Take a Transitional Beat w/ Vampire Weekend, Taylor Swift, Pinegrove, and Chiodos
On 8/21/24 we Take a Beaters are using albums as tools to fight through challenging transitions, and we are arising victorious.
Allow me to take yet another pontifical beat…
So far in Take a Beat herstory I have been throwing pop cultural spaghetti at Substack walls, seeing what would stick. But maybe it’s time the beats I take are more focused…
Famously, I love an album. Maybe less famously, I also love wisdom (because it is so goddamn hard to obtain). So when an album provides wisdom?? Whether the wisdom is musical or spiritual in nature, oh baby we are COOKING.
Would you be interested in harvesting more wisdom from musical artists and albums with me? Read about how Vampire Weekend wizened me up below, and let me know if you’d enjoy more wise beats.
Of course, there will always be Bits & Bobs to sprinkle amongst the wisdom too.
Father of the Bride by Vampire Weekend
An Album for Josh’s Transition Through: Baby’s First Breakup
My first ever breakup was the result of two pragmatic people facing an insurmountable obstacle in their romantic relationship; while breaking up, we were still in love, we were still each other’s best friends, but newfound realizations made it so that those wondrous, once-in-a-blue-moon feelings were not going to be enough.
And while I never doubted that we did the right thing, my emotions and my longstanding perspectives on life itself didn’t give a fuck about the pragmatic cause of the breakup; I was at sea. An entire future I had long envisioned, wiped clean by an unlucky draw. Love had NOT been powerful enough to overcome anything, and my naive 25-and-change year-old brain was struggling to reconcile this unfortunate outcome against a previously rosy worldview.
Common idiomatic wisdom would say that “nothing is certain but death and taxes”, but that’s the funny thing about wisdom, isn’t it? Until you experience the requisite Earth-shattering, wisdom-giving events, “words of wisdom” are just that: words.
Which could explain why Vampire Weekend’s fourth LP, Father of the Bride, had not resonated with me until I experienced it post-Earth-shattering breakup. Across Father of the Bride, Ezra Koenig sings of a wide variety of tragic circumstances, but at no point on the album do Vampire Weekend ever wallow in sadness. Instead, they turn a tale of a couple realizing they are headed toward self-destruction into a twinkly, playful hymn befitting a joyous group of carolers (“Unbearably White”). They sing of Sisyphean struggles in the cadence of a children’s song to be sang along to in a circle of delighted, hand-clapping preschoolers (“Rich Man”). They wax poetic about the oppressive nature of time to the tune of a lullaby, a peaceful Ezra Koenig wearing a nighty, “zzzz” floating lackadaisically above his head (“2021”).
Across FOTB, Vampire Weekend is able to have fun amidst these dire circumstances thanks to a bit of wisdom that was just revealing itself to me now:
Tragedy is nothing but another silly, uncontrollable happenstance in a universe full of them!
Tragedy has stricken in infinite forms since the inception of the universe; it is no different than an errant rainstorm, or a short circuit, or a bump on the noggin — just another event that could strike at any moment in this crazy, entropy-filled world! Vampire Weekend ask, if tragedy is a tale as old as time, why treat it with ceremony? Why can’t we put tales of drowning lovers and broken vows into delightful ditties and jingles?!
To that end, Vampire Weekend buoy their tragic ditties with instrumentation that seems to hail from centuries past — is that a guitar or a mandolin? A keyboard, or a fortepiano? Were those choral recordings taken at Electric Lady, or at St. Patrick’s Cathedral? On FOTB, they are a band of travelling jesters, dancing their merry way up to forlorn souls bearing a playful half smile. Each delightful strum of their mandolin is a lighthearted shake of the head, each beachy slap of the bongo is an amused eye roll, reminding us of another hard-earned piece of wisdom:
What can ya do?
Luckily for me, there was of course PLENTY to learn from this breakup other than just the unpredictable nature of life on this wacky place we call Earth. But when I needed reminded that my plight was one as old as time itself, that it wasn’t the first nor the last, the Shakespearean tragi-comedies within Father of the Bride were there to help me dance along to the melodies that can be found in undue affliction.
And as a bonus, Father of the Bride was the only album in Vampire Weekend’s career thus far that I hadn’t been able to connect with, which for me, a longtime Vampire Weekend superfan, was a tragedy in and of itself! Thankfully, when one romantic door closed, the musical door to Vampire Weekend’s fourth LP was just one of the many doors that broke wide open.
- Josh Van Auken, 28, Manhattan
Reputation by Taylor Swift
An Album for a Transition Through: Assault & Distrust
In the last year of my undergraduate degree, I was sexually assaulted by a former partner. This was a disturbing, emotional, and transformative experience. While the assault brought its own struggles, the “he said, she said” mentality of the university Greek life (embarrassing, I know) carried the most impact. I often felt ostracized and was frequently told that my experience wasn’t real, that I was lying. While I found many forms of support in the aftermath (e.g. therapy, family, friends, my future husband, tequila?), one nearly medicinal comfort was Taylor Swift’s Reputation. The lyrics processing her pain and betrayal resonated while the songs speaking to revenge, self-confidence, and strength gave me hope. This album helped me navigate a difficult social circle and gave me confidence when I eventually decided to report. Looking back, while I didn’t always handle my emotions perfectly during this time (i.e. tequila), I am proud of how I moved through it and the strength I channeled. Reputation played a big role in that. A sweet cherry on top is that the song “delicate” off this album always made me think of my then boyfriend, now husband. ❤️
- anonymous
Skylight by Pinegrove
An Album for Grace’s Transition Through: New Beginnings
There's something to be said about the way melancholic music alters human brain chemistry. Although I identify as a self-proclaimed sunshine girl, I could bottle up and drink a never-ending supply of slow, melodic, lyrically charged music. One of my college friends admitted that she was trying to court me to be her friend (um, flattering) and also mentioned that my choice of “getting ready” music was interesting. Preparing to drink in sticky dark basements with Spotify playlists filled with quintessential sad boi bands like Bright Eyes and Death Cab for Cutie was a true gateway drug my older siblings introduced me to, resulting in an ongoing addiction with no intention of seeking help anytime soon. Anyway, I digress.
When I moved to New York in 2018, I thought I would feel self-actualized and, albeit, cool. Instead, I found myself saying no to happy hours due to being underpaid and could count the friends I had made on four fingers. I felt like I was studying abroad—a Midwesterner cosplaying as someone who read books on the subway and tried not to call her mom crying once a week. Enter Pinegrove: a band based out of Montclair, New Jersey.
This band, with which I was relatively acquainted through their songs “New Friends” (from their debut album) and “Old Friends” (an appropriate addition to their second album), had been saved to my liked songs for years. They soon presented themselves as a much needed social opportunity that would turn into a hyperfixation and eventually a permanent tattoo on my body in commemoration of my love for their flowery, forlorn songs.
One day, my coworker — also from the Garden State — mentioned she was going to see a show of theirs at Rough Trade for their new album Skylight. In an intimate room in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, amidst a sea of fisherman’s beanies and wire-framed glasses, I, for the first time, felt like I was doing something right in the city I chose to commit the better part of my 20s to. There’s something about singing “One day I won't need your love / One day I won't define myself by the one I'm thinking of” that feels reminiscent of group therapy, ironically surrounded by the exact slightly artsy men who would likely be the ones to send me to a stranger’s couch in the first place.
This past year, the band announced an indefinite hiatus—a musical tragedy for me.
While not my favorite from their catalog (I’m very passionate about Everything So Far), this album is the most nostalgic and time-transporting for me. Skylight has haunted me with its lyrics, making its way into my ears at least bimonthly, years later. I thank this album for expanding my vocabulary with words like “intrepid,” followed by a right hook with lines like “Some people spend their whole lives looking for someone who could understand.” I made friends with this album during a time in my life that kicked off a new city that would rattle my central nervous system but simultaneously steal my heart.
- Grace Butz, 28, Brooklyn
All’s Well That Ends Well by Chiodos
An Album for Phil’s Transition Through: Middle School
Like any pubescent boy, fitting in was a top priority. The halls of Hocker Grove Middle School (go Eagles!) could be a harsh environment, full of awkward interactions that led to moments which still keep me up at night. Every middle schooler needs a persona – jock, nerd, or God forbid, theatre kid. I chose a different route… emo.
While at the time I would have vehemently declared I was, in fact, scene and not goth, the differentiation is lost on me today. Fueled by my parents’ divorce and one too many trips down the mid-2000’s late-night YouTube rabbit hole, there was one album that scratched my angsty itch: All’s Well That Ends Well by the Chiodos. This album has everything: gritty guitar riffs, embarrassingly edgy lyrics, and ear-piercing screams. Craig Owens (lead singer of the Chiodos) and his ensemble, performing within my iPod Nano and embodied by my Hot Topic hoodie that I wore literally every day (Fig. 1), carried me through middle school. I challenge you to listen to this album and resist the urge to slam your bedroom door while calling your mom a “bitch.”
There are several events that have the power to bisect my life: the day I got married, the loss of my father, the inevitable day I purchase my first home (purely hypothetical). None of these are more important than the transformative experience of attending my first concert – the Chiodos headlining at the Bottleneck in Lawrence, KS circa 2007. I was in over my head. It was hot, loud, and quite frankly, scary. The night ended with my sibling escorting me out of the concert due to fear of shattering my virgin ear drums. While I look back on this day more fondly than I experienced it, this initiated my love of music, concert-going, and ear protection.
In all seriousness, this album facilitates a feeling of nostalgia for a time in my life where I had plenty of emotion but lacked and outlet and direction. The Chiodos and other vaguely problematic screamo bands of that time gave me footing against forces that threw my life askew. They made me feel seen (pun intended).
- Phil Shamet, 28, Brooklyn