The World's a Little Blurry 👩🏻🎤
Shuffle Sundays #10 • March 5, 2021
Hello and welcome to Shuffle Sundays, a weekly curated list of content I thought was worth sharing with more people. In celebration of Women's History Month and International Women's Day, I’m dedicating this issue to incredible women in the music industry, past and present, that keep constantly fighting for a place in a world that is unfortunately still very patriarchal. Here’s to all of you! ❤️
🎧 • soundtrack while writing this issue: Julien Baker - Little Oblivions
🎬 The United States vs. Billie Holiday
{something to watch • movie, 130min}
Even though critics didn’t seem to care much about this movie, The United States vs. Billie Holiday is still a must-watch for music lovers. It focuses on the period where Holiday used to be persecuted by the Federal Department of Narcotics due to her drug abuse while fighting to be able to continue to sing Strange Fruit, her most famous recording to date, a song that used metaphors to discuss Black victims of lynchings in the south of the US.
Many people claimed that the movie didn’t bring anything new to the table, and I can understand that argument, but what about the impact that it can have on people that either are not familiar with Billie Holiday or simply didn’t know that much about those facts, myself included?
No matter what you think, there’s one thing we can all agree on: Andra Day is absolutely phenomenal in portraying Lady Day. No wonder she just recently won the Golden Globes for best actress!
watch the trailer on YouTube
🎬 Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry
{something to watch • documentary, 140min}
From the 1950s to the 2010s, The World's a Little Blurry is a documentary following the meteoric career of another Billie. Eilish, in this case, is an undeniable musical phenomenon of its generation, either you’re one of the 77m people that follows her on social media, or you’ve never heard of her until this point.
I may be a little biased since I love watching documentaries where we get to watch artists working on their creations, but this is a very special one in many ways. Billie’s first record, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? (2019) was entirely written and recorded at home with her brother and producer Finneas, and won them 6 Grammys at the 2020’s award. Not bad for a debut record from a teenager, huh?
In The World's a Little Blurry, we see Billie from the moment she releases her first-ever song online until she wins the Grammy and turns 18 years old. In between, we get to witness her life at home in LA surrounded by her family, difficult romantic relationships, life on a worldwide tour and, surprisingly, how lonely she feels a lot of the time, even with everything that she has going on for her. That’s absolutely nothing new, as we’ve seen many other documentaries where we realize how lonely these artists feel outside of their busy schedules.
What makes Eilish different is perhaps her ability to translate those feelings into lyrics and music that speaks directly to a generation of people struggling with mental health earlier and earlier in their lives. It’s one of the most intimate documentaries I’ve seen in a while, even when it feels like I’ve already seen that before.
watch the trailer on YouTube | listen to the album on Spotify
🤘🏼📺 Spiritbox - Constance
{something to watch/listen to • music video, 4:32min}
Metalcore is slowly becoming one of my favorite genres to follow, with bands like Bring Me The Horizon, Architects, and now Spiritbox, a powerful metal band from Canada. What amazes me about them is their ability to go from brutally heavy screams to incredibly beautiful melodies, all kudos to lead singer Courtney LaPlante’s impressive vocal range. Although I’m not always up to sit through the heavier parts, the more melodic one always grabs me in a way that makes it difficult to stop listening to.
And while most songs will alternate those moments throughout the song, Constance brings a more calming sound (in terms of the vocal parts at least) until the very end, where the heaviness kicks in. The music video deals with a very delicate subject and it’s a crucial part of experiencing the music for the first time. Both the song and the video have been on repeat here and I just can’t wait to hear their upcoming record, whenever that comes out. Headphones are recommended, as usual.
watch the music video on YouTube / listen to the song on Spotify
⚡️ Something to Inspire
{music photography}
In celebration of Women's History Month, I decided to revisit my archives and highlight some of my favorite photographs I took of incredible women in the music scene over the years while working almost exclusively as a music photographer. I’ll be posting 4 sets of 10 photographs on my blog, every Saturday in March, you can check out the first entry here, and see a few of them below:
💽 New Music Release
{something to listen to • albums & singles}
Another week full of releases, I'm particularly interested in checking the new albums from Adult Mom, Kings of Leon, of Montreal, The Spill Canvas, and Tiger Jaw. Also, great new tracks from Yukika, James Arthur, Jon Batiste, Emily King, Jenny Kern, Bruno Mars & Anderson .Paak, and many more. If you’re curious to hear some of these songs and more, make sure to follow my 2021 playlist on Spotify, updated weekly with new releases:
👋🏼 Say Hi & Thank You for Reading! 🙌🏼
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