1st Place for College Creative Non-Fiction - 2016 Met Awards
I’m going to write the greatest pop album that will be remembered and revered by music enthusiasts and historians. This grandiose statement is something I repeat to myself on a daily basis. Often, I’ll find myself listening to the Beach Boys’ seminal Pet Sounds album and I’ll always in awe by the way Brian Wilson was able to create a harmonious web of songs that have transcended and stretched the boundaries of the pop genre for fifty years. From the moment you put on “Wouldn’t it Be Nice,” you know you’ve settled on to something other-worldy for its time. Wilson took it upon himself, having listened to the Beatles’ Rubber Soul album, to create an album that would surpass anything the Beatles – or anyone for that matter – could ever have anticipated. The result was an album that inspired generations of psychedelic-rock groups that would eventually pave way to the neo-psychedelic movements of the late-1990s. The fostering of those seeds in the musical fragment of history is something that inspires and fuels my desire to bend pop music to my will in ways that will be remembered.
When I write a song, I’ll often confront an emotion so abstract that the only way I can express it is through surreal imagery and nonsensical writing:
I’m walking to the moon
July’s on my mind as I talk to the never-ending June
My mind’s in a clutter of jamborees in the city
It tells me of a conscious life that I’m desperately needing
It tells me of a vision it saw
A nautical, blue silhouette.
I don’t write this stuff for the sake of joining words together. At the same time, though, I’m confronting these emotions in a way that lets the listener know that I’m in no mental capability of describing these emotions through concrete or upfront imagery. The emotion being expressed isn’t explicit, nor is it one that makes sense, but that’s what makes the writing speak out to me. Surreal lyricism requires the appropriate instrumentation to fit the tone; therefore, I will often apply diminished chords, unconventional chord progressions, sudden key changes, and jazz-fused rhythms, all tucked into ballads that depict things I feel that confuse and make me feel alive. I’ve been inspired to take this approach after extensive listens of Brian Wilson’s song "Surfs Up," a song that has kept many musical analysts in confusion upon attempting to decipher the meaning behind its lyrics.
Other sources of inspiration come from the Residents and Animal Collective. In a time when musical pop icons were becoming a staple of the music industry back in the 1960s, the Residents became the world’s first “anti-pop” stars that flared in anonymity and avant-guard musical approaches to music. Through their elaborate attempts to maintain their identities hidden, the Residents, under the veil of their iconic eye-ball masks, have founded a school of music that requires very little musical background in order to express subconscious ideas. Their approach to music often sounds nonsensical and cacophonous, but after repeated listens, the music has a hidden layer of genius to it.
Animal Collective, Baltimore’s neo-psych legends, inspired me in a time where I felt all the colors of world had left me. I’d been struggling with depression for a while and completely hated the idea of waking up to the same old routines of each day. The band had been under my radar for a while now, but every time I gave these guys a listen, I’d been underwhelmed by what I was listening to. However, in this moment of vulnerability, I experienced a plethora of colors and hues upon listening to Merriweather Post Pavilion, an album that many would consider to be a classic in the neo-psych genre. The opening track, “In the Flowers,” instantly gives you images of being envious of a dancer boy that gets to express themselves among the flowers without the troubles and pressures of society. The song starts out soft, adding layers of guitar and synths that are pinched with tremolos and other psychedelic effects. Two-and-a-half minutes later, lead singer Avey Tare sings the line:
If I could just leave my body for the night…
Unleashing a world of distorted images through a heavy usage of synthesizers and tribal drumming that has forever inspired me to continue forth with my musical endeavors. The album ventures through many emotions and often reflects back upon those moments in life where we leave behind our childhoods in order to adjust to society.
I approach my music knowing very well that people will get turned off by the unconventionality of the traditional pop-ballad. Then again, I don’t write for those people. I’m lucky enough to surround myself in an environment where my creative outlets aren’t constricted. I write for those that have that innate willingness to discard conventional trends in pop music and see my writing as a nod to those past musicians that have experimented with the form in ways that have defined a generation. I’d often walk around as a little boy coming up with melodies describing the world in front of me, even before I picked up my first instrument. I write because I know I’m good enough. I write because I’ve seen my writing evolve, and so have others. I’m going to write the greatest pop album ever written because I’ve always felt a call to make great things out of myself in music. One day I won’t have to say this because the work I leave behind in this life will speak for itself.
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