are ways for us to see in almost real time where people are listening to the music and what playlists we’re being put in.
Cam: Having people reach out and say like, “Hey, this song is me and my partner’s love song,” that’s super meaningful. Also, it can sound kind of dry, like, the streaming analytics stuff, but when you think about, if you could time travel back to the 80s or 90s and tell people, “Every time someone makes a mixtape, a cassette with your song on it, you’re gonna know what the name of the mixtape was.” That’s incredibly romantic! That we can go to Spotify and see someone’s thing that says ‘Rainy Day Mood’ and our song is on there, you know, that used to just be sharpied onto a $1 cassette that the artists would never have a way of knowing about. So I feel like it’s a really intimate relationship with the fans, where you really get to see how has this become a part of people’s lives in a way that maybe people weren’t always able to do.
With that in mind, what are your ambitions now that the EP is out?
Cam: Getting famous!
Kiki: [laughs] Yeah, exactly. Uh, the debut album, our first album. We’ve started – I’m sure it’s going to take us a bit of time.
Cam: Yeah, for me, creatively, I want us to make the best body of work we’ve ever made – most cohesive, highest bar for the songs, all killer no filler, you know. I think our ambition is mostly towards quality and authenticity at this point.
Kiki: And having a good time. It’s been a bummer of a year and hopefully shit’s gonna start opening back up and we can all maybe start to live a little bit again.
Cam: Yeah, that’s definitely the other ambition for the band, is just touring. Really seeing the world and meeting people who are listening to our music, you know, smelling their sweat and all that.
Going on that family tour…
Kiki: Going on that family tour, yeah. Let’s make it happen.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
These days, is a movie even a proper movie if it is not part of a franchise?
From Marvel to Tomb Raider, James Bond to Jason Bourne, characters and complete universes are being turned not into a two-hour film, but TV series, video games and sprawling epics set across three, five or in the case of the Marvel Universe, 23 films, 169 video games and 22 TV series. Approximately.
It is fair to say there is plenty of mileage in a good franchise, and it does not just apply to the world of comic books either. Across all manner of genres, finding a good franchise is a route to financial success, although perhaps not always critical acclaim. That is even the case in the horror genre, where a popular antagonist can help carry a single slasher film into several sequels, video games and other manners of digital media.
So with that in mind, here are five horror franchises that have spread throughout pop culture, and given fans some delight at the same time.
Saw
Saw is a relatively new horror franchise, one of the few from the modern world of cinema that has created a character that interests cinemagoers and video game fans alike. The story of John Kramer, known as Jigsaw, started in 2004 with his series of clever traps capturing audiences worldwide. From a budget of around $1.2m (£860,000), Box Office Mojo reports it ended up taking more than $100m (£71.8m) worldwide. That success has seen it spawn a further eight films, as well as two video game releases, neither of which lived up to the franchise’s early success.
Halloween
John Carpenter’s Halloween was the catalyst for the slasher genre of movie, a film held up by many as the father of them all. Telling the story of Michael Myers, it meanders through 12 different movies spanning 43 years. The original saw Myers stalking and killing teenage babysitters on Halloween night, starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Pleasence. A 1983 Atari game did use the Halloween branding, but you could not play as Myers, although you could unlock him as a playable character in Call of Duty Ghosts.
A Nightmare on Elm Street
The slasher genre was already a big success when Wes Craven entered the fray in 1984 with a Nightmare on Elm Street. The monstrous Freddy Krueger became an overnight success, perhaps as much because of his distinctive appearance and razor gloves as anything. Eight further films followed, but like any successful franchise that was only the start. Krueger featured as the antagonist in novels adapted from the films, comic books and even a TV series called Freddy’s Nightmares. There was even a video game released on Nintendo, and Krueger even featured as a playable character on fight simulator Mortal Kombat.
Gremlins
Gremlins was the first really good comedy horror film, a genre which has since developed. Described as horror fantasy, it told the story of a young man who received a Mogwai as a pet, which later spawned the villainous and murderous Gremlins of the title. It had a relatively big budget at the time, $11m (£7.9m), but made more than $200m (£144m) worldwide. Oddly for a horror movie, the film not only spawned a sequel but a range of action figures, trading cards and a 2019 Christmas collectable featuring Gremlins singing! There were video games too, the last of which was Gremlins: Unleashed! On the Gameboy Colour, although you can find them featured on mobile devices right now. There is a slot title on Gala Bingo based on the original 1984 film, and bearing the same name: Gremlins, and if you wish you can find them in the Lego Batman Movie and as part of a specially released pack for Lego Dimensions. A third film, titled Gremlins 3, is expected if the animated HBO series Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai, is a success this year.
Friday 13th
The story of Jason Vorhees was not the first slasher story to hit the big screen, it probably was not even the best, but for some reason, the hockey mask-wearing villain has captured the imagination of many around the world. He was not even the antagonist in the first film, but from 1981 onwards he has been terrifying and delighting in equal measure. Such was the character’s appeal he spawned a crossover film with A Nightmare on Elm Street, namely Freddie v Jason in 2003, as well books, merchandise and the excellent 2016 game Friday the 13th: The Game. The fact more than 16,000 backers helped get the game off the ground, 36 years after the first film was released, shows the strength in the Friday 13th franchise.
So, you’ve decided to clear out your wardrobe, but have you ever wondered what happens to your clothes after you donate them? Is it all sustainable fashion?
Many people first think to donate their old clothes to charity shops; with roughly 11,200 charity shops in the UK, charity shops are readily accessible. The donated clothes are sorted, cleaned, and sold to raise money for charity. Some charity shops such as Oxfam sell their products online, especially more desirable items such as vintage pieces and wedding dresses.
Yet, charity shops are often given clothes in unsalable condition, which they sell by the kilo to sorting firms where they sort the clothes for their next stage of life.
Sorting Plant
The clothes arriving at the sorting plant come from a wide range of sources such as charity shops, door to door collections and textile banks, with some sorting facilities seeing around 100,000 garments a day.
The clothing is then sorted by hand into categories such as condition, garment type and colour and then packed into bales. The best quality clothes are kept for re-sale, and damaged clothes and waste are sent to recycling plants or incinerated for landfills.
Exported
Many people assume their donated clothing will stay in the UK. However, over half of the UK’s donated clothing ends up abroad in Africa and Eastern Europe. Wrap estimates that around 60% of second-hand clothing is exported abroad to be sold, compared to 32% of clothing sold in UK charity shops.
Clothing (also known as Mitumba) is sold at markets worldwide, serving as cheap, quality clothing to buyers. However, many of the clothes exported are simply sent abroad to be recycled or put in a landfill, causing social, economic, and cultural problems for the receiving countries.
Recycling
The fabric being recycled is separated into colours and fabric type. Labels and fastenings are removed and then broken down into fibres and processed into a thread to be made into new materials.
Cotton and natural fabrics may also be recycled into industrial wipers and filling materials. Wrap estimates that only around 3% of the UK’s clothes are recycled, believed to be caused by several factors including cost, accessibility to facilities, difficulty in recycling fabrics with mixed blends and un-reliable source trains.
Landfill
Unfortunately, around 350,000 tons of clothing is sent to the landfill each year, with the majority still wearable. Today, many of our clothes are made with synthetic fibres such as polyester; it can take Non-biodegradable fabrics such as synthetics around 20-200 years to break down.
Conclusion
Your donated clothing is most likely to be enjoyed by someone else, either in the UK or abroad. Nevertheless, vast quantities of clothing are being disposed of in landfills, causing enormous environmental problems.
To help make your consumption and donation of clothing more sustainable, it’s worth considering:
Donating clothes to local charity shops
Selling your old clothes online
Keeping your clothes for longer by buying quality clothes you love
Upcycling damaged fabric into something new, such as facemasks or cleaning cloths!
Always donating your clothes so they can be sorted rather than disposing of them in the bin!
In our current moment, the music that rises to the top of culture’s echelons is that which finds enough inspiration from other genres to become more than the sum of its parts. This is certainly what American singer, songwriter, and producer Ade has attempted on his debut album, Midnight Pizza. The 10 tracks move swiftly from style to style, rarely settling in one place before urgently moving onto a fresh set of ideas.
What the album boasts in imagination, however, it lacks in cohesive arrangement. Ade’s broad sweeps of heartfelt songwriting incite feelings of pure euphoria at points, but when listened to as a collective whole, Midnight Pizza suffers from emotional whiplash. Sending its listener from the lowest rung to the highest peak, often in the same song, one can’t help but wonder whether the album could have benefitted from a policy of less is more.
Album opener, ‘The City’, is a sumptuous collection of moody synths, brought to life by Ade’s pained reverb-soaked delivery. Moving seamlessly from chord to chord, ‘The City’ paints an epic picture of cinematic scale that stands up as a bold yet unconventional opening track, thanks to the way Ade injects a strange air of finality to the piece.
Indeed, the rest of Midnight Pizza follows in much the same thematic style. Each song is executed with a clear sonic vision in mind, resulting in an emotional landscape that is vast and personal in isolation. But when considered in the wider context of the album, there is a somewhat disjointed feel. There are, however, moments of consistently bright adventurism from Ade. The ironically anti-club club track, ‘Another Weekend’, is infectious right from the start, falling somewhere between Darwin Deez and Disclosure. ‘Feel A Thing’ provides a mysterious yet frenetic dimension to the album, brimming with claustrophobic breaks and chest-bursting synths. Meanwhile, ‘Happy Birthday’ is a gorgeous shot of nostalgia, sensitively arranged and intuitively produced to ignite feelings of intense warmth.
The clear peak of the album, though, comes in the second to last song. ‘Moving Slow’ is a warm and endearing cut, with the moving arrangement of strings and keys playing the perfect host to Ade’s witty lyricism. “Scatterbrain/ Will you ever calibrate?” he asks in the opening line, neatly combining images of the analogue and the digital to create an effect both pleasing and contradictory. It’s here that the fruits of Ade’s labours bear their greatest reward; the pureness of his sensitive songwriting is striking throughout, but with just enough well-chosen lyrics, he builds a tension that draws our ears further in.
For all the inventive songwriting here, Midnight Pizza ends on a somewhat tentative and unsure note. The eponymous track is a slow-moving 80s-style ballad to messy nights out, but rather than grand and gothic, it plays out as somewhat necessary and constituent. A continually shapeshifting record, Ade’s debut is hard to pin down. Somewhere within the ven diagram of pop, indie, and dance is perhaps its most natural home, but come the end of the LP, you wish that his concoctions were a little simpler.
Sandra Bullock stars as Dr. Ryan Stone, an engineer working in space, in this sci-fi thriller directed by Alfonso Cuarón. The intense filming process involved Bullock spending hours every day in isolation, much like her character does in the film. When their space shuttle is hit by flying debris, Stone and her commander Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) are sent flying through space.
The only two survivors, they must come up with a way to get in touch with Mission Control and return to Earth. While isolated in space, Stone ponders the things that make a person human, and what she has left that ties her to her own humanity. In this way, much of the film is intimate, though it is punctuated with intense action sequences and gorgeous shots of Earth as it orbits just out of Stone’s reach.
The film won numerous awards for its sound, editing, visual effects, and cinematography, including an Academy Award for Best Cinematography. Isolating as it is, the story is delivered in such a way that viewers can identify with Stone and her journey from the comfort of their homes.
