Part A: Kim Cooper’s “On Neutral Milk Hotel” contains a considerable amount of information about the album, the band, and Anne Frank. What kind of research did Cooper conduct in order to write this track by track analysis and how does she incorporate her research findings into the track by track annotations? Which annotation stood out to you as particularly insightful, and why?
Kim Cooper had to individually ask Jeff Mangum and other members about what the lyrics had meant for each individual songs in the album. Cooper saw that the songs had a significant connection to Anne Frank’s story, so he researched about her past life experience such as the times when she was in hiding with her family and when she was captured and placed into internment camps. In order to understand the emotions and the significance of songs (such as “Holland“), Cooper had to fully understand what Frank and her family was going through at the time. For songs such as “The King of Carrot Flowers Pt. One” and “The King of Carrot Flowers Pts. Two & Three,” Cooper incorporated all of the information that she had received while talking to the members of Neutral Milk Hotel. Cooper’s extensive research showed that she fully understood the artist’s intentions within the album especially when she cited the members’ experience in recording “The King of Carrot Flowers Pts. Two & Three” about being out of tune. The review was powerful because it was written in different sections splitting it up by song which made it so much easier to read and understand for readers. Since the writer incorporated specific information that the band members had mentioned, it makes it easier for the reader to understand the meaning behind the lyrics. While Cooper had cited information from her research about Anne Frank and other information obtained from interviews with the band members, her opinions were fully supported by the different examples. I found her annotation about “Holland” was very interesting as it was directly referencing Anne Frank’s story and how the writer found song references to the White Rose Movement. Although this was not intended by Jeff Mangum, I thought it was interesting on how it also included parallels from the social movement. Cooper discussed how Jeff Mangum made historical references to real-life events as well as making a personal connection by including the story about “a dead brother who refuses to be reincarnated” within the second verse of the song. Cooper provided an in-depth annotation about each of the different allusions in these verses and broke it down in to provide a detailed insight on the song.
Part B: After reading Tari Gevinson’s “Just Kidding, Love Sucks: Notes on Taylor Swift,” compare the length of the track-by-track annotations for Swift’s album Red. The annotation for “Dear John” is 166 words, “The Story of Us” is 15 words, and the others fall somewhere in between. How do the varying lengths of the annotations affect the reader? Why might Gevinson have chosen to alter the lengths of the annotations and what’s the effect of doing so? Discuss at least three annotations to help illustrate your point.
When there are varying lengths for annotations, it helps the reader to go with the flow of the writing. Longer annotations help the reader to slow down and focus on the detail, while the shorter annotations speed up the reader and help them to get a general picture. When there is a short annotation made by the writer, it can provide a brief summary that can sum up what the song is trying to imply as stated within the annotation of “If This Was a Movie.” It provides a brief glimpse of what the writer had perceived of the song without providing too much detail on different parts of the song. On the other hand, longer annotations tend to provide a much more detailed picture about what the song is about. As one of the shortest annotation on “The Story of Us” states that “listening to this song is the only time I can ever see myself fist-pumping.” Even though it is a short annotation, it provides a clear picture about the song even if it is not very detailed. From this simple statement, readers can imagine the excitement from the melody because when readers see someone fist-pumping to a song, they can picture the hype from the song. On the other hand, the annotation for “Dear John” is much more detailed. Gevinson notes the part that says “All of the girls that you’ve run dry/have tired, lifeless eyes/’cause you’ve burned them out.” Just from a short excerpt from the song, there is a detailed image talking about toxic relationships and how she uses the imagery of the girls eyes being burned out while contrasting it with “fireworks” to criticize her ex-boyfriend. Since fireworks is a symbol that is used to celebrate, Gevinson talked about how it was to celebrate the end of a toxic relationship. If there are longer annotations used compared to shorter ones, it helps readers to visualize different parts of the song instead of giving them a broad picture of the song.
Part C: Jonathan Lethem’s piece is another variation on the track by track genre, as he considers the Talking Heads album Fear of Music and considers how it translates in a live setting, particularly as the number of band members expanded and the band’s live sound evolved. For Lethem, what happens to the songs on Fear of Music during the Talking Heads’ performance during those songs? How does Lethem capture his own feelings about those songs and the performance?
Jonathan Lethem mentioned that when the band had expanded with new members being added, he thought that “something was lost as well as gained, for these songs especially” (87). He reflected that the band even when the band had expanded, he sees that although the sound is powerful, Lethem expresses that the band has changed. Unlike the previous band Talking Heads that he was familiar with, he saw that when the band was performing the song, they have developed a new identity. It was interesting how Lethem had talked about “it’s as though the original band was both too lonely and not lonely enough for the singer and songwriter of “Fear of Music.”” Lethem commented that during the performance of the songs, he noticed that the performance was wild as “the anxiety, claustrophobia, and dread, but also the fascination, the solipsistic delight… has exploded.” The performance is not always the same for the band, it is as if they are different people performing on stage.
Part D: Shea Serrano and Patterson Hood offer different variations on the track by track annotations. Instead of focusing on a single artist, they discuss several artists. What is the goal for each of their pieces and why does discussing multiple artists help them achieve their respective goals?
Both writers Shea Serrano and Patterson Hood discussed different artists within their review because the writers wanted to provide examples and explain the music style of Americana (Hood) and the Hip-hop genre (Serrano). For Patterson Hood, wanted to provide the readers a glimpse of the music that was popular during the 1990s which was often called as Americana. Hood wanted to emphasize the music and how it was not just about country, but it was a blend of country, blues, and even folk. He was able to do this by providing songs from different artists to show the readers what Americana was really about and what kind of music was released at the time (as well as the music that had led up to its popularity). On the other hand, Serrano focused on a completely different genre: hip-hop. Shea Serrano compiled songs and artists each year after 1979. Starting out with the origin of the modern hip-hop genre with The Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight,” Serrano explained different songs from each year to show how the hip-hop genre had developed throughout the years. By discussing the popular hip-hop songs from each year, Serrano is showing the progression of the genre and the music that is developed from the hip-hop genre from the past to today.
OFF THE RECORD 