Troye Sivan

Charli – XCX-iting Futuristic Experimental Pop at its best

By / 25/09/2019

Charli XCX dropped her latest album on Friday 13th September 2019, her new album ‘Charli’ promising to be her most personal work to date.

Charli XCX is most well known for song ‘Boom Clap’ which featured in he film the fault in our stars. Charli is also known for her hit features on Iggy Azalea’s Fancy and Icona Pop’s I Love It (which Charli originally wrote) 

Charli’s musical career changed when she dropped Her Vroom Vroom EP in which she debuted her new style inspired by PC Music and produced by experimental pop artist/producer SOPHIE.  The song Vroom Vroom features loud,clunky, metallic beats with a super pop chorus, the hard instrumental and spoken word verses giving the song an extra edge. These songs won her a cult following, but not so much mainstream success.

Charli later released two mix tapes ‘Number 1 Angel’ and ‘Pop 2’, these mixtapes were met with critical acclaim especially ‘Pop 2’.  A. G. Cook Head of PC Music was a producer on both mixtapes and also co-produced Charli’s new album. In between these releases she released stand alone single ‘Boys’ a more digestible offering for the mainstream crowd. 

Anyway…After a hacked a google drive, a few standalone singles and two mixtapes the much talked about 3rd album has finally now been released!  And this album is crazy in the best way! I imagine this glitchy futuristic pop style to not be everyone’s cup of tea (Click’s outro sounds like your speaker exploding) but I love how fresh it sounds especially in today’s pop music landscape. 

A vast amount of the album features collaborative tracks with artists such as Christine and the Queens, Lizzo, Haim,Cupcakke, Brooke Candy and Troye Sivan.  On the collaborations Charli is in full on party mode and on the solo tracks she seems to be brought back down to reality as she sings on ‘White Mercedes’ “I hate the silence, that’s why the music’s always loud” which perfectly sum up these quieter, more stripped back solo tracks. 

Social anxiety anthem ‘Gone’ featuring Christine and The Queens, finishes with an brilliantly addictive glitchy break down, which perfectly replicates the feelings of the song’s protagonists. 

It seems that ‘I Got It’ from Pop 2 was a blue print for ‘Shake It’, looped sample from charli? Check! Cupcakke, Brooke Candy and Pablo Vittar?Check,check,check! Big Freida also teams up on the track. A completely bonkers track which gets crazier and crazier with Charli’s vocals getting chopped and changed through out, 

On 2099 Charli teams up once again with Troye Sivan to gives us a weird, crazy, chaotic, alien sounding Bop! The beginning sounds like an alien spaceship engaging the tractor beam and it literally ends with a bang! (And some alien interference)

Track 10 from ‘Pop 2’ gets a re-working on ‘Blame It On Your Love’ with a new instrumental and verse from Lizzo. I wasn’t sure what to think of this new spin on ‘Track 10’ when it was released as the first single but it has definitely grown on me, I do wish Lizzo’s verse was slightly longer though! 
One of my favourites of the album has got to be White Mercedes, but then again who doesn’t love a good ballad? Its a sweet a song and probably the most for lack of better words ‘normal’ of the whole album.

My top 3 songs from the album are White Mercedes, Gone and February 2017 (I love how different the structure of this song is to most songs)

For me this album cements Charli’s status as a great experiment pop artist finally creating the kind of music they want to make.

P.S. I have recently added some new cards to my etsy shop including the “Happy Birday!” and “Toucan do this!”, I’ve also added some more pocket mirrors. Click here to check out my shop!

Shop | Instagram | Twitter

MemeowMix – Pride Playlist

By / 16/06/2019

As it’s Pride Month I thought I would celebrate by creating my own pride themed playlist, Welcome to Memeow Mix: Pride Edition!

1. Lady Gaga – Born This Way – No Pride playlist could be complete without some Gaga! An iconic self acceptance song which name checks the LGBTQ community. I also love Gaga’s idea of self reinvention, you can be “re-born” over and over again.
2. Janelle Monáe – Make Me Feel – A catchy prince inspired tune, which touches on pansexuality.
3. Troye Sivan – Bloom – a fun pop song about “Flowers” according to Sivan (I don’t think it’s really about flowers)
4. Tegan and Sara – Closer – a fun pop song from twin sisters Tegan and Sara.
5.Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Cast – Gettin’ Bi (Feat. Pete Gardner) – I had to include this one! This song is from the musical/comedy/drama show Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and does a very good job of dispelling some of misconceptions of bisexuality!
6.Taylor Swift – You Need To Calm Down – Swift shows her allyship to the LGBTQ community in this new song, telling the bigots they “need to calm down” and that their is “sunshine on the street at the parade, but you would rather be in the dark ages”. Swift also shouts out LGBTQ charity ‘Glaad’ this has a led to influx of donations to the charity, which is nice to hear!
7. Sarah Bareilles – Brave – Sara Bareilles was inspired to write this song about a friend of hers that was struggling to come out.
8. Hayley Kiyoko – Girls Like Girls – A track about a girl stealing a girl from a guy! (It’s a new spin on the formula!)
9.Mary Lambert – She Keeps Me Warm – Lambert was featured on 2012 song ‘Same Love’ by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, ‘She Keeps Me Warm’ builds a new song around Lambert’s ‘Same Love’ hook.
10. Troye Sivan (Feat. Betty Who) – Heaven – Another Troye song! Here Troye sings about trying to reconcile religious belief with his sexuality.
11. Calum Scott – No Matter What – A lovely song about coming out and finding acceptance.
12. Kacey Musgraves – Rainbow – This is such a beautiful song and I love the message, also reminds me slightly of Jessie’s song ‘She Loved Me from ‘Toy Story 2’. Oh no! I think I have something in my eye…

Shop | Instagram | Twitter

I Blog just for you!

By / 25/04/2019

I recently attended Troye Sivan’s Eventim Apollo concert in Hammersmith, with my partner. This concert was part of the Europe leg of The Bloom Tour for Troye’s Sophomore album ‘Bloom’.

One of the first things I noticed when I got to the concert was the amount of LGBTQ people/couples in attendance. Being gay myself, my partner and I often refrain from PDA when out and about due to fear of getting attacked or judged. Something as simple as holding hands in public is still a real issue for LGBTQ folks, even though the world is slowly changing and becoming much more accepting!

However in this atmosphere, surrounded by many other members of the LGBTQ community, Troye’s concert felt like a safe space. It’s a hard feeling to describe to a non-LGBTQ person, a kind of fitting in/belonging that I haven’t really experienced before. I haven’t attended any pride events yet but I’m guessing a very similar feeling is experienced at them. I will soon see if this is the case, as I have stall booked for Memeow Gifts (my LGBTQ inclusive greetings card business) at Warwickshire Pride in August! 😁

… Anyway back to the concert!

Troye Sivan’s frequent songwriter/collaborator Leland was the opening act, who has also written songs for artists including Selena Gomez and Allie X. I wasn’t previously familiar with his own music but was very impressed with his voice/performance and  have since been streaming his songs (I recommend Middle of a Heartbreak, Run Into You and Mattress).

Then it was Time for Troye! Troye opened up the concert with Seventeen, which is also the album opener for ‘Bloom’. Troye gave an energetic performance throughout the concert, as soon as the curtain dropped after ‘Seventeen’ he burst into the bouncy high energy ‘Bloom’ followed by ‘Plum’.

The highlight of the evening for me was when Troye sang ‘Heaven’ a song about coming out, while also trying to reconcile your faith/belief, “Without losing a piece of me, How do I get to heaven?”. Unbeknownst to Troye some dedicated fans had placed envelopes saying “Open Please” on every seat in seated areas, which each contained a paper flower. There were 6 different coloured flowers distributed around the venue. The instructions included with the flowers said to place the flower over the torch on your smart phone when Troye started ‘Heaven’.

To Troye’s surprise, when he started singing ‘Heaven’ the venue before him transformed into a rainbow sea. This was a lovely moment, pretty much the whole audience was involved and it looked AMAZING!

Troye also performed versions of his recent collaborative songs ‘1999’, ‘I’m so Tired…’ and ‘Dance to This’, which he managed to pull off without the assistance of his collaborators (Charli XCX, Lauv, Ariana Grande).

Troye came across as very genuine and down to Earth throughout the show, getting the audience to sing Happy Birthday to a fan in attendance and exclaiming how he felt like he was in the ‘Lizzie Mcguire Movie’.

Me and my partner had a great evening at the concert, which came to a close with the tracks ‘Youth’ and ‘My My My!’.

It was awesome show all in all and really refreshing to see the concert of an unapologetically queer pop artist, something we will hopefully see much more of in future, To quote Lizzie McGuire “Hey now, Hey now, This is what dreams are made of”.

Shop | Instagram | Twitter


Facebook
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram