Category Archives: Zeitgeist Movement

Staff at Hello Kittys Kawaii Paradise in Tokyo pose for a photo. Photo: STR/AFP (Getty Images)

Kawaii. You hear it in anime, you hear it on TV shows, and you hear it on the streets of Japan, where the word is spoken by young and old alike. With people around the world growing up on Japanese popular culture, the word has also entered the international zeitgeist. But what does kawaii actually mean?

In Japanese, the word literally means acceptable for affection or possible to love and has been translated as meaning cute, adorable, sweet, precious, pretty, endearing, darling, and even little. Its use varies in Japanese and can refer to babies, puppies, young people, clothing, and even senior citizens. In Japanese, one might refer to ones own grandma as kawaii, even if shes not decked out in pink bows and a frilly dress.

In comparison with the word utsukushiimeaning beautiful or lovelythe word kawaii is more playful. Things can be kimokawaii (creepy cute), busukawaii (ugly cute), or erokawaii (sexy cute). Kawaii is versatile and fun, while utsukushii has the burden of beauty. Its also entered the English language. The nuance might be slightly different, but the Collins English Dictionary defines it as the following:

adjective1. denoting a Japanese artistic and cultural style that emphasizes the quality of cuteness, using bright colours and characters with a childlike appearancenoun2. (in Japanese art and culture) the quality of being lovable or cute

If you translate kawaii into English, its cute, but kawaii is much more emotional than cute, Tokyo fashion mogul Sebastian Masuda, hailed as the Godfather of Kawaii, told me over a decade ago. The clothing designer has been a central player in the contemporary kawaii fashion movement with his Harajuku clothing shop 6% Doki Doki, which launched in 1995. But contemporary kawaii culture started long before.

During the 1970s, Japan underwent a kawaii boom that seems, at times, to have never stopped. While the word was certainly used prior, it was then that kawaii became commodified at a scale like never before. Students carried bags emblazoned with Snoopy, a character still referred to as kawaii in Japanese, while Sanrio released a small coin purse covered with the now iconic epitome of kawaii, Hello Kitty. While the feline characters design might have had a whiff of Dick Brunas Miffy, the coin purse was a hit. Cute stationary was also popular, and young women wrote in round characters because they were softer and more gentle than the typical ones. Simply put, they were just cuter.

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Kawaii culture wasnt only crystallizing at that time, but also becoming big business. The 1980s were more than happy to follow suit, ushering in a plethora of cutesy idols, both male and female. Young women even started speaking in childlike tones, and anime recycled that style of speaking to mass audiences. During the 1990s and 2000s, kawaii continued its climb, with fashion becoming louder and more colorful. Yet, in Japan, the words original usage remained. It referred not only to saccharine pop idols, but also to all sorts of things, from birds to cakes, and even to the Japanese royal family.

Donuts dont need cat ears and chocolate ribbons to be kawaii, but all that certainly does help. Photo: YOSHIKAZU TSUNO/AFP (Getty Images)

Over the past several decades, contemporary Japanese culture has spread globally through video games, anime, pop music and fashion. Japanese sensibilities, minus context, filter through, bringing new ideas and words. The non-Japanese-speaking worlds encounter with kawaii is through colorful, hyper-cute fashion or art, and not through babies, puppies, and adorable grannies. The pink-pastel, covered-in-bows kawaii becomes the first definition and the default meaning. All the other meanings and uses fall by the wayside, and the word often takes on concentrated nuances. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as the word might have a more exact meaning in its borrowed state. Knowing the original usage, however, can offer perspective on the culture from which the word was imported.

Japanese, like English, has long embraced foreign words. In Japanese, foreign words have been added to the lexicon for well over a thousand years. In the 5th century, written language from China was first introduced to Japan via Korea. For hundreds of years, Portuguese, Dutch, English and German words, among others, have all worked their way into the Japanese language for a variety of reasons. Sometimes they express concepts that didnt previously exist in Japanese, and other times these loan words are just easier to say. The Japanese word shinryou kiroku (), for example, means medical record, but the much shorter, widely usedkarute from the German word karte is less of a mouthful.

Kimura U from Japan participated in the Tokyo Crazy Kawaii Paris Fair.Photo: FRED DUFOUR/AFP (Getty Images)

Other times, words might be imported to make the language more expressive. The Japanese word kakkoii is already often likened to the English word cool, but the language has also imported the English term. Having the choice to use either kakkoii or kuuru (cool) can let the speaker give different connotations. The way foreign words are incorporated into Japanese is endlessly fascinatingjust listen to Japanese music. I heard a neighborhood kid the other day here in Osaka repeatedly use the word dope ( or doopu), as in cool, in Japanese while speaking with his friends.

Likewise, English also has no shortage of loan words from loads of languages, including those from Japanese, such as bokeh, onigiri, emoji, kaizen, futon, tycoon and yes, kawaii. Languages are not static, and loan words continuously help them evolve and stay vibrant.

Thinking about the meaning of kawaii, Im reminded of how Masuda has long pushed for kawaii fashion to be an inclusive means of expression and a way to bring the world together. If I can help people recognize the kawaii spirit in others, acknowledge this inquisitiveness, then I think I can create better relationships and a better world, he previously told The Straits Times. Now, perhaps thats the true meaning of kawaii.

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The Meaning Of Kawaii - Kotaku

Landmark anniversaries of major events are a good excuse to look back and consider What Weve Learned in the intervening time. Doing so with September 11 is a dismal venture. The tragedy, which conclusively demonstrated that history had not in fact ended, ushered in a still-ongoing era of widespread paranoia; racism and Islamophobia; an ever-tightening security state; and endless invasions, raids, and other military interventions in West Asia and Africa. In the United States, we are often sternly reminded to never forget, as if that were even possible. In a harrowingly brief amount of time, starting on that Tuesday morning, the entire political and social structure of this country reoriented to revolve around this one episode. Over the 20 years since 9/11, the media has of course played a crucial role in this.

The documentary-industrial complex produces films to go along with any event as a matter of course, with the volume of titles generally corresponding to the perceived importance of each one. This is a system that aims to satisfy audiences desire to understand difficult subjects please bear in mind that this does not necessarily entail informing them well, and it of course has no obligation to produce movies that are, you know, good. Just keeping to the realm of War on Terror-related film, there have been a lot of bad Iraq War docs and a lot of bad Afghanistan invasion docs. But even accounting for the usual weight of worthwhile vs. sloppy work made on a given topic, the sheer number of spiritually vacuous and cynical films about 9/11 is intimidating.

A whole genre has sprung up around basic cable channels producing films dedicated to increasingly narrow aspects of the attacks. Want an excruciatingly detailed play-by-play of that morning? Try this doc, or this one, or this one. Want to learn about the behind-the-scenes politicking that went into the cleanup and rebuilding process after the attacks? Theres a doc for that. Want to know about the hotel at the World Trade Center that was destroyed? Theres a doc for that! The specificity can sometimes approach the absurd theres a movie about people who by chance missed being on just one of the planes used in the attack. Theres a movie about the ironworkers at Ground Zero. One of the recent 20th-anniversary films looks at the state of comedy in the wake of the attacks, of all things.

Each one of these forgettable, disposable titles feels lightweight enough on its own, but their cumulative effect has been potent, particularly since theyve been released over these last two decades as part of the wider media push for a morbid collective obsession with every aspect of the attacks. The gruesome September 11 Museum is also part of this trend. The Tribute in Light didnt start out that way, but thats what its become. The ceaseless mass destruction weve seen in Hollywood blockbusters is another manifestation of it. The pervasive message, explicit or not, is that Americans mustnt think critically that there was no context for that day beyond There are bad people out there who hate us for our freedoms, to see ourselves as under constant assault so as to justify a constant assault on our designated enemies (most of whom had nothing to do with the attack).

Against these mainstream narratives, the internet age has fostered a healthy ecosystem of oppositional films, just as its aided the rise of conspiratorial theorizing more broadly. The most famous work of the 9/11 Truther movement is of course Loose Change, a continually recut film alleging that the attacks were an elaborate false flag operation (the details shift somewhat from one version to the next). That video is a touchstone not just for trutherism but also for contemporary conspiracy theory culture. (And, oddly enough, for independent filmmaking; it was one of the first longform YouTube hits.) Another influential pillar in this genre is the Zeitgeist trilogy, in which alternative explanations for 9/11 loom large. This trend is worrisome, to be sure, but blaming DIY viral video makers for present problems around fake news is erroneous.

Culture is at best a copilot to societys directions, not a leader. The truly influential documentary work around 9/11 has always come straight from our institutions. The most widely seen films about that day were not made by any YouTube conspiracy alleger. Its the footage that played and continues to play on the news. Again and again. And again. And again. Forever. Far beyond the point of traumatizing for its audience. Having more than made sure wed never forget, this material went on to simply numb us. And then the government had a case to make that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but for some reason thats not often cited as an example of a damaging conspiracy theory. Perhaps thats because, rather than try to debunk it, the media was fully complicit in selling it.

There have been a few documentaries that have tried to work outside this paradigm. Rebirth (2011) is a simple but effective film which continually revisits a handful of people who either survived the attacks or lost loved ones that day over the course of 10 years, illuminating their healing process. This year, Spike Lee explored how New Yorkers were impacted both by 9/11 and more recently by the COVID-19 pandemic with NYC Epicenters 9/11-> 2021. Though its been marred by its own controversy around conspiracy theories, Lees eye for capturing street-level humanism remains unerring. That there are comparatively so few movies about people and so many which fixate on monumental images of pain or varying degrees of nationalism speaks to how thoroughly never forget has been twisted these past 20 years.

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20 Years After the September 11th Attacks, What Does Never Forget Mean? - Hyperallergic

The strength with which Salt-N-Pepa delivered messages on Blacks' Magic "gave a lonely Wyoming girl a blueprint for a confidence I didn't inherently possess," writes Julianne Escobedo Shepherd. Photo Illustration by Renee Klahr/NPR; Getty Images; Courtesy of Next Plateau Records hide caption

The strength with which Salt-N-Pepa delivered messages on Blacks' Magic "gave a lonely Wyoming girl a blueprint for a confidence I didn't inherently possess," writes Julianne Escobedo Shepherd.

NPR Music's Turning the Tables is a project envisioned to challenge sexist and exclusionary conversations about musical greatness. Up until now we have focused on overturning conventional, patriarchal best-of lists and histories of popular music. But this time, it's personal. For 2021, we're digging into our own relationships to the records we love, asking: How do we know as listeners when a piece of music is important to us? How do we break free of institutional pressures on our taste while still taking the lessons of history into account? What does it mean to make a truly personal canon? The essays in this series will excavate our unique relationships with the albums we love, from unimpeachable classics by major stars to subcultural gamechangers and personal revelations. Because the way that certain music comes to hold a central place in our lives isn't just a reflection of how we develop our taste, but how we come to our perspective on the world.

I don't remember the specific choreography I invented for "Expression," the first single off Salt-N-Pepa's third and nearly perfect album Blacks' Magic, but given the era '89, '90 I am certain it was big, full-bodied and probably involved the Running Man. There is no record of this, as I was a bedroom-confined tween imagining music videos on a stage of cream-colored carpet, my audience a doe-eyed Maltese Terrier my mom and I called Chip. But I know I was dancing to match the mic attack of Cheryl "Salt" James and Sandra "Pepa" Denton, who, along with their compatriot DJ Deidra "Spinderella" Roper, had blasted their way into the American consciousness a few years prior with the indelible and ubiquitous "Push It," gold doorknocker earrings and shiny spandex catsuits in tow. They were pop but they were hard, exemplifying the false equivalence between "femininity" and "softness," and putting down classic MC bluster over beats meant for the dancefloor. Or the tween bedroom floor. The patina of Blacks' Magic, and specifically the strength in which Salt-N-Pepa delivered their many messages on it, gave a lonely Mexican Wyoming girl a blueprint for a confidence I didn't inherently possess.

As a kid, I simply adored Salt-N-Pepa, superstars to the hilt: their self-certain voices, their jaunty dance moves, their bright leather bomber jackets. "Push It" was always on the radio, an ambient memory of an era that imprinted itself on my brain, but my favorite early track of theirs was the A-side, "Tramp." I first heard it in a dance class circa 1987 at the Masonic Temple in Cheyenne, in a building with a dusty burnished wood staircase which seemed glamorous enough that I believed I was being set up for a future as a child back-up dancer for Janet Jackson. (Because you are reading this, it seems fairly clear that I was not.) Contrary to my favorite album Control, though, "Tramp" and its bassline, sampled from Otis Redding and Carla Thomas but whittled way down, blew my 10-year-old brain wide open. It wasn't the first hip-hop track I ever heard that might have been Kurtis Blow's "Basketball" or something from the movie Breakin' but it's the first memory I have of the rush of hearing an avant-garde sound from what I assumed was space, mesmerizing and disorienting as I tried to perform jets and the Smurf across the floor. I wanted to hear what these women were saying, to understand the mystery of what the lyrics meant. Too young to truly comprehend a song about snaky male libido, I settled on hypnosis, fixated on their unison timbres and the unflinching chorus, a single word: TRRRAMP.

By Blacks' Magic, though, I was old enough to get it, and so it blew open my brain in a different way. The tracks hit a zeitgeist moment that not only examined the intersections of Black women's pride ("Negro Wit' an Ego," "Blacks' Magic") and predicted the sexual agency that women would increasingly demand throughout the 1990s ("Do You Want Me"), but also helped demystify the terror that was the AIDS crisis ("Let's Talk About Sex"/"Let's Talk About AIDS"). At that young age, too, the album embedded a keen sense of sexism long before I knew there was a term for it, through simple, biting lines that got me thinking about how women, especially Black women, had to prove themselves doubly: "I'm not the man, but I wear the britches" ("You Showed Me"), "Spinderella / She's not a fella but she's a pro ("Doper Than Dope"), and on "Negro Wit An Ego," a full stanza on being pulled over by the cops for driving while Black:

Behind the wheel of this car, it must be narcoticsHow else could she have got it?A brown-skinned female with two problems to correctWrong color, wrong sex

I played the cassette over and over in my bedroom, choreographing my little dances to the whole of it while absorbing its message by osmosis.

Even the creation of Blacks' Magic was an instructional blueprint for striking out on one's own path without a male appendage: By that point, Salt, Pepa and Spinderella had grown weary of producer Hurby "Luv Bug" Azor's thumb on their careers (they would later accuse him of bilking their royalties), and the ebullient "Expression" was the first song that Salt ever wrote and produced for the group. Her writing bookends the album: If "Expression" is a bold statement painting Salt-N-Pepa's inclusive, open approach to individuality, then outro "Independent" states plain their desire to break free, not just from Luv Bug but from the stereotypes put upon Black women in the waning years of the 20th century. "Independent" is largely a statement of financial self-reliance in the context of romantic relationships, but it's also hard not to read some frustration with Luv Bug in biting bars such as this one, from Salt, who had dated him:

Ya had to cross me, and now you lost meGet off me softy, I'm the boss, see?You can't disguise the lies in your eyes, you're not a heartbreakerYou're a fraud, and I'm bored, you're a fake fakerIt's too late to debate with the moneymakerAfter while, crackhead, see ya later, gator

They were a group of superstars at the precipice of full control over their futures and simultaneously, though likely not by coincidence, making their best work yet. "Expression" remains one of their most impactful tracks to me, if only for the presence of Pepa's iconic bar, which remains a kind of lifelong mantra, rolling like the cassette I had on loop: "Yes, I'm blessed, and I know who I am / I express myself on every jam / I'm not a man, but I'm in command / Hot damn, I got an all-girl band." It was a plainly spoken mission statement that wove itself through the album, in part as a retort to the harder male rappers at the time who sought to disrespect them because they were too pop, a sentiment that also comes through in the hard "Doper Than Dope," where Salt-N-Pepa owned exactly what they were. I don't quite remember how it hit me in the moment, but in later years revisiting the album, I lasered onto that bar like my life depended on it, repeating it in my mind every time a man at work tried, or tries, to undermine or harass me. I still repeat it when I need to amass the courage to speak up or fire back: Yes, I'm blessed. And I know who I am. I express myself on every jam. I'm not a man but I'm in command. Hot damn, I got an all-girl band.

Blacks' Magic became Salt-N-Pepa's second platinum album, and in retrospect, it's remarkable that so much of its character is rooted in pushing back against all sides, considering how successful the group was at the time. But the way the trio bucked their naysayers came from a deep sense of self-respect and reflected the essence of hip-hop itself: resilience in adversity.

When I say now that Salt-N-Pepa taught me the building blocks of what I would eventually recognize as feminism, I don't mean to exaggerate or deploy hyperbole for the sake of an argument. Throughout their careers, the three members have been scions of agency both in hip-hop and across the music industry, their demeanor of strong, streetwise women eventually permeating U.S. culture decades before the current, glorious explosion of famous women rappers. Leading a pack that included Queen Latifah, MC Lyte and Yo-Yo, Salt-N-Pepa cut through the bluster of the male artists of their era, peeling back the motivations of running game on a woman and expressly noting that no one had time for all that. Most mesmerizing, they comported themselves with a bold sense of self-respect, owning their sexuality but with an uncompromising stance. Later, I came to realize that Blacks' Magic shaped my own sense of individuality and self-sufficiency that being a "weird" kid in a conservative state like Wyoming could be a point of pride, and that one day I could and would move to the city that fostered Salt-N-Pepa's perspectives but also that those characteristics are better in numbers, particularly when your creative endeavor is shared in communion with your best girlfriends. Blacks' Magic's confidence and communality strikes me now as the way I relate to feminism, with an emphasis not on the individual but for the benefit of the whole the way Salt and Pepa traded bars equally, shouted out Spinderella at every opportunity and generally presented as a crew bonded by trust and belief in one another. Growing up in a Mexican-American family with three generations of matriarchs who weren't educated about feminism as an American social movement but inherently practiced its tenets on a regular basis, to me this was Blacks' Magic's most formative reinforcement: that it's stronger in numbers, works best as a collective and means you always stand up for your girls.

Julianne Escobedo Shepherd is a Xicana writer and editor and the former editor-in-chief of Jezebel. She is currently writing a book about hypermasculinity and the American West.

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Records That Changed Our Lives: Julianne Escobedo Shepherd On Salt-N-Pepa - NPR

From its very creation in 1917 when Louis Cartier made the distinct aesthetic choice of a rectangular shape, as opposed to the round watches of his generation Cartiers Tank watch has been an avant-garde piece, as it continues to be today with the newly-launched Tank Must.

Timeless, sure of itself and of the purity of its design, the Cartier Tank watch captures the zeitgeist of its time. Now, more than a century later, it has been reinvented with the Tank Must. Tank and Must, the fusion of two of the maisons icons: on one hand, Tank, essential and dandy, and on the other, Must, a name immortalised at Cartier in the 1970s that revisits the classic conventions of luxury.

I dont wear a Tank watch to tell the time. Actually, I never even wind it. I wear a Tank because it is the watch to wear!

The Must watches are part of the Maisons heritage and legend. They have withstood the test of time thanks to their instantly recognisable style, but also their excellent craftsmanship, which Cartier applies to all its creations right down to the smallest detail, says Pierre Rainero, Director of Image, Style and Heritage at Cartier.

Taking direct inspiration from the Tank Louis Cartier, the design of the Tank Must has been developed while staying faithful to the historic model. Rounded brancards, revisited dial proportions finesse is the guiding force behind this new design. Tank Must is a watch that dares to return to great classicism down to the smallest detail, with a precious pearled cabochon winding crown and the return of a traditional ardillon buckle on the leather strap version. Cartiers Design Studio has reworked the design of the new iteration with monochrome versions and an original version based on a new photovoltaic movement.

This watchmaking classic oozes sophistication on every level, from its steel strap with curved links, entirely redesigned and interchangeable, to the latest high-efficiency quartz movement.

Since the very beginning, Cartiers watchmaking ambition has been to constantly strive to improve, relying on technical progress as well as the maisons response and commitments to the environment and biodiversity. Pioneering since the invention of the first timepiece worn on the wrist with the Santos watch (1904), or the one with the folding buckle (1910), Cartier Watchmaking has always been committed to anticipating its clients needs. Whether its the QuickSwitch patent (2018), which allows straps to be interchanged at home, or the latest photovoltaic dial found on the Tank Must watch, a modern alternative with a quartz movement with no need to change the batteries, the approach is the same: improve the lives, and satisfaction, of Cartiers clients.

The challenge lies in applying a new technique to the watchs aesthetic and shape every time, finding a confluence between modernity and watchmaking tradition, a challenge and commitment crystallised by the Cartier Manufacture at La Chaux-de-Fonds. More than simply a production site, the Manufacture is a research hub, a creative and innovative laboratory that has succeeded in applying the photovoltaic principle to the Tank watchs dial, without altering its aesthetic.

It took two years for the development team to integrate the new SolarBeat movement, with a lifespan of over 16 years, into the Tank Must, the first watch to benefit from this technology.

This pioneering watch also introduces a bracelet produced in an innovative material that guarantees a high level of both quality and comfort. It is composed of around 40 percent plant matter, produced using waste from apples grown for the food industry in Switzerland, Germany and Italy.

The production procedure represents a step forward in preserving the environment by reducing our carbon footprint (six times less), saving water (up to 10 litres) and energy (up to seven megajoules, or approximately 80 smartphone charges) compared to the manufacture of a calfskin strap.

Loyal to its reputation as an avant-garde timepiece, the Tank watch hasnt quite finished telling us what it has to say. Its creativity is limitless. Once again with the Tank Must, Cartier dares to make its timepieces evolve with the times while looking towards the future.

To celebrate the launch of these new Cartier Tank interpretations in 2021, the maison is offering a complementary maintenance and repair service to any owner of this watch, regardless of the year it was created. All these creations are eligible for the Cartier Care programme, which provides access to exclusive services including, under certain conditions, extending their international guarantee for up to eight years. Furthermore, a personalisation service is available subject to technical feasibility.

For more information, visit Cartier or or the Line official account @CartierTH

This story first appeared in the September 2021 issue of Prestige Thailand.

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Tank Must: When the Iconic Cartier Tank Gets a Revamp - Prestige Online

FICTIONSeptember

Snow Country by Sebastian FaulksSet in Vienna between the first and second world wars, this companion novel to 2005s Human Traces uncovers individual stories of love and yearning at a time of historical upheaval.

The Dark Remains by William McIlvanney and Ian RankinWith his books about DC Laidlaw, the scourge of 70s gangland Glasgow, McIlvanney was a huge influence on Scottish crime fiction. When he died in 2015, he left a handwritten manuscript setting out Laidlaws first case and Scotlands leading contemporary crime novelist has finished it.

Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally RooneyA successful young writer is repulsed by the literary world and the workings of fame in Rooneys much-anticipated third novel. Alice and Eileen are best friends approaching 30, negotiating love, sex, status and purpose as the realities of the adult world bite.

Harlem Shuffle by Colson WhiteheadAfter tackling the horrors of slavery and racist reform schools in The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys, the Pulitzer winner has fun with a heist novel set in a lovingly recreated 60s Harlem, against the backdrop of the civil rights movement.

Palmares by Gayl JonesThe first novel in more than two decades by the US author first published by Toni Morrison is a myth-tinged saga set in 17th-century Brazil, where a young girl hears rumours of Palmares a haven for fugitive slaves.

The Man Who Died Twice by Richard OsmanThe Pointless presenters crime debut broke publishing records, and this sequel sees his group of elderly friends look into a murder-heist connected to Elizabeths secret service career. Osman tempers the whimsy with hard-won warmth and real darkness.

The Making of Incarnation by Tom McCarthyA scientists secret archive, the birth of big data, military research and SF movies a typically ambitious millefueille of modernity, symbolism and myth from the Booker-shortlisted author of C and Satin Island.

Bewilderment by Richard PowersFollowing his eco-epic The Overstory, Powers focuses on the story of a father and his troubled son, in mourning for his dead mother and our dying world. Its a heartfelt cry for climate awareness, with fantastical digressions to other planets and a rueful celebration of our own.

The Magician by Colm TibnHis 2004 novel The Master explored the mind of Henry James; now Tibn turns to Thomas Mann, tracing the German Nobel laureates life and work against the rise of nazism and turbulence of two world wars.

The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth OzekiBooker-shortlisted for A Tale for the Time Being in 2013, Ozeki brings a similar metafictional playfulness to this story of a 13-year-old who has lost his father but gains the ability to hear what objects are saying.

Matrix by Lauren GroffA departure for the author of contemporary marriage story Fates and Furies: this is a tale of 12th-century nuns, inspired by the poet Marie de France, who as an awkward teenager unwillingly becomes prioress in a rundown English abbey. Its a gorgeously written celebration of female desire and creativity, with a formidable heroine.

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony DoerrThe follow-up to All the Light We Cannot See ingeniously connects the 15th-century fall of Constantinople, 21st-century environmental breakdown and a future spaceship, where humanitys history and knowledge is accessed virtually. This is a dazzling epic of love, war and the joy of books one for David Mitchell fans.

Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth by Wole SoyinkaThe Nobel laureates first novel in nearly 50 years is a blackly comic indictment of political corruption and exploitation set in a version of Nigeria.

The Morning Star by Karl Ove Knausgrd, translated by Martin AitkenKnausgrd follows his epic autobiographical series My Struggle with a hefty new novel: a story of ordinary life and unknown forces, told through a group of Norwegians who are brought together by the appearance of a new and foreboding star.

Crossroads by Jonathan FranzenThe first volume in a planned trilogy about American life focuses on a midwestern family in the early 1970s, as the parents unhappy marriage and the kids adolescent transformations are set against the troubled national zeitgeist.

Burntcoat by Sarah HallA stunning novel from the author best known for her short stories, which considers what it means to be a female artist. At the end of her life, a sculptor of monumental works remembers how at the moment of national lockdown she opened herself to a new relationship.

Life Without Children by Roddy DoyleA son is barred from his mothers funeral, a nurse loses a beloved patient Written over the past year, these are 10 short stories about the isolation and connections of life during pandemic from the Irish author.

State of Terror by Hillary Rodham Clinton and Louise PennyFollowing husband Bills collaboration with James Patterson, Hillary promises to bring similar insider knowledge to her thriller debut. Written with a Canadian crime novelist friend, it explores her worst nightmare as secretary of state a series of terrorist attacks undermining the global order.

Riccardino by Andrea Camilleri, translated by Stephen SartarelliThe 28th instalment in the much-loved Sicilian detective series, first drafted in 2005 and delivered to Camilleris publishers to be held under lock and key until the authors death, is the final outing for Inspector Montalbano.

Silverview by John le CarrLe Carr left a complete manuscript when he died in 2020, now published as his 26th novel. The story of a man running a bookshop by the English seaside, a mysterious visitor, and an espionage leak, it dramatises the clash between public duty and private life at a time of moral crisis for Britain.

Oh William! by Elizabeth StroutThe Pulitzer winner returns to the heroine of My Name Is Lucy Barton, as the widowed Lucy gets back in touch with her first husband, William. She muses on their long, complicated partnership in this wise and witty portrait of childrearing, ageing and the eternal surprise of other people.

Harsh Times by Mario Vargas Llosa, translated by Adrian Nathan WestThe Nobel laureate weaves fiction and real events, as he explores the conspiracies and propaganda that drove the 1954 CIA-backed military coup in Guatemala.

The Fell by Sarah MossIn Ghost Wall and Summerwater, Moss excelled at mapping personal desires and responsibilities against the national mood. In this lockdown novel, its November 2020, and though Kate is in the middle of a two-week quarantine, she cant stand the confinement, slipping out for a moorland walk that goes horribly wrong.

The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Jennifer CroftThe long awaited appearance in English of the Nobel laureates masterwork. Set against the transformations of thought in enlightenment Europe, it is the epic story of the charismatic Jacob Frank, who arrives in a Polish village as a young Jew, and goes on to reinvent himself across countries and religions.

The Every by Dave EggersFollowing his 2013 tech satire The Circle, Eggers imagines a terrifying future: the world under one digital monopoly, controlling e-commerce, social media and search and the woman hoping to bring the company down from within. Justine Jordan

Greek Myths: A New Retelling by Charlotte HigginsA gritty and exhilarating new retelling of the ancient stories in which the female characters take centre stage.

Misfits: A Personal Manifesto by Michaela CoelThe award-winning screenwriter and actor writes about the value of misfits, the power of theatre and storytelling and the importance of saying no.

On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint by Maggie NelsonWith insight and intellectual rigour, Nelson wrestles the concept of freedom away from its contemporary political misuses and explores what it means in the context of art, sex, drugs and climate.

Chief of Staff: Notes from Downing Street by Gavin BarwellThe former aide to Theresa May promises to reveal what really went on in the corridors of power, from Brexit to Trump and the ways that government operates in a time of crisis.

The End of Bias: How We Change Our Minds by Jessica NordellA groundbreaking analysis of bias and how to fix it, by a journalist who one day sent pitches from a male name and found that they started to land.

Harlots, Whores & Hackabouts: A History of Sex for Sale by Kate ListerA brand new account of the oldest profession, by the creator of research project Whores of Yore.

Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters by Steven PinkerThe cognitive scientist rejects the popular view that the human brain is a basket of delusions and spells out the urgent need and potential for more rational behaviour and debate.

Secret Brexit Diary: A Glorious Illusion by Michel BarnierThe diary Barnier kept during the 1,600 days of Brexit negotiations promises to lift the lid on that fraught period. A clue may be in its subtitle.

Manifesto by Bernardine EvaristoDescribed as a no-holds-barred story about being true to yourself, this memoir charts Evaristos journey from broke young poet to Booker prize-winning novelist.

A Carnival of Snackery: Diaries 20032020: Volume Two by David SedarisThe second book in a collection of diaries whose first, Theft by Finding, was described by this paper as beautiful in its piquancy and minimalism.

Renegades: Born in the USA: Dreams by Barack Obama and Bruce SpringsteenObama and Springsteen discuss life, love and music, with full-colour photos and archive material.

Keisha the Sket by Jade LBThe noughties online sensation about a young south London girl is back for the first time in official print, with additional essays from Candice Carty-Williams, Caleb Femi, Aniefiok Ekpoudom and Enny.

1,000 Years of Joys and Sorrows: A Memoir by Ai Weiwei Chinese history told through the lives of artist Ai Weiwei and his poet father, Ai Qing.

The Power of Women: A Doctors Journey of Hope and Healing by Dr Denis Mukwegestory of courage and integrity, both of its doctor author and the female survivors of sexual violence whose strength he celebrates. A powerful call to arms.

Black Paper: Writing in a Dark Time by Teju ColeIn a collection of essays the celebrated author of Open City explores the ways we retain our humanity and different ways of thinking about the colour black.

Orwells Roses by Rebecca SolnitAn intellectually eclectic collection of essays in dialogue with Orwell takes in Stalins lemons, Colombias rose industry and the pleasing thought: If war has an opposite, gardens might sometimes be it.

The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David WengrowWritten over a decade, a work that promises to overturn our view of human history and make us rethink the way we live.

The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for an Endangered Planet by Jane Goodall and Douglas AbramsA lifetime of experience and wisdom combines with much-needed optimism in this guide to the climate crisis and what we can do about it.

These Precious Days by Ann PatchettA heartfelt and witty collection of essays on everything from marriage and knitting to the inevitability of death, by the Womens prize-winning novelist.

Patient 1 by Charlotte Raven and Dr Edward WildA powerful account of living with Huntingtons disease.

Both/And: A Life in Many Worlds by Huma AbedinHillary Clintons aide and adviser writes a personal and revealing account of her relationship with Clinton, her marriage to Anthony Weiner and her own action-packed life and history.

Diaries and Notebooks by Patricia HighsmithDistilled from the 8,000 pages discovered in her linen closet, this is the definitive edition of the diaries of one of our greatest modernist writers (Gore Vidal). Katy Guest

All the Names Given by Raymond AntrobusA eagerly awaited collection from the Folio prize-winner explores language, deafness, conflicting identities and the weight of history.

Winter Recipes from the Collective by Louise GlckGlcks first collection since winning the Nobel prize last year is an intimate and haunting work full of recipes for winter, when life is hard. In spring / anyone can make a fine meal.

Call Us What We Carry by Amanda GormanA new collection full of hope and healing from the young American poet who electrified the world when she read The Hill We Climb at President Bidens inauguration. JJ

Excerpt from:

Legends of the fall: the 50 biggest books of autumn 2021 | Books - The Guardian

Its back again. Love it or hate it, the Mercury Prize never fails to stimulate a bit of debate.

I dont know if lockdown generated a massively powerful burst of creative energy or something, but this years batch of Mercury Prize nominees is as strong as its ever been. These things always cause a stir over here at Louder Than War Towers, so I shouldve known the answer wouldnt be straightforward when I asked some of my fellow Warrierz who they thought should lift the glittering trophy this year.

First up was Ron Saunders to explain why Collapsed In Sunbeams by Arlo Parks should win.

They say write about what you know, so former public schoolgirl Arlo Parks has created a smart, soulful debut album articulating the fears and dreams of her fellow millennials who have seen their dreams go up in smoke during the pandemic. The delicate spoken words on the title track set out her ambition from the off, but this is a confident record full of subtle bittersweet pop gems like Hope where she casually puts down a stalkery bloke. But there is also a real edge to Green Eyes, as a young woman explores her sexuality in the face of prejudice, or Black Dog talking about depression as she observes its so cruel what your disease can do for no reason, which will resonate with many of her growing group of fans. Park cites Joni Mitchell as an influence, which comes out on the brutally honest Bluish, or in the woozy, acoustic storytelling of Caroline. It all ends with the positive Portra 400, including a short rap, as Park suggests that despite all the millennials recent traumas, they could still end up making rainbows out of something painful. Arlo Parks might not have set out to be the voice of her generation, but if the Mercury judges want to reach out to a new audience comfortable with being emotionally intelligent then they must vote for Collapsed In Sunbeams.

Now, the guvnor, John Robb, really knows his stuff. When he speaks, you listen and he was adamant that Berwyns brilliant DEMOTAPE/VEGA should win.

The Mercurys are an odd beast, getting a big media spotlight to put the full beam on what a random panel believe to be the defining moment in UK music. As ever with most mainstream media its very rock-lite, but at least its an opportunity to open up other genres of music. One of the glorious things about the UK is the sheer wealth of music wafting out of car windows, flats and headphones, and it is this diversity and mix-match of styles that we love here at LTW. Berwyn is a great example of this. The Trinidad-born singer now living in East London spent his youth in folk clubs, and his sparse and melodically rich and emotional RnB has an added potency with this flux. He has a rich and evocative voice and a mainstream charisma that could, and should, be springboarded by winning a Mercury.

I knew who Elliott Simpson would back. Having written a blinding review of Black Country, New Roads debut, For The First Time, it was evident where he was pinning his colours.

Black Country, New Roads first album was one of 2021s most anticipated albums for a lot of people, and it more than delivered on the hype. Growing out of the same scene that gave us many of the most exciting new UK groups from the past few years such as Black Midi and Squid the seven-piece band have developed a sound that is wholly their own.

For the First Times six tracks show off the bands range incredibly well. The bulk of the album is made up of long, sprawling songs that twist and change shape frequently, such as the fantastic Sunglasses, which barrels along with a menacing sense of energy, or the Balkan-tinged closer Opus, which slowly dissolves into a sad waltz. Many of the albums best songs draw their power from the balance between Isaac Woods fidgety vocals and the chaotic instrumentals surrounding them. Often, it feels as though hes having a conversation with the saxophones, guitars, violins and keyboards playing alongside him.

It all makes for a unique listen and its hard to think of anything else from this year that sounds quite like it. For the First Time is a burst of fresh, bright chaotic energy that more than deserves to win the Mercury Prize.

Paul Clarke is a sucker for that sweet soul music. And why not? So, he was solidly backing Not Your Muse by Celeste.

Its been a busy time for this American-British singer and songwriter winning the Rising Star award at the Brits; scoring an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song, offering A Little Love as the first original song to go with the high-profile John Lewis Xmas ad, and her debut album making number one. Its been a long time coming, but Not Your Muse is well worth the wait as Celeste offers an entertaining mix of total bangers and more reflective numbers fusing soul, urban and jazz. Ideal Woman has a touch of the Macy Gray about it as she makes it clear shes not taking any shit from insecure feckless men. Strange is a simply gorgeous jazz-tinged ballad that is designed to become a standard, and a perennial Radio 2 favourite, before Tonight Tonight takes the tempo up in a way one trick pony Adele could usefully learn from. The standout track is massive banger Stop This Flame, as Celeste really shows off her range, guaranteeing it will fill dance floors the world over. Beloved muses on whether a lover is really worth the effort, and Celeste adds some brass to the more optimistic Love is Back. Its been a vintage year for British soul, but Celestes sheer ambition and songwriting chops make her the pick of the bunch so she has to be a serious contender for the big prize.

Editor, Wayne Carey, isnt a guy you want to mess with. His middle name is AF for a reason. So when he says that Promises by Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra is the one, you better listen.

I think Floating Points should win the Mercury for the fact that its all that jazz but not as we know it. Its a beautiful piece of chilled out music that comes across like a classical piece of art that has the smooth sax of PharoahSanders flowing throughout the whole piece, which comprises nineparts called Movement. Mancunian Sam Shepherd certainly knows his stuff on this masterpiece of electronica that is brought to life by The London Symphony Orchestra. It shimmers, shines and floats along like a dream and you can submerge yourself into the different sounds that fill your head, especially with headphones on. It chills your brain with fantastic sounds that you pick out at every listen. There are harpsichords, wave-washed synths, and a repetitive refrain that flows throughout the whole piece which holds the whole experience together. The strings are uplifting as they go up and down in volume. Its shivers up the spine stuff and you can hear all sorts of mad sounds like creaking floorboards, whispered syllables from Sanders, emotional lifts and a euphoric soundtrack-like feel that hits your heart. The middle piece of Movement 6 is uplifting with a classical feel of skillful dramatics that could stop any hardcore punk in their steps and bring a tear to their eyes. Its a solid work of art and Sanders excels every time his lips hit that sax. You have to remember that this guy is 80 years old and played with greats like Coltrane so you get the picture of how this major force in jazz bends that sax like a close brother. Shepherd has created a classical masterpiece flecked with electronica that is far away from any of the entries picked this year by a mile. A crossover piece of mellow madness that covers psychedelia, jazz, classical and ambient. Hes clearly got a few Orb and Banco De Gaia albums in his collection let me tell you!

Theres no conflict for Jackson Longridge. For him, Conflict Of Interest by Ghetts is a shoo-in.

Well into the second decade of your career, you could easily be forgiven for slowing down and running short on ideas. Even as a leading light in your genre, there are always going to be young upstarts taking influence from you and stealing the limelight. Not Ghetts, though. Conflict Of Interest shows him on peak form.

You take the fire of the young, the power of now,thewisdom of theold / Combine all three and thats arecipe for winning, he tells us on Mozambique. It may as well be the albums mission statement. Conflict Of Interest is a triumph of storytelling, taking complex life experience and weaving it into compelling stories about difficult relationships, ADHD or fatherhood.

The richness of sound makes Conflict Of Interest an indulgent listen. Its a grime album you could crank up on your headphones for some intensive listening, as much as something you could have playing warmly in your home as life goes on around you (unless you have curious small children who tend to ask awkward questions about what the man on the stereo just said).

Theres a rich bed of sounds beneath many of the vocal lines, with piano, bass, strings and horns giving the album an extra feeling of layered depth. Cinematic is a label that has often been used since its release. Its easy to see why. Yet on tracks like car theft memoir, Hop Out you just get unfiltered Ghetts, his voice, his words and a backbeat. Stark or stylised, theres no conflict this album resonates.

Kean by name, keen by nature. Jon Kean was mustard for Hannah Peels Fir Wave.

Often melding nature and electronic music is the preserve of yoga meditation soundtracks and background musak in crystal shops. Each to their own, but the meeting of the natural and the synthesised has frequently fallen short of bringing out a realistic, rounded feeling of how powerful and challenging the great outdoors can really be.

Fir Wave by Hannah Peel has all the jagged, mercurial qualities that evoke unpredictable elements and untamed landscapes. Theres wind and wuthering, geology, forestry, the ocean. Youre always seeing the horizon and breathing the air as tracks progress from one movement to the next. You can imagine being in a Geography lesson, without the need for any words to convey what you need to know. You dont even need to do any colouring in Hannah Peels compositions arrive in technicolour.

For many reasons, it feels like an adventure. Released when life was very much dormant in early 2021 and when our experiences were mightily limited, the transformative quality of Fir Wave could take us to places wed never been and well probably never visit. Sometimes it even feels like weve ventured back in time to when vast swathes of the continents we know now were being formed.

Peel raids the rich radiophonic history of Delia Derbyshires sound archive and breathes new life into those found sounds in true homage to the pioneering spirit of such a trailblazer. Ambient-classical-electronica got its foot in the Mercury Prize door last year with Anna Meredith: one small step. Its time for the Mercury judges to take the next giant leap.

Great to see so many fantastic female artists nominated this year. Iain Keys favourite is one of those. Read why he believes Laura Mvulas Pink Noise deserves to triumph.

This should be third time is a charm for Laura. Her third album, three years in its creation and third Mercury nomination.

Pink Noise is a stunning return for the artist after she was inexplicably dropped by RCA following her Ivor Novello winning 2nd album, The Dreaming Room. Released on Atlantic Records, its steeped in mid 1980s, post-disco electro and sophisticated pop, the likes of which have rarely been heard since the likes of Jam and Lewis were producing Janet Jackson.

Laura Mvula isnt my usual thing but of all this years nominees I found hers to be the most interesting and refreshing. For those of us old enough, you will be transported back to a time of shoulder pads and wine bars (although for the record I never wore the former or frequented the latter) whilst offering Generations Y and Z an introduction to a more fun and musically innovative time.

Whilst the 80s may have been the decade that style forgot, the classically trained Mvula does her part in promoting the eras music, channelling the spirits of Prince, Whitney and Jackson throughoutwhilst mixing in current influences as well, for example Kayne on Conditional and Eilish on Got Me.

At a time when there is so much darkness and gloom Laura Mvula has delivered an uplifting album that will make you smile and make things seem a little brighter.

Audrey Golden is championing Mogwais As The Love Continues. That kind of amuses me as Audrey is our resident NYC correspondent, whilst Mogwai are near neighbours of yours truly. Im easily amused.

Its about time Mogwai was nominated for the Mercury Prize. The bands tenth album, As The Love Continues (reviewed by LTW here), carries its listeners across otherworldly spaces illuminated by the ravages of pandemic time and marred by environmental ruin. Yet collectively the songs still reveal a glimmer of hope in the form of electric sound. The first songTo The Bin My Friend, Tonight We Vacate Earthsets the tone for the record, echoing back to much of Mogwais earlier music. Alternating between excitement and fear, agitation and repose, the track is at once an enveloping soundscape that delivers a brief reprieve from the disquiet of modern life while reminding us of the impossibility of feeling fully at home anywhere. Unease is only natural these days. Yet the grace in the orchestral-like sounds of Fuck Off Money illumine the paradoxical quality of the album. In this song, the intensity builds and threatens to overwhelm by its end but nonetheless hits enchanting melodic notes. We are in another world, indeed. The force and pressure that come to a head at the close of the track are met with another shift in time and place as Ceiling Granny begins.

Across the album, ever-so-slightly cacophonous tones punctuate the warmth of the fuzzy sounds that recall analogue time. I cant help but think, listening to As The Love Continues, that the record speaks softly to the curious sadness and tension at work in The Beach Boys Feel Flows. To be sure, the sonic environment Mogwai creates feels strangely mirage like, soft blue like lanterns below. Its of the past and the future, and I wouldnt mind so much if these were the last sounds we heard on our decaying yet beautiful earth.

Our new boy from Berlin, Franz Biberkopf, is passionate about Nubya Garcias Source. Ive heard he has bet an arm and a leg on it winning. God knows what hell do if it doesnt win.

Winters are freezing here in Berlin and last winter was the worst. Try being a one-armed man in a locked down, icy metropolis, when you dont have a fixed abode or even a pair of boots that arent riddled with holes. One thing got me through the music of the wonderful Nubya Garcia.

What a force of nature. I gather there is something of a revolution going on in British jazz right now and that she is at the forefront. Last year saw the release of her debut, Source. What a collection! Im just a humble newspaper vendor, no expert, but I suppose Source is a jazz album. Yet, at the same time, its so much more. It crosses dimensions, into reggae, Latin and Afro. There are no boundaries no constricting rules in Garcias world. How liberating.

I could write an entire book about my love for this album. I adore how Garcias saxophone soars on the wings of an angel on the frenetic opener, Pace. The soulful and sublime The Message Continues is the finest melody Ive heard this year. Boundless Beings, featuring the voice of Akenya, is like being wrapped in a velvet blanket. However, the pice de rsistance, possibly the best twelve minutes of music of 2020, is the colossal title track. This, more than anything, captures the essence and the utter brilliance of Nubya Garcia. From its dubby opening, it builds dramatically through a sumptuous choir of voices and Garcias incendiary tenor, until it is hotter than an Alexanderplatz sauna.

I was going to end by saying that its jazzs turn to finally win the Mercury, but thats too patronising. Source by Nubya Garcia should win the prize because its the best album. Its what kept me going last winter.

Gordon Rutherford reviewed both SAULT releases of 2020 for Louder Than War. So, it was obvious who he was backing.

Heres a strange one. There is no doubt that SAULT should win this years Mercury Prize. It has never been so cut-and-dried. However, the album I champion here is, quite bizarrely, not the best album that SAULT released last year. I count myself lucky to have reviewed both of SAULTs releases in 2020 the seminal Untitled (Black Is) and Untitled (Rise). The former was my album of the year but, for some reason, its not nominated. No matter. Whilst Untitled (Rise) was merely the second-best album released by SAULT last year, its still the stand-out in this years Mercury shortlist.

Of course, there is the mystique. Despite the critical acclaim, very little is known of this entity. They completely shun publicity. Their album artwork doesnt carry the name SAULT or the album title anywhere. But being enigmatic isnt enough to justify winning a Mercury. No, its all about the music. Incredibly, Untitled (Rise) was their fourth new album within sixteen months. All glorious. Since its release last October, they have dropped another stone cold classic (Nine). They are prodigious.

They are also the zeitgeist. Both Untitled (Black Is) and Untitled (Rise) addressed centuries of racial prejudice like no-one else, thanks to a collection of hard-hitting, thought-provoking protest songs that force us all to question why black lives dont always matter to some people.

Untitled (Rise) is a veritable fiesta compared to the dark and portentous Untitled (Black Is). Its intelligent and beautiful. It makes you want to dance whilst forcing you to think. The Mercury judges relish throwing us curveballs with their decision. Not this year, guys. This is SAULTs year. Nothing else comes close.

Editor, Naomi Dryden-Smith, loves an anthemic tune. I guess thats why shes in charge of festivals at LTW Towers. So, who else was Naomi going to champion if not Wolf Alice.

Wolf Alice will be extremely hard to beat. Theyve pulled out all the stops with their critically acclaimed, number one album Blue Weekend (previewed by us here) without a doubt their best album so far. Taking indie shoegaze to a new level, chucking in some pretty flawless production, its a stunning album with a soaring, cinematic feel. Each song explores a different emotion and sound, dealing with themes of low self-esteem, industrial misogyny and relationships, whether with partners, friends or just yourself.

From the very outset, Wolf Alice forcibly transport you into stories and scenarios which either thrill, comfort or leave you an emotional wreck. Delicious Things, considered by some to be Wolf Alices best song to date, has surely propelled them over the parapet straight into the heart of the USA well see how they fare on their forthcoming North America tour. Personally, I cant believe that anyone who saw The Last Man On Earth premiered on Laterwith Jools Holland didnt come to a complete standstill its nothing if not exhausting and exhilarating in equal measure and, for me, the strongest song on the album possibly deserves the award all on its own.

Far from being the Ellie Rowsell show, the album successfully showcases the entire bands talents as a cohesive unit, from drummer Joel Ameys a capella harmonies to the impressive musicianship of both Joff Oddie (guitar), whether with immersive walls of sound or quieter fingerpicking, and Theo Ellis with his ever intense basslines.

A second Mercury win would see Wolf Alice equalling PJ Harveys track record, the only other artist to achieve two. For me, its a well-deserved done deal.

So, there you have it. Twelve writers, twelve different views. Now why not let us know what YOU think. And whilst you are doing that, I will pick up the teeth from the canteen floor and wipe the bloodstains from the vending machine. I knew I shouldnt have disagreed with Wayne Carey.

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The Mercury Prize 2021 - From Arlo to Alice - The Louder Than War Guide - Louder Than War

Words such as spaceman, alien, androgynous, hero, legend, demigod, herculean lord of art and culture are all synonymous bar the last few where I got carried away with David Bowie. The singular thread that links them is a notion that the Starman was cut from a different cloth. The fact of the matter is that he was indeed a freak. A freak in the most laudatory way, a creative freak, an aesthetic freak, a talent freak and in general just an otherworldly life-giving freakazoid.

This, however, also meant that it took a little while for the public to get to grips with him. Whilst his early work chocked with strange near-novelty songs like The laughing Gnome and Come And Buy My Toys indicates that the pinnacle of freakdom was a platform that had to be worked towards, theres still something so singular and original present that hints at his intergalactic potential. Nevertheless, it took Bowie a good whileto arrive at Major Tom, which goes to show that, behind even the most organic seeming revolutionaries, is a terrific amount of graft and refining.

However, whilst Space Oddity might be remembered as lift-off for his career amongst most of his fans, Bowie himself opts for a different track to champion as an early favourite. On the same second self-titled release that featured Space Oddity, Bowie declared that the nine-minute psychedelic folk song Cygnet Committee was the superior track.

In George Tremletts biography,Living on the Brink, Bowie proclaims: Its me looking at the hippie movement, saying how it started off so well but went wrong. The hippies became just like everyone else, materialistic and selfish, he said, adding that it was the best song on the album.

I wanted this track out as a single but nobody else thought it was a good idea, he toldDisc and Music Echoupon the release of the record. Well, it is a bit long I suppose. Its basically three separate points of view about the more militant section of the hippy movement. The movement was a great ideal but somethings gone wrong with it now. Im not really attacking it but pointing out that the militants have still got to be helped as people human beings even if they are going about things all the wrong way.

Bowie was not alone in celebrating the song and its zeitgeist plunging depth either; his legendaryproduction collaborator and friend, Tony Visconti, also heralded the track. Visconti declares in the novelFive Years (1969-1973): This has always been an anthem for its time. It is certainly not single material at over nine minutes long, but a popular song in the Bowie legacy. It is a passionate amalgam of everything every young person was told to believe in and then critically questioned. The future is starkly defined by the words, I want to live, and then, ultimately Live. Again, Juniors Eyes are the band joined [by] Rick Wakeman playing harpsichord and organ.

While Cygnet Committee may well exhibit Bowies glowing ability to reflect the world in a swirling artists kaleidoscope, Space Oddity also features this same knack of mixing depth with something ethereal. Although Bowie often downplays the magnitude of the scope of the song, theyre few tracks ever written that have ever incorporated so many elements. And moreover, it produced such a concise and gleaming result.

In 2003, Bowie explained the origin of the song to Bill DeMain, stating: In England, it was always presumed that it was written about the (sic) space landing because it kind of came to prominence around the same time. [] It was written because of going to see the film 2001, which I found amazing. I was out of my gourd anyway, I was very stoned when I went to see it, several times, and it was really a revelation to me. It got the song flowing.

Whether you fall on the side of Cygnet Committee or Space Oddity, what remains noteworthy is that the album that spawned them was well ahead of its time.

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The early song David Bowie thought was better than Space Oddity - Far Out Magazine

British metal legends Iron Maiden recorded their 17th studio album, Senjutsu, in early 2019, but many of its tracks Days of Future Past, Darkest Hour, The Writing on the Wall, and Hell on Earth, for instance certainly seem appropriate for 2021.

Strangely, we have one or two songs that do appear to be on the Zeitgeist here of what's going on, frontman Bruce Dickinson tells Yahoo Entertainment with a wry laugh. I think Steve [Harris, Iron Maidens primary songwriter] sometimes feels very kind of alienated by some of the things going on in what purports to be the modern world. So, the sentiment [of Hell on Earth] is very much: You know what? This kind of sucks, this place. So if I end up kicking the bucket and departing this planet, then maybe when I come back, it'll be another time, a parallel universe, and everything is going to be cool again.

Dickinson quips, Frankly it pisses me off! when asked about Iron Maiden being unable to tour during the past year and a half due to coronavirus concerns, saying, I've just done some theater shows, but it's not the same as a giant, fire-breathing monster in front of 20,000 people. He actually recently had a breakthrough case COVID-19, which forced him to postpone some of those theater shows, but he notes that because he was vaccinated, he was absolutely fine. My belief is and I stress, it's a belief that this proves that I would have been more sick if I've not taken the vaccine. I mean, I had both jabs. Everybody I know has had both jabs. And I'm quite happy about it. You know, none of us have started growing extra heads, suddenly wanting sidle up to 5G phones, or expressed a willingness to go down on Bill Gates. So, all of these things, I think it's largely a myth!

While Dickinson still feels its a personal choice whether to get vaccinated, he does honestly find it incredible that some people are still resistant [to vaccines] And I mean, the [anti-]mask thing I genuinely do not understand. But he doesnt think vaccine skeptics are politically motivated. I think they believe [conspiracy theories] because of their psychological makeup. They have a need to believe in these things. It's the same as people that are going to sit on top of a mountain every year and wait for the world to end. And the world doesn't end, but do they modify their beliefs? Actually, no. It strengthens them: Yep, we were right all along. It is definitely going to end, just not this year. The rest of the world is against us! And that's the way that some people think. It's their mentality, and you're probably not going to change that. But for the rest of us I would say, just get vaccinated. And if you do get sick, you won't get that sick. It'll just be like a mild case of the flu.

Story continues

Senjutsu is Iron Maiden's first album since 2015, the same year that Dickinson underwent seven weeks of treatment for a cancerous tumor on the back of his tongue. Fortunately, the tumor was discovered in its early stages, and Dickinson was declared cancer-free by May 2015. He says despite being a cancer survivor, he wasnt concerned that his compromised immunity would make him more susceptible to the coronavirus but he does recall that at the time of his cancer diagnosis, he encountered some medical skeptics that reminded him of the current anti-vax movement. When [doubters] found out that I was having chemo and radiotherapy, they went, Oh my God, you're not doing that! Um, what do you think I should do? Eat more cabbage? That's going to get rid of it? So, yeah, medical technology worked really well for me.

Dickinsons famously operatic voice sounds at the peak of its powers on Senjutsus epic tracks, some of which are well over 10 minutes long. While Dickinson chucklingly clarifies that he obviously would have preferred not to get tongue cancer, surprisingly, he says that the cancer not only didnt compromise his vocals, but it actually improved them in the long run.

SAINT PAUL, MN - AUGUST 26: Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden performs during the Legacy of the Beast tour at Xcel Energy Center in Saint Paul, Minnesota. (Photo: Jeff Wheeler/Star Tribune via Getty Images)

I had a three-and-a-half-centimeter [tumor] basically a golf ball living down at the base of my tongue, right at the base, he explains. So, that was sitting there for I really don't know how long by the time it got big enough to notice. But I did a whole album [2015s The Book of Souls] with that sort of sitting there. And when it went away, I guess there's a lot more space for the sound come out! Not to put too fine a point on it, but there's no more obstruction in the way, you know? So yeah, with the high notes I was like, Wow! Whoosh! There's a lot more horsepower in some of the high notes, which is interesting.

In early May [2015], I started trying to sing and it sounded absolutely terrible. I sounded like some wounded beast, Dickinson recalls of the early days of his recovery. I was just like, Oh my God!So, I waited another two or three months. I was wandering around the kitchen, waiting until everybody had gone out, and just started to give the voice a bit of a workout. I went, OK, let's have a go at the top. Dickinson then tested a few operatic lines of one of Maidens most classic songs, Run to the Hills, and suddenly all was well. I went, Oh, ooh, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. Oh my God. And then I just relaxed, because I'm not in a hurry now; I know it's all there. It's come back.

While Dickinsons voice thankfully wasnt damaged by his illness, he insists that he was never worried about possibly having to relearn how to sing or, even worse, that he might not be able to sing ever again. There's always a way you can turn things into being a positive, he says. I mean, even if the worst happened and it completely messed with my voice to the extent that it changed completely, you have to take that and go, Well, what am I? Am I just some squeaky toy that makes noises, and if I don't make those noises, then I can't be an artist anymore? Just take a look at some great singers who have very unconventional voices. I'm thinking of somebody like Leonard Cohen there's a man who, self-confessed, was like, I have like virtually no voice. But because you're such a great communicator, the content of what you do comes through your voice. You don't have to be an opera singer to do that.

So, there's ways and means, like the line in the line in Jurassic Park: Nature will always find a way.

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Video produced by Anne Lilburn, edited by Jason Fitzpatrick

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Jet Li and Aaliyah, 2000s Romeo and Juliet. Photo: Warner Bros.

On a March night 21 years ago, Hollywoods latest riff on the Hong Kong action movie Romeo Must Die was having its red carpet premiere at Westwoods Mann Village Theater. Shannon Lee, the daughter and only surviving descendant of kung fu legend Bruce Lee, was there, along with Magic Johnson in a pigeon-blue pin-striped suit, and Michael Clarke Duncan, glowing and grinning because in a few days he would attend the Oscars as a first-time nominee for his performance in The Green Mile. Babyface, Warren G, and Timbaland were in attendance too, as was Keanu Reeves, a year removed from The Matrix debut and Neos instantly iconic epiphany, I know kung fu. But center stage were two Hollywood newcomers: Chinese-born Singaporean martial-artist extraordinaire Jet Li and pop sensation Aaliyah, the nights Romeo and Juliet.

Romeo Must Die contains the blueprint of a Shakespearean text chopped and screwed into a nearly unrecognizable object. The classic tale of star-crossed lovers becomes a mobster movie spiked with racial politics and inventive ass-kicking. Its not much of a romance, to be perfectly honest, but as Han Sing and Trish ODay, Li and Aaliyah are coy and cool. Sparks seem to fly anyway. When I rewatched it two decades after its premiere, courtesy of the Netflix algorithms decision to resurface the film for me during quarantine, I traveled back in time to an era when silly, action-packed martial-arts movies rode the American mainstream.

Im a member of Romeo Must Dies target audience of the age group for whom summer vacation meant watching MTV past midnight, who had Aaliyahs sophomore album One in a Million in permanent rotation on our Walkmans. But more than that, my parents an interracial couple were martial artists, and so kung fu movies feel like home. Personally, Im surprised at the ease with which collective memory has failed Romeo Must Die, a film that captured a Zeitgeist, however imperfectly. MTV host Ananda Lewis once described it, gleefully, as a perfect marriage of East and West flying kicks, furious fights, vicious wars, and a bangin hip-hop soundtrack. It was a summary that reflected certain reductive cultural shorthands fueling Hollywood: martial arts for Asians and hip-hop for Black Americans. Nevertheless, the idea was hot: Romeo Must Die linked Oakland to Hong Kong, staging impressively choreographed fight scenes set to original early-2000s bops. But the union was hardly the result of a shotgun wedding.

Jet Li and Aaliyah at the premiere of the 2000 movie Romeo Must Die. Photo: Steve Granitz/WireImage

The history of hip-hop, borne out of the civil-rights movement, can be traced on a line parallel to the history of martial arts popularity in the West, which reached a peak when multiple Hong Kong imports debuted at No. 1 in the U.S. box office in the 1970s. Bruce Lees posthumous opus Enter the Dragon cemented the martial artists legendary status in 73; here was the rare nonwhite leading man who exuded anti-Establishment energy. While mainstream (white) audiences grew tired of the genre by mid-decade, young people of color didnt move on so easily. Soon, Blaxploitation movies like Black Belt Jones (1974) and Black Dragons Revenge (1975) presented Black martial artists like Jim Kelly fighting with incomparable swagger. In the 80s, Times Square theater owners turned to cheap packages of kung fu movies (and pornos), while Drive-In Movie, an 80s cable program, aired kung fu movies every Saturday. That program was, according to Joseph Schloss, at least partially responsible for a generations interest in martial arts: Pretty much every single hip-hop artist that Ive met from that era used to watch that show religiously. The influence of kung fu movies on hip-hop isnt exclusive to artists like Wu-Tang Clan, either: Consider how martial arts moves inform the art of breakdancing; the TV series Kung Faux, which recuts and redubs old kung fu movies; even Kendrick Lamar utilizes a moniker, Kung Fu Kenny, that throws back to hip-hops roots in shaolin.

By the 90s, following in the footsteps of Wild Style (1982), movies like Above the Rim (1994), New Jack City (1991), Boyz n the Hood (1991), Juice (1992), and Menace II Society (1993) were regularly reflecting hip-hop itself on the big screen. At the same time, Hollywood was courting talent from a thriving Hong Kong film industry. John Woo made his American debut in 1993, directing Jean-Claude Van Damme in Hard Target, and in 1995 Rumble in the Bronx became the first Jackie Chan movie to receive wide theatrical release in North America. By 1997, Michelle Yeoh was making her American debut as the first Asian Bond girl in Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), and Chow Yun-fat had nabbed the lead role as a contract killer with a conscience in Antoine Fuquas first feature, The Replacement Killers (1998). That year, Li made his American debut as the bad guy in the Joel Silverproduced Lethal Weapon 4 (1998). Then there was The Matrix, also produced by Silver, which revolutionized the Western fight scene with the help of Hong Kong choreographer and wire-stunt specialist Yuen Woo-ping.

Part of what made Hong Kong action cinema so appealing to producers like Silver was its fascination with criminal worlds and the authorities tasked with infiltrating them. Brett Ratners Rush Hour (1998) had already positioned Hong Kongstyle action alongside Black comedy, pairing Jackie Chan with beloved Friday comedian Chris Tucker. Romeo Must Die was Silvers attempt to capitalize on what had recently proved to be a bankable idea. We loved Jet, and we were trying to figure out what to do with him, explains Romeo Must Die director Andrzej Bartkowiak, who worked as the cinematographer on Lethal Weapon 4. [Joel] wanted to make a movie with mixed race [protagonists] and in the process of casting and writing the script we created a new genre the hip-hop kung fu movie.

At this point Lis English skills were nonexistent, Bartkowiak notes. We needed to pull off a story that didnt depend on language, but on the circumstances of characters whose situations were parallel, explains Eric Bernt, one of two Romeo Must Die screenwriters. A Shakespearean adaptation made sense a story like Romeo and Juliet would be well-known and could easily be updated to appeal to modern audiences. (Baz Luhrmann took a similar approach four years earlier with Romeo + Juliet, while Tim Blake Nelson would go on to make 2001s O.) The casting team turned to both Black Hollywood and Hong Kong cinema for its Capulet and Montague family stand-ins. Spike Lee regulars Delroy Lindo and Isaiah Washington were tapped as ODay patriarch Isaak and his scheming No. 2 Mac, respectively; a fresh-faced Anthony Anderson came on as comic-relief punching bag Maurice; with Russell Wong as a strapping Sing henchman and final boss named Kai, and rapper DMX, who would go on to make two more kung fu hip-hop movies with Bartkowiak and Silver, as nightclub owner, Silk. Romeo Must Die was electric in its casting of Black and Asian actors in all major roles.

The plot ran like this: Our Juliet, now Trish, and our Romeo, now Han, find common ground in a shared skepticism of their respective criminal families, both involved in a scheme to buy up properties on the Oakland waterfront. The owner of a record store in the city, Trish keeps her distance from the family business. Meanwhile Han, a former Hong Kong cop whos taken the fall for his fathers misdeeds and gone to prison, breaks out and travels to California to throw himself in the middle of it all again. When his brother, Po, is found dead, Han learns that the last person he attempted to contact was Trishs brother, Colin, which leads our protagonists to unite in search for the truth.

The first act of Romeo Must Die plays out mostly as a showcase for Li and his footwork. After a brawl in a nightclub kicks off the movie in the same way that Romeo & Juliet begins with a fight on the streets of Verona, we first meet Han in a jail cell, where he knocks out multiple guards while hanging upside down in a straitjacket, his accuracy godlike as he bounces a set of keys to his restraints directly into his hand. Li is neither ridiculously muscular nor particularly intimidating his movements have a sleek, vulpine quality that give him a solemn, devil-may-care presence, so the thugs and henchmen in Romeo Must Die underestimate him. Later, when Anthony Andersons Maurice prepares to lay out Han in an altercation taunting him as Dim Sum the antagonist is shocked when hes forced to crawl away in his boxers. In one deliciously absurd scene, Han joins a football game against a hefty group of ODay minions, who vengefully pile on their rival. But when Han gets the hang of it, he artfully brings down his opponents with a few twisting somersaults and leaping scissor-kicks.

Corey Yeun, the renowned Hong Kong director and choreographer, signed on to direct Romeos fight scenes. From the perspective of todays CGI-saturated filmmaking, Romeos special effects and stunt work seem kitschy, but its the films flagrant dismissal of realism that I find so delightful. According to Bartkowiak, it was Lis idea to incorporate X-ray vision into the fight scenes. In fact, he says Silver invested some of his producing fee into making it happen. (Consider the cost of such novel technology on the films slim $25 million budget.) When Han lands a decisive blow on Kais head in the flame-drenched finale, the camera rushes forward, exalting his shattered spine with clinical precision.

The fights are glorious. But today, I cant think of Romeo Must Die without thinking of Aaliyah and her catchy Grammy-nominated single Try Again, the lead single on the movies soundtrack, her whispered, sultry vocals overlaying its propulsive synth. The sleek futurism of the music video how it flaunts Jet Lis moves, reflected in a hall of mirrors, and lingers on Aaliyah as she struts around in leather low-riders. Bartkowiak recalls Warner Brothers eyeing Janet Jackson for the role of Trish ODay, but when Aaliyah emerged as a possibility, she was the only actress invited to do a screen test. There was an innocence to her and a street to her she was a badass but also capable of being vulnerable, describes Bernt. Few Black female artists at the time had so successfully broached the mainstream; shades of Whitney Houston in The Bodyguard seemed to color Aaliyahs Hollywood breakthrough, and with it the promise of comparable superstardom. Casting director Lora Kennedy remembers how naturally Aaliyah slipped into character: She just blew us away. We were overwhelmingly devastated when she passed away. Wed all been there at the start and had such big plans for her.

Movies featuring interracial couples obviously existed before Romeo Must Die, but those that paired Black and Asian characters were few and often independently financed; consider Mira Nairs Mississippi Masala, Timothy Cheys Fakin Da Funk, or Chi Muoi Los Catfish in Black Bean Sauce. Han and Trishs most intimate moments are mostly wordless episodes, the most effective being a fight scene against a mysterious biker woman with kung fu skills of her own. Because Han cant hit a girl, he uses Trishs body to fend off his opponent, gripping her arms and legs in a more provocative manner than any intentionally romantic scene between them. Otherwise, their romance is blinkered, with Hans masculinity getting the short end of the stick. In one scene Trish takes Han to the club on a fact-finding mission and leads him to the dance floor in a bold display of affection. Aaliyahs Are You Feelin Me? (Boy are you feelin me?/ Cause Im feelin you) bumps in the background, but the songs lyrics are more suggestive than the couples PG-rated dance moves Trish running circles around Han swaying like an awkward teenager. Its clear that Romeo Must Die isnt actually a romance, so much as its a showcase for Aaliyah and Li, symbols of subcultures Hollywood felt it could mine.

In the films closing scene, our Romeo and Juliet dont die, but they dont kiss either. According to The Slanted Screen, a 2006 documentary about representations of Asian masculinity in Hollywood, both possibilities an embrace with a kiss and without one were shot, but the kiss tested poorly with audiences. Perhaps this was inevitable for a movie about Black and Asian gangsters that had no voices of color in writing and producing roles, a movie that sees Black and Asian people through the shallow focus of their respective subcultures. Indeed, many scenes in Romeo left me flummoxed:A flashback shows Han and Po as children, escaping from mainland China to Hong Kong using a basketball as a flotation device. Pos body is later found hanging from a telephone pole as if he were lynched. Together, these scenes read an awful lot like half-baked efforts to gesture at symbols and traumas of the Black experience, a meeting of distinct identities as hack and disjointed as the ambient score of bamboo flute instrumentals atop funky hip-hop beats.

Yet traces of what made the kung fu movies of yore such treasured objects of empowerment are also present here in the ingenuity and grace with which Han evades his opponents, the fierce independence and unpretentious wisdom of Trish. Bernt sees the moral dilemma tearing apart each family as fundamental to the films politics: Do you seek to join or partner with white people or do you rule the streets from your own fiefdom? Patriarch ODay yearns to go legit in the form of an ownership stake in an NFL team his white business partner intends to buy. I really think its time the NFL had a Black owner, he says, when he opts instead to hand the payout back. Mac, Isaaks second in command, turns out to be the bad guy, yet his fundamental distrust of the sniveling business partner, who rolls his eyes when Isaak proposes a partnership, feels justified. Going legit may very well take a toll on a mans dignity.

Romeo Must Die ultimately grossed $91 million, debuting at No. 2 at the U.S. box office, behind Erin Brockovich. Aaliyah and Li both received praise for their performances, as did the soundtrack, but the film as a whole fared worse with critics; the New York Times referred to the union between hip-hop and kung fu as a relatively chaste marriage. Like many films of its time, it plumbed Asian and Black subcultures without any outright goal of increasing representation onscreen. Frankly, I dont think I ever approached my work with an agenda, Kennedy explains. [At Warner Brothers] we wanted to make movies that showed different cultures because we had to mix things up. We couldnt just have all these white men. We had to make it more interesting, but there was never a political mandate. Maybe thats why the hip-hop kung fu movie is best remembered as a short-lived fancy rather than the palpable cultural phenomenon it felt like to an adolescent me.

From 2000 onward, moviegoers were freshly enamored with the martial-arts offerings of Li and Jackie Chan, with exotic historical epics (The Last Samurai, Memoirs of a Geisha), and with the magic of wuxia films (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon), yet in many ways, those investments have faded out of the mainstream. Perhaps for good reason. So many of the films of this era are riddled with cultural inaccuracies, racial biases, and the overrepresentation of white creatives above and below the line. Yet in a contemporary landscape that repeatedly approaches cultural diversity in cinematic storytelling by exploiting the traumas of people of color, or by meeting superficial markers of representation, theres something about the intrepid and unhinged silliness of a movie like Romeo Must Die a movie that didnt care to impart a profound, industry-approved sociopolitical message that feels lacking today. When asked if this sort of martial-arts movie will ever make a comeback in Hollywood, Bartkowiak hesitates: I dont know. Everything goes through cycles and phases. I want to believe it will come back.

See more here:

The Imperfect Legacy of Romeo Must Die - Vulture

On Wednesday, Hulu dropped the first three episodes of its most star-studded scripted series to date, David E. Kelleys adaptation of Liane Moriartys bestselling novel Nine Perfect Strangers. Directed by Jonathan Levine and co-produced by Nicole Kidman, the limited series takes place in an exclusive wellness retreat where the titular guests attempt to undergo some spiritual and physical transformation, guided by a sketchy Russian guru named Masha, played by Kidman in yet another distracting wig.

As Kevin Fallon opined in his review, the series is a tonal mishmash. Despite some performances that would otherwise attract immediate awards buzz if placed in a better show, notably from Melissa McCarthy and Michael Shannon, none of them really coalesce to create a dynamic ensemble. Nor do any of these broadly written characters or the evidently fraudulent institution warrant that much intrigue. On a marketing level, the series also faces the burden of competing with the hype of HBOs just-concluded smash hit The White Lotus, which also portrays rich people swapping their privileged at-home lives for another privileged experience in an exotic location, and Kelleys previous Moriarty adaptation Big Little Lies, where his pen is far more robust.

Whether or not Nine Perfect Strangers attracts the fanfare its clamoring for with its cast of A-listers, its presence in the zeitgeist, and wonky, cult-ish portrayal of the wellness industry, along with other new media, feels indicative of a growing exhaustion and cynicism surrounding the state of self-care and wellness, particularly the ways its manifested in American life just over the past few years, from social media to QAnon conspiracies to corporate advertising and, of course, the current pandemic.

Wellnessencompassing holistic practices and dubious remediesis hardly a new phenomenon in the United States, although it feels like its become ubiquitous over the past decade. Since colonialism, the Western world has been importing and appropriating Eastern methods of medicine and spiritual practices that are now associated with catchall terms like New Age, alternative medicine, and even Goop. Self-care as a rationalization for incorporating wellness and self-improvement into our lives also has a deeper history than the average Instagram user inundated with #selfcare sponcon would be led to believe, promoted by ancient philosophers and repopularized in political environments like the womens liberation movement of the 70s and, specifically, queer Black feminist spaces. (This is why writer and activist Audre Lordes definition of the term is often referenced on the feminist sections of the internet.)

Now more than ever, these practices and their philosophies have been detached from their histories, stripped of their nuances and monetized by corporations and upper-class white peoplebut most visibly in pop culture, upper-class white women. In a piece for The New Yorker, Jordan Kisner writes about the #selfcare-as-politics movement of 2016 that was ironically powered by straight, affluent white women in response to Donald Trumps presidential campaign and subsequent election, a moment that awakened much of that demographic politically. Likewise, the rich white woman who collects crystals, receives sound baths and is obsessed with tarot cards and, most significantly, considers herself an expert in these customs has captured our collective attention and skepticism, from Gwyneth Paltrow and her Goop empire, Kourtney Kardashians try at her own Goop, shows like the aforementioned Nine Perfect Strangers and Foxs Fantasy Island (although the rich woman is Latina).

Now more than ever, these practices and their philosophies have been detached from their histories, stripped of their nuances and monetized by corporations and upper-class white peoplebut most visibly in pop culture, upper-class white women.

Lorde has taken on this archetype in her new music, particularly the music video to her latest single Mood Ring, which dropped on Wednesday ahead of the release of new album Solar Power. It captures Lorde, ironicallybut maybe not so ironicallydonning a blonde wig like Kidmans Masha, and a group of women in jade green performing sun salutations, turning through old, spiritual texts, and playing with crystals while the 24-year-old croons about tryna to get well on the inside. This lifestyle has been so readily adopted by her ilk, particularly people in the entertainment industry, that one might miss the satirical tone in these lyrics. In her newsletter, the musician explained that the song is satire and that the narrator is fictional, although she admits that she occasionally succumbs to magical thinking when she need[s] to believe in something to feel good and clear.

While Lorde lacks a strong rebuttal to the Gwyneth Paltrow figuremaybe because its too close to home the singers analysis of wellness culture and its misappropriations feels sharper when aimed toward men. On the Solar Power song Dominoes, she lambasts the specific type of man who takes on gardening, weed, and yoga to rebrand from his toxicity and misogyny. It must feel good to be Mr. Start Again, she sings caustically. The song cleverly illustrates how goodness is often ascribed to men who associate themselves with activities that are deemed feminine within our culture. But it also gets at the way self-improvement can easily be utilized as a Band-Aid or a facade in place of doing the actual work.

As culture becomes more and more desperate for healing, whether from political divisions, as our president constantly suggests, or literal life-threatening diseases like COVID-19, the space between community and cult, non-traditional medicine and pseudoscience, self-care and individualism seems to be capturing our artistic imaginations at an extremely vital time. How can the roots of wellness be reclaimed and reasserted when its become a $4.4 trillion money grab and employed for the most dangerous political agendas? Lordes Solar Power and Nine Perfect Strangers may not be perfect articulations of these quandaries, but they show how much there is to mine in that danger zone.

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Lorde and Nicole Kidman Take on the Cult-ish Wellness Industry - The Daily Beast