Tag: writing

The 5 Greatest Songs (According to Science)


What a difference a month makes.

These days, “scientific research” may as well not exist outside of the Corona-crisis. The eyes of progress are firmly fixed on antivirals, vaccines, and antibody tests.

But one recent study has blithely bucked this trend.

Back in late February, the day Bernie emerged as the Democrat front-runner following a decisive win in the Nevada caucus, researchers from the Anglia Ruskin University were wrapping up a year-long psychological study. In the midst of the current pandemic, the aim of their work sounds rather twee, perhaps even trivial. Yet their findings, published on Monday, offer an intriguing glimpse into our collective affinity with pop music.

The study’s lead researcher, Prof. Bo Lox, explains that her team aspired to combine “stochastic, neural, and hormonal” data, so as to gauge a person’s physiological response to popular records from the past thirty years. Lox noted that “preliminary testing highlighted the importance of using internal, subconscious responses to determine a person’s enjoyment of a song. Galway [Girl], for instance, tested far more negatively in survey-based research. Without our advanced methods, we would have had to account for individual reticence, in much the same way that electoral pollsters have to account for ‘Shy Tories’.”

2,500 volunteers took part in the experiment. Some, like Daniel Wilkes from Kettering, are self-confessed music aficionados. I got in touch with Wilkes, and, over an insightful afternoon phone call, he reflected on what initially drew him to the study:

I’ve always considered myself a man of taste. No Coldplay after X&Y. 2Pac and Biggie, of course, but none of this modern mumble dribble. I mean, anyone can drawl into an auto-tuner, right? My favourite band is probably Metallica… at least, that’s what I thought, until taking part in Lox’s research. You’ll laugh, I know, but my highest ranking song was actually “Swish [Swish]” by Katy Perry [and Nicki Minaj]. At first I was appalled. But, science is science. I actually listened to it on yesterday’s run — in an ironic way, at first. But a dozen repeats later, I’ve got to admit … it kind of slaps.”

However, not everybody involved was as open-minded as Wilkes. Lox provided me with an email sent to her by one of the volunteers, who shall remain anonymous out of respect for their privacy. The volunteer was disgruntled after being informed that their physiology was most powerfully attuned to Drake’s afrobeat-inspired hit, “One Dance”. While some of the email is too explicit to record here, I will offer a short extract:

It’s total bullsh*t! I LOATHE One Dance. It CANNOT be my favourite song. One Dance is the most inane, derivative rubbish I’ve ever heard. Even at sub 3 mins it overstays its welcome. I want my results wiped from the study. Email me proof of this. Your system is clearly flawed. B*tch. [Censorship my own].

Lox assured me that such hostile responses were few and far between. She also laughed at the suggestion that the system could be in any way defunct. “We used state-of-the-art wearable technology and telemetric signalling devices,” she explained. “People just refuse to believe that a bunch of wires and processors can know them better than they know themselves.” Evidently, Anglia Ruskin spared no expense in the pursuit of accurate results, even if these did prove hard for some volunteers to stomach.

So, without further ado, you’ll find below the top five songs as calculated by Lox and her team, starting with the most popular. Each song was awarded a final Approval Rating (AR) out of 100. The AR represents a collation of various biometrics, including subject heart rate, brain activity, hormonal secretion and perspiration. I’ve included the AR underneath each song title.

 

1. Swing Ya Rag (feat. Swizz Beatz) by T.I. (2008) (AR = 99.82)

It will come as a surprise to no one to see the third single from T.I.’s 2008 classic Paper Trail heading this list. Swing Ya Rag tested positively with almost every volunteer it was played to, and it’s easy to see why. The track is an anthem for anyone who’s ever shuffled awkwardly at a school disco, praying that they won’t be called upon next to bust a move in the centre of the dance floor. Don’t worry, Swing Ya Rag tells us. There’s no need to dance. No need at all. Simply pull out your designer durag (preferably Gucci or Louis Vuitton) and twirl it over your head. Or, while the clubs are closed, you might also consider contorting it into a makeshift mask.

 

 

2. In The End by Linkin Park (2001) (AR = 97.36)

In The End epitomises Linkin Park’s signature hybridisation of white-boy raps and screeched choruses, though it’s the opening piano riff that really elevates the track. Dr. Isla Vü, an associate researcher who worked on the project, had a mischievous glint in her eye as she discussed this entry. “In The End really was a standout case,” she observed. “The body’s internal response, especially in men aged 20-30, was far stronger than anybody in the team had anticipated. Over the first minute of audio, we detected a surge of nitric oxide in the urological capillaries, followed by a steady drip of nitric acid as Chester’s iconic chorus kicked in.”

 

 

3. You Oughta Know by Alanis Morissette (1995) (AR = 95.11)

It was on my third visit to the Anglia Ruskin Psychology Faculty in east Cambridge that I was presented with the complete set of finalised ARs. Arnold Yu, an undergraduate assistant, drew my attention to You Oughta Know as a song of particular scientific interest. According to Yu, the team’s findings might help answer the age-old question of why some humans possess lobed ears, while others are consigned to a lifetime of lobelessness. He revealed that Morissette’s strained, artificial diphthongs throughout the track appeared to cause tiny vibrations in subjects’ ear lobes, which in turn galvanised the pituitary gland, flooding the brain with endorphins. Were this hypothesis to be proven true in subsequent testing, the implications would be, in Yu’s words, “devastating”.

 

 

4. Galway Girl by Ed Sheeran (2017) (AR = 91.87)

I’ll admit, I was shocked to observe Ed Sheeran’s electronic-folk-pop mutant lurking in the top five. Since its release three years ago, the tune has been caricatured as a supremely flavourless chart-topper, with its ubiquitous radio-presence, jarring transitions and overcooked lyrics (the squeezing of “while her brother played the guitar” into the first verse is particularly egregious). Fortunately, Lox was on hand to dispel my confusion. She told me that the song’s extremely high AR is in fact a consequence of its widespread vilification. When individuals hear Sheeran’s declaration that “she played the fiddle in an Irish band”, they instinctively brace themselves to experience a “delicious sense of loathing”. It is this “expectation of hatred”, the anticipation of indulging in petty anger, that boosts serotonin, improving the subject’s overall chemical happiness. Touché Mr. Sheeran, touché.

 

 

5. Everybody (Backstreet’s Back) by Backstreet Boys (1997) (AR = 90.04)

“Of all the songs in the to top five,” Dr Vü confessed to me, “I was most chuffed about Backstreet’s Back.” I’m inclined to feel the same. The song oozes rhythm, whilst also fixing a spotlight on some of our deepest insecurities. The repeated question, “Am I sexual?”, for instance, strikes me as especially pertinent in our quarantined age, where omnipresent housemates and a one-in-one-out policy at Sainsbury’s Local has made life distinctly un-sexual. The irony, though, is that biometrics fed back an immediate spike in oestrogen secretions among female subjects, a hormonal response usually reserved in anticipation of a fertilised ovum.

 

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* * *

And there we have it, our five greatest songs of the decade, as determined by data science. However you feel about the results is, quite frankly, irrelevant: this is the truth as told by our bodies, ourselves as concealed from the conscious mind. And once this pandemic has settled, you can be sure that Prof. Lox and her team will continue to push the limits of biometric research, unlocking ever deeper mysteries within the human psyche.

* 07/06/2020 An earlier edition of this article misspelt Vü as Vew.

Hong Kong II

Someone with the authority to do so

Had tended a toppled bollard

With black bin liner.

The University slope recalled,

Of all places,

Aberystwyth.

Stethoscope antlers peeked

Ostentatiously

Out of white coat pockets.

High-rises everywhere,

As inscrutable as people

You will never see inside.

Jet Lag

It jerks and rumbles through the blue,

Hauling night-capped sitters

Over seven time-zones.

They emerge rubbing bleary sun,

Breathing forgotten toothpaste.

Clock hands are all out of whack,

If anything slipping slyly back,

And the taxi red in a breakfast noon.

 

That night it’s 3am, or 7pm,

Dinner: broccoli, salmon, spaghetti!

The routine buoys him,

The rhythm looses,

And floating on homeward foam,

He departs a nameless jetty.

Hong Kong

Dotted lanterns wend invitingly

Up the smudged hillside.

I want to go there,

But the sculpted steps will be treacherous:

Yesterday was T8,

And the typhoon washed the whole island.

It has moved on now,

Moved home across the waves,

But it is still apparent,

Puddled on the roads and in the vapour.

 

The descendant mist stoops fast,

Faster than expected,

And soon those distant lanterns will be unwinked;

What then will guide the crowd,

Through the heavy, pressing shroud,

And keep the stumblers back

Beyond the brink?

Tommy Robbins and Yvonne Bloo

TOMMY ROBBINS 

 

I’m not a poet.

I don’t even know why I’m writing these lines.

But it seems the best thing to do.

I’ve got to man up,

Stop fumbling a greeting 

Each time she swings past.

The smell of her!

As a kid, I’d roll in the fields,

Crushing the tansies and chamomile

Beneath the back of my Marvel tee;

Their scents spilt all over me,

And I’d lie in them,

Somehow assured that school

And Paul’s cancer and my lost iPod

Would be alright.

That’s how Yvonne smells.

She’s periphery too.

I think we’d understand one another,

If I could just muster an ice

Breaker. I remember when we

Brushed arms. My dark and her pale hairs

Pulled for one another.

I was too shy to apologise.

 

 

YVONNE BLOO

 

These boys-not-men,

These less-than-gentle,

These eyes-not-on-my-eyes.

I hear their filthy dreams,

Conceived each minute

In flush and heat and thighs.

Momma told me, she told me,

The quiet ones are the worst.

And that Tommy Robbins is quiet.

I’ve seen his gawks and ogles,

His nostrils when I’m near.

He’s lust in a pinkish shell.

Last week he touched me,

TOUCHED ME!

I know I heard him moan, 

Like a conscience tasting delicious sin.

He must think about me too;

In his mind he’ll have defiled me 

A hundred ways,

As a quiet boy’s mind will.

Well, he’ll not spoil me in

God’s

Eyes much longer.

I’m up now against his window jamb,

Carrying Pa’s hammer.

Throwing Fruit at the Elderly

Ben had an ear stud

And was already thirteen,

Which made him the natural leader.

He marched us across the wasteland

In a proper wedge formation,

Scraggled grass and dust

At our feet.

When we reached the chain-link trees

And leafed fence, sun in our

Eyes, he pointed out the old persons’ home.

Pruned Glaswegians lay sunk

In the terrace deck chairs.

We had munitions:

Wild fruits like cranberries,

But poisoned, maybe,

And we flung them with our kiddy arms.

Until Ben cried,

I got one in his mouth!

We bolted then, but a rasp from the faded

Feminine span me round.

Let me get a good look at ye,

Ye delinquent thug!

My conscience whimpered, and I hated Ben.

Getting Away With Things

People get away with things

Because they make good metaphors.

Nobody wants squid ink in their cow’s milk,

Or snake bite in the community well;

The path most trodden is for chattel,

With the cud unchewed

In all four stomachs.

And the voice on the corner,

Swept up in the prevailing wind,

Surely has some sense to breathe

From her unkempt lips.

 

Don’t you hate it, when the umbrella

Span is nearly enough and leaves you nearly wet?

You pull it down fast, like a blind,

And single hairs get yanked in the metal hinges.

The amount of human festooned

In umbrella frames defies belief.

Plenty to restart, when we realise

The personalised clods we stand on

Owe us nothing.

That’s assuming, of course, that Elon

Finds enough introvert fuck-ups

To water carrots for the rest of their lives.

People get away with all sorts of silly things.

Some Thoughts on Donnie Darko

Gretchen Ross traipses through the empty halls of her new school. Class has already started, and now she’s going to embarrass herself by interrupting. She pulls her textbooks more tightly to her chest. Here it is: room 28. She enters without knocking. The hinge creaks like an arthritic wardrobe. She may as well have announced her arrival with a trumpet.

Sixteen heads swivel round to gawk at the newcomer. Slouched against a desk at the front, facing Gretchen, is Drew Barrymore.

“May we help you?” she enquires.

“Yeah — I just registered, and they put me in the wrong English class.”

“You look like you belong here.”

Gretchen isn’t quite sure what to make of this comment. “Um. Where do I sit?”

Drew Barrymore considers for a moment, her mouth turned downwards in mischievous contemplation. “Sit next to the boy you think is the cutest.”

It was at this moment, whilst watching (almost two decades late) Richard Kelly’s cult classic, Donnie Darko, that I began to feel like I was viewing the most realistic representation of a dream ever recorded. Drew Barrymore’s suggestion is so deliciously prurient, so un-teacherly, that in the mouth of a bad actor it might sound forced or clunky. But Barrymore carries the line, establishing herself as something of a free-spirit within an otherwise crusty institution. I never once questioned the propriety of her words. Nor did I question an obvious plot hole that crops up moments later: Barrymore allowing Gretchen to sit next to Donnie, whom she appears to have chosen as the “cutest”, by making another girl stand up. It’s never explained where this displaced student is moved too, as there don’t appear to be any free seats in the class. But all of that is besides the point. Just as in a dream, your focus is on an immediate, seemingly-logical narrative; one that, in the analytical light of morning, was clearly an illusion, riven with impossibilities.

Donnie Darko is chock-a-block with such vivid, oneiric moments. For instance, we’re soon introduced to Barrymore’s foil in the film, a vindictive, super-Christian teacher/parent named Kitty (think Angela from The Office). In one of the film’s best scenes, Kitty (wearing a “God is AWESOME” tee) calls on Donnie’s mother and, standing in her doorway, begs her to accompany the student dance troupe to Los Angeles the next morning, as she’s no longer able to take them herself. As Mrs. Darko demurs, Kitty becomes frantic. Eerie, wailing music creeps into the exchange — music that belongs in a confined space, as an overture to some terrifying revelation. And yet here it is, in the sun-dappled streets of Middlesex, Virginia. Kitty’s consternation mounts. With the cracked rasp of a penitent murderer admitting to their crime, she speaks the damning words, “Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion!” (Understandably, this line has become a fan favourite; you’ll find it oft repeated in the comments section of any Darko-related material online). Mrs. Darko’s response is equally loaded. She doesn’t speak, she simply stares at Kitty with a tortured smile, as if to say, Have you ever stopped to listen to the bullshit you’re spouting?

Indeed, my main takeaway from Donnie Darko is its insistence on the need to cut through bullshit: to separate the false logic of dreams from tangible reality. To speak out against things that don’t make sense. We see this most clearly in Donnie’s “Life Skills” class, taught by none other than Kitty. In one segment, the class are made to watch a video on overcoming fear, presented by local life coach Jim Cunningham (Patrick Swayze). Richard Kelly deftly condenses every awful, cringeworthy educational video of your youth into an absurdly saccharine two minutes. With clichéd spiritual rock riffing in the background, a woman stares down at her son, lamenting, “For two years, I thought it was normal for a ten-year-old to wet the bed.” This elicits a single, quickly-hushed snigger, but most of the class watch without expression. They’ve become so accustomed to this moronic, feel-good propaganda, that they can’t even find it funny. We then get a portrait shot of the bed-wetter, who exclaims, fiercely, “I’m not afraid anymore!”

The video serves to foreshadow Donnie’s stand in a later lesson. He refuses to accept Cunningham’s philosophy (espoused by Kitty) that all human action can be divided into two emotional causes: fear and love. He challenges Kitty’s restrictive thinking, arguing on behalf of “the whole spectrum of human emotion”. Yet in the twisted dream-logic of Donnie’s world, his reliance on common sense is not met with any kind of rational debate. Instead, Kitty threatens him with a zero in his assignment. Encapsulated in this exchange is the idea that life — especially an institutionalised life — can sometimes feel more like a dream than reality. The rigorous prescriptivism of exam-centric schooling ensures that students are ushered along from one year to the next, never challenging what they are taught, never deviating from the syllabus. In this way, the film implies, school is made of the stuff of dreams: bullshit.

I realise now that I’ve said quite a lot about Donnie Darko, without even mentioning its more obviously surreal elements. For instance, early on we’re introduced to a prophetic, man-sized rabbit named Frank. Soon after, Donnie starts to observe temporal portals sprouting from people’s sternums. The issue is that Donnie’s perspective is less than reliable. He’s taking medication for schizophrenia, and is a self-confessed “whacko”. People have spent an awful lot of time and energy theorising on these aspects of the film. How real they are, what they mean, why exactly Donnie has to follow Frank’s orders to prevent an impending apocalypse. To my mind, though, these more fantastical aspects of the film are equivalent to a dream’s underlying emergency. Take, for example, the common dream-emergency of being late for an exam — one that I experienced a few times before Finals. I don’t recall ever actually making it to Exam Schools to face the consequences of my tardiness. Instead, I’d find myself waylaid by random figures from my life, people who had no business being on the Oxford High Street at 9.30am. If I’d simply stopped to consider the implausibility of their presence, the dream-logic would have crumbled. Similarly, the closer Donnie draws to Frank and the film’s mysticism, the more “reality” starts to unwind. When Frank convinces him to burn down Cunningham’s home, the celebrated life coach is exposed as a paedophile; as Donnie prepares to confront Grandma Death, Gretchen reveals her mother had been abducted. The accepted truths of Donnie’s world — our world — seem increasingly ephemeral. The best in society are fraudsters, and nobody is ever truly safe. It’s hardly surprising, then, that Donnie turns his back on this “reality”. He decides rather to go straight down the rabbit-hole, to avert the dream-emergency and awaken himself from a living sleep.

Some Thoughts on Rupi Kaur’s Most Recent Poem

I’ll start this piece with a disclaimer: I think Rupi Kaur is an awful poet. Her cutesy, axiomatic style is almost entirely lacking in the mystery, invention, and force of language that, for me at least, make a great poem. That she’s achieved such global fame (mainly through her Instagram presence) pays testament to our sorry habit of revering mediocrity, so long as it is easily digestible.

I’ve yet to meet anyone who will earnestly defend the quality of Kaur’s writing. However, I have heard two arguments in support of her work more generally. The first is that Kaur often acts as an introduction to poetry for young people. This argument characterises Kaur as a gateway poet, in the same way that a Good Christian Mum might characterise weed as the initial step towards a life of crack-fuelled hedonism. And, I’m sure, some people have gone on to read more challenging and creative material since discovering Kaur. Yet I worry that the simplicity of Kaur’s work, its unabashed lack of intrigue, makes people less receptive to such complexity in other poems. For someone on Instagram, it’s far more likely that their following of Kaur will lead them to discover accounts like Atticus, whose on-the-nose sententiousness makes Kaur’s poetry look like an enigma code.

The other argument, which, in my opinion, carries more weight, is that Rupi Kaur is not so much about the medium as the message. That most people who follow her know very well that they aren’t reading innovative verse, but support her central ideas of feminist empowerment. And I can absolutely get behind that. Indeed, I imagine Kaur herself is well aware that it is her message, rather than her art, that does the numbers (I mentioned at the start that I think Kaur is an awful poet; I also think that’s she’s an astute entrepreneur).

However, Kaur’s reliance on a fundamental idea, as opposed to good writing, comes with its own drawbacks. As an example, we need only look at her most recently uploaded poem:

The first thing I noticed about this poem was its form: a single block of text. For Rupi “hit-the-enter-key-at-irregular-intervals” Kaur, this is practically radical experimentalism. But the next glaring aspect of this piece is its rather ugly tone. Kaur predicts that the addressee’s next girlfriend “will be a bootleg version of who i am.” (Side note: Kaur appears to have an inexplicable aversion to capital letters). We might wonder why Kaur, who’s brand is built around supporting women, inspiring women, and articulating women’s issues, has decided to go after a woman who she’s never even met. Worse, she then goes on to discredit this future woman’s poetic and sexual proficiencies: she won’t “lick, caress, or suck” like Kaur, and her poems certainly won’t be delivering any jabs to the gut — she’ll only “try to make love to your body” (spoken to the rhythm of Shape of You by Ed Sheeran).

The main thrust of the poem is clear: Kaur is engaging in a common post-break-up fantasy, imagining her former lover’s dissatisfaction with his new flame. The “bootleg woman”, caught between Kaur and the target of her angst, is ground into inferiority by Kaur’s exultant vision of a pining ex-boyfriend.

Significantly, Kaur might have cleared all of this up with a simple addendum. She might, for instance, have mentioned that this poem is a representation of internalised misogyny. She might have mentioned that the behaviour of men in relationships can create feelings of conflict amongst women (and that often, these feelings are misdirected). Instead, all we get is the caption: the mood for tonight is saucyy, along with a few emojis that, to be fair, neatly illustrate the line “lick, caress, or suck like me”. (Another side note: I shudder every time I write that out). These words make it clear that Kaur doesn’t recognise the troubling suggestion expressed in the poem. Namely, that being a woman on top sometimes involves putting other women down .

Maybe I’m being too harsh. Maybe I need to remember the first rule of poetry analysis, and separate Kaur from the speaker of the poem. Ordinarily, I’d agree. But in this instance, I find it almost impossible. You see, Kaur spends a lot of time making her poems as generic — and therefore as relatable — as possible. She’ll often crank out a variation of the following:

my body is a [natural phenomenon]

you may try to [something to do with curbing nature]

but I will [something to do with escaping confines].

These poems achieve mass-appeal because there is so little of Kaur in them. They can be taken up by readers, and applied to their lives. They’re similar to pop songs, in that their catchiness lies in their lack of specificity. Yet Kaur’s most recent offering is different. In particular, the mention of poems that have been “left memorized” on the ex-boyfriend’s lips make it abundantly clear that Kaur is versifying here as herself.

Moreover, the clichéd mundanity of the poem, the absence of arresting imagery, ambiguous phrasing or novel tone, ensure that there is scant material to hold on to other than the central idea. Kaur’s business model, of maxim-like poetry designed to impart a simple message during a quick scroll, makes it difficult to read these more specific poems as anything other than her own direct thoughts. Consequently, when Kaur diverts from her usual ideas, of obvious feminist-empowerment or twee reflections on the sun/moon/flowers/butterflies/et cetera, people don’t criticise the quality of the poem, but rather the quality of the message (although about 90% just type yaaaas kweeen 💅🏼, probably without reading a word):

I suppose then that Kaur has created her own poetic prison. Having established herself as the voice of feminist poetry on Instagram, and having built an enormous following through deliberately generic verse, her attempts to move towards more personal or specific ideas are likely to meet backlash. She doesn’t have aesthetic creativity to fall back on. All she has is a central idea. And reliance on a single idea encourages stagnation — the death of poetry.