Jen Talks: Small Talks Head Writer's Staff Picks
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Who is He (And What Is He To You?) - Bill Withers
I heard this track for the first time while listening to Late Night Billiards, an NTS show that has been regularly keeping me company as of late and which compelled me to finally become an NTS subscriber to gain access to live tracklists. “Who Is He (And What Is He To You)?” is one of those songs that immediately felt like it had been in rotation for my entire life, I couldn’t believe I’d never heard it before. The speaker of the song is coming to a realization - he’s being two-timed - and the production conveys how that suspicion must have felt. His statements are punctuated by a single clap of the tambourine and a restrained swell of strings that reflect that familiar, cold sensation of recognizing that something is very, very wrong. The thing that truly has it on repeat is just how smartly it’s written: “You’re too much for one man / but not enough for two. / Dadgumit, who is he? / And what is he to you?”. I’m admittedly and embarrassingly not very familiar with Withers beyond his wildly renowned “Lean on Me” and “Ain’t No Sunshine”, but I’ve learned that I’d like to be. Thank you, radio!
Blizzard - Dove Ellis
Okay so this one I heard about on TikTok. Whatever. You’re either with the zeitgeist or you’re in its dust, whether we like it or not (we don’t). Ellis has been in broader conversations lately as a result of his stint as an opener for Geese, though he is currently on a tour of his own across the US and Europe. When Blizzard first came into my life, I was on my porch like I always am and it was freezing. I was sad for some reason (couldn’t tell you why) and I was looking to be sadder. This album, with all of its intricacy and dense arrangement pulled me out of that for a moment. It ebbs and flows, a phenomenon best exemplified by “When You Tie Your Hair Up” which begins with delicate guitar and gentle woodwinds and crescendos into a massive wall of pounding drums and Ellis’ Buckley-esque vocalizations, before becoming very small again and so on and on. I was stunned throughout my first listen and I just sat there and paid attention, letting it wash over me until I remembered I had work in the morning. He kept surprising me. Ellis hasn’t given many interviews, remaining as enigmatic as his work, which I like. I feel like we might, in general, know too much about public figures. Blizzard is a work that I treasure for the fact that it gives me a lot to think about. Not so much these days, honestly.
Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping
I watched this for the first time when I had COVID a few years ago. I love The Lonely Island and went through basically all of their work while I was down and out, including The Lego Movie, which made me cry so hard I almost threw up, although that was probably a result of my swollen brain and the DayQuil that was keeping me alive. Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping is a musical mockumentary following Conner4Real (Andy Samberg), a former boybander turned pop sensation as he releases his second album, which bombs spectacularly. It’s absolutely ridiculous and yet effused with this fumbling heart that is a signature of The Lonely Island. The sheer number of massive stars who agreed to absurd cameos is amazing to me. I’ve just been thinking a lot about when Bill Hader’s character, a guitar tech, describes his past time of flatlining. Sometimes things just need to be fun! And this film and its music are fun. I often play the soundtrack on TouchTunes and I am often skipped by the bartender. Except at The Emerald. I’m a style boy for liiiiiiiiiife.
Moth - Chairlift
Moth is probably my favorite album. If you don’t know a thing about Chairlift as a whole, odds are you’d find a familiar face in their vocalist, Caroline Polachek. The group began as a duo consisting of Polachek and Aaron Pfenning before becoming a trio with the addition of Patrick Wimberley. By the time Moth was released, they were a duo again, following Pfenning’s departure. Moth was the group’s final record, and it, surely unintentionally, carries a feeling of finality. Every beat and note sung flows like silk, flittering by like the record’s namesake, and yet nothing is out of place: it’s tight and intentional and polished beyond reproach. Each song is a universe, so deliberate and confident and vibrant, and that’s before you even consider the masterful vocal performance Polachek gives. Take “Look Up”, the album’s opener, which sees the elements of the song sputter disjointedly until Polachek begins to sing, at which point they coalesce into this complex, synth-forward soundscape that feels physical. It’s the perfect introduction to Moth’s world, a world which only gets bigger and bigger as you listen. And Polachek is a fucking phenomenal songwriter. The writing fluctuates between punchy and clever and heartwrenchingly poetic, often on the same song. “Moth to the Flame”, long acknowledged in the Jen canon as my favorite song, is essentially a house song. Polachek cheekily declares “He’s that kind of man, mama!” and, later, “Hope hides inside the cliche / Like a nod of understanding from the poet who first felt this way / How can I turn away?”. Hello? Everyone has a different palate, but I think it’s just a perfect record. While I can hear its influences, I don’t know that I’ve heard anything else quite like it.
Sufjan Stevens - Carrie & Lowell Live
Let’s say for the sake of conversation that you’re me and you’re 15. You’re (poorly and lonesomely) attempting to navigate faith and your body and sexuality and inherited neuroses and you’re wondering if there is a place in the world for you at the end of it all. I don’t think it’s a particularly unique experience. You hear a song. It’s short and very quiet:, an air conditioner humming beneath a delicate and brittle vocal and a sparse bit of fingerplucked guitar that nearly overpowers it all. You can visualize the artist alone in his apartment, mournful in his creation, singing about the methods of his own self-destruction in the wake of something terrible. You don’t yet know what has happened to him, yet you understand it completely, in your own, teenage way. It’s a bolt of lightning. “No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross” was the first single released from Sufjan Stevens’ tour de force Carrie & Lowell. If I fully got into my feelings regarding this record and, moreso, this artist, you would be getting a coke rant to rival the greatest days of Twitter. God forbid I get started on 2010’s The Age of Adz, which preceded Carrie & Lowell and could not be more different. Anyway, I attached myself to this record in a way only a 15-year-old can, and I made the trek to Orlando to see it performed live. I remember being overwhelmed with emotion the entire time, even while taking my seat. I’m sure there has been a lot of research into the ephemeral and almost supernatural power music can have, an effect that is only amplified in a live setting, but I’ll choose to call it magic and leave it at that.
Watching this album that I had connected to so deeply—despite not being able to concretely relate to most of the actual subject matter—performed by someone absolutely singular remains one of the most astonishing and impactful moments of my life. A few days after I saw Stevens in Orlando, he performed in North Carolina and, thank God, recorded the show. In honor of the 10th anniversary of Carrie & Lowell and the special rerelease featuring demos and alternate versions of the songs, I’ve been revisiting the record and that experience. I feel lucky that a version of that show is available to me, and I think that Stevens is one of the most arresting and spellbinding performers alive. He’s understated, not engaging much with the crowd, seemingly lost in memory and feeling every bit of what he’s saying, and yet I can’t look away. Coming back to this album and the live show after living so much more life, I understand him even better than I ever could when I first heard it so many years ago. I’ve known tremendous loss and grief and joy and I feel so much tenderness for my younger self. That girl had no idea what was going to happen to her, but she, like me, found solace in this music and this show and that is partially why it remains so impactful to me. I love her and I love that I get to have this connection to her forever, to reengage with whenever I see fit. You can watch Carrie & Lowell - Live on YouTube.
Jennifer Bodine is the Head Writer of Small Talks Magazine. She can be reached at @jen.bodine on Instagram.
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