in his own words, Macklemore was fucking awesome.

Last night, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis held a concert at my college.

if you can spot me, I’m in all black, head to toe. 1300 guesses where I am. from Macklemore’s Instagram

Let’s get rid of the not-so-great things– Macklemore sounded a bit scripted, as if he said the same phrases over and over leading into his set lists. However, this is quite pardonable, because he does hold concerts for a living and there are only so many things you can say to lead into your song. Also, Macklemore’s opening act was way too long– it was DJ Eklipze (Walter Baker Bridgforth, a local student from Berklee), and then the time it took for Macklemore to actually get on stage was around 3.5 hours (minus one hour of standing on line).

Now to focus on the good things! As I was walking to the library after the concert (because a Wendy’s got to study even after flipping her shit several times at a crazy concert), I overhead someone on her phone say, “Was the concert good? Well, it about hope and shit. You know.” But hope is always a good message, and especially so when the performer is so enthusiastic and sincere. Macklemore truly means everything he raps; one cannot feel strangely unmoved when he slips into his speakeasy style, and even amidst a hall of 1,300 screaming women, at the more serious parts, Macklemore feels like he’s just having a conversation with you.

One of the best things about Macklemore is that he does not rap exclusively about booze and sex– like the majority of popular rap and hip-hop artists out there– he actually raps about things that do matter to everyone, our fears and our aspirations, and beating the odds. So yes, “hope and shit” is an amazing topic for a rap and hip-hop concert; it makes you appreciate Macklemore for beyond just a few sick beats.

It was a bare-bones concert, just a few fancy lights; Macklemore rode out on the crowd for a bit, and sprayed the crowd with water several times, and put on funny hats twice and did a silly encore with a cape. The focus of the concert was on Macklemore, and he is a dynamic performer as he mesmerizingly moves around with quite large and exaggerated motions and exhorts people to dance with him. In fact, his preternaturally long and pale arms reminded me of Michael Phelps. Perhaps Macklemore should have tried his hand at swimming before Little League? His trumpet and percussion bud, Owuor Arunga, was quite captivating as well, as they both jammed together, incredibly in sync with each other. Overall, Macklemore is enthusiastically fun to watch on stage.

Another thing I loved about Macklemore’s performance is the time he took to talk to the audience, and show appreciation for them. Macklemore shared with us his impression of my college: (1) Women everywhere he was (2) Harry Potter (3) The most beautiful campus he had ever seen. He also confessed he went skinny-dipping in Lake Waban, which is crazy, since I was doing homework in the library with fantastic a view of the lake when he apparently went skinny-dipping. Of course, in turn, we screamed our guts out for him, and unlike his last five concerts, we did not drop him when he went crowd-surfing.

RT @mmichlle "You ladies are really fucking loud and I love that."– Macklemore, 21:47, 15 April 2013 at Wellesley College—
Patricia (@obbligatos) April 16, 2013

mmichlle is my private Twitter account; theinnocentlam is my public one. 

As someone who is used to Asian concerts in which the performers bow incredibly low, I was extremely touched at the conclusion of the concert, where Macklemore exceeded a 90 degree bow for more than a minute. His humbling, despite his great success– despite performing and being at the MTV Movie Awards the previous night and flying out on a red-eye flight to Boston– really humbles us all. I hope Macklemore never finds a reason to sign with a label, and that he can remain an independent artist. As he reminded us, it is 2013, and he was just certified gold without a label. For college-age students who are just beginning to find their bearings in the real world, being able to follow our dreams even without institutional support strikes a strong chord with us. Beyond his music, Macklemore is thus even more of an inspiring figure.

Just one last, tiny, inconsequential thing. Macklemore is gorgeous. Aside from wearing a wife-beater for 80% of the concert which showcased his well-defined arm musculature, he did a few push-ups on stage and you could clearly see the outline of his backside. It is safe to say, in little under two hours, never has a man satisfied so many women at once.

[review] Tohoshinki’s Time (to make Michelle surly)

Disclaimer: it is currently 1:30am, and thus I may not be able to vouch for the absolute rationality of this post.

Before I rip on each song, let me first rip on the entire album. Discounting the songs that were released previously released singles beforehand, the new songs in Time all make me yearn to tear off my ears. It is so disjointed and silly and not worthy of the vocals that Changmin and Yunho possess. They also do not mesh well with the previously released singles, either. Time is a slapdash album, and it throws into sharp relief precisely what Yunho and Changmin do not excel at– happy stuff.

What in tarnation is the first minute in Fated? It is heavy and untoward, and then breaks into a lovely bare, Yunho solo, followed by Changmin. I understand that as the introductory song, conceptually it may be nice to start with a ‘strong’ opening, but the contrast between the strong and weak parts was too unsettling. The chorus is too repetitive and too cliched to be memorable. I get it. The epic introduction. Whatever.

Next up is Catch Me -If You Wanna-. I did not review their Korean single Catch Me, which I did like, though it was simply following the dubstep dance trend. It is a solid song, with a very beautiful embellished instrumental. Their lives were simply amazing.

逢いたくて逢いたくてたまらない is probably the most awkward song to come after Catch Me. Upbeat, happy, replete with whistling sounds, and repetitive, and simplistic, it makes me want to wretch. Neither Yunho nor Changmin are exactly great at conveying cheer in their singing; their voices are on the ‘reedy’ rather the ‘full’ and ‘warm’ side, which makes it hard for them to pull off singles like this.

One More Thing and STILL I had reviewed previously, and to make a long story short, Tohoshinki rules at emo ballads.

I Know is more of the same deal: Tohoshinki ruling an emo ballad. I cannot stress enough that they are flat-out professionals at handling this genre. Every little inflection is carefully controlled, and the instrumentals are just enough to support the voices without overpowering them. The piano motif is sad and plaintive without being too commonplace. Their voices are so smooth and yet so tense and painful at the same time. Better yet, Changmin and Yunho continue to match and complement each other scarily well; when listening, you do not think, “Oh that’s Changmin. Now it’s Yunho.” It is just Tohoshinki.

Y3K is the next song, and Please Kill Me Now. The range is too low and the chorus is contrite, with the ring of “been there done that.” The rather slow beat just makes it excruciating to listen to for the whole four minutes. The yodeling melismas are just silly, too. The bridge seems to no relationship to do with the song itself– it is just an empty cesspool where we wait for the meter to return.

Thankfully, BLINK comes after Y3K. Along with ANDROID, I had reviewed these two singles, and long story short again: I was highly impressed with Tohoshinki’s clean and cohesive electrodance stylings. When compared to Catch Me, Android is the better dubstep single. It is truly an upbeat electrodance single while Catch Me is more like dressing for meat bait– the two steaks being Changmin and Yunho, of course.

When reformatted for the Japanese market, atrocious English was added to Humanoids. Think of Humanoids as the Catch Me B-side. It was not good enough to be a lead single. That is all.

Save me from this happy bland song: One and Only One. The latter half of the song, which dips into the higher register, sounds so unnaturally strained for both of them.

Is this song a love song for their fans? Judging by the six minute run time, and Yunho being forced to “la” into oblivion, In Our Time is the love song. As such, it is an insufferable song, sweet and sickly. Time to wash my ears by listening to another love song for fans, SHINee’s Dream Girl.

[lifestyle] refresh: music I’ve been listening to nowadays

After almost a year, I got around to updating some of the sounds I have been jamming to for a while. Here’s the playlist, and included are Rania, GLAM, Kelly Clarkson, Zedd, Tohoshinki, ZE:A, among others.

this is what Katy Tiz actually looks like, aka the woman who sings “I Got a Boy” with so much more swag than SNSD combined.

[review] SHINee’s Chapter 1. Dream Girl – The Misconceptions of You.

I hope you are all as excited as I am to analyze the SHINee’s Dream Girl comeback. I will split this review into four main parts: album, music video, lives, and overall assessment. Let’s get on it.

ALBUM

(1) Spoiler. This song begins with the opening synth to Sherlock. As SHINee has said, Dream Girl: The Misconceptions of You should be viewed as a continuation of Sherlock. Moreover, this introduction mentions each song in the album; establishing a very clear connection between Sherlock and Dream Girl. In fact, the instrumentation used on this track is not unlike Sherlock, except a little lower and sultry. SHINee is definitely back but it is definitely in a more understated, sexier fashion. Case in point, we have wonderful chants of mostly Jonghyun singing “Tonight, tonight, tonight…” at the end of the song. In fact, this song– verses and chorus– is mostly dominated by Jonghyun’s voice. The biggest disappointment is this track is Key. There are times he does sound lovely, but often the endings of his singing parts stick out and seem largely unfinished compared to the sultry croonings of Onew and Jonghyun, and yes, even Taemin.

(2) Dream Girl. Praise lord that this is not ”acid electro funk,” as described to the music critics who received a preview of Dream Girl before it officially released. This is just electro funk. If it were “acid,” it would be much more sharper and higher, and the electro part of the song would not be as full. Think Dream Girl on heroine and slowly wasting away but crying out for more to feed an addiction; now that would be “acid electro funk.”

Dream Girl is amazing electro funk. The tricky problem with funk is that if not done well, the novelty of the funk can overpower the singers– so, in essence, the audience is thinking this song is really weird and no matter how talented the performers are, they simply cannot ignore the weirdness of the funk. The song was assiduously mixed with this in mind: the funk elements are there but not in your face– we get treated to beautiful falsettos mostly sung by Onew and Jonghyun (heavy on the Jonghyun for the most part), and “funky” synths like guitar riffs and interesting bass lines, while present, are kept minimal in the background. These funky moments are likewise paired with minimal electro synthy tricks; the choruses are all our familiar Sherlock electro with a light percussive beat, so the track itself cannot be categorized as just plain funk, hence the electro funk. Dream Girl strikes the correct balance, which is what makes it such an exciting track to listen to.

[music] Lang Lang and the kindling of piety

Four hours after the concert finished, 2:30am in the morning, and still I cannot go to bed. This night of 1 March 2013, I attended Lang Lang’s debut BSO concert at Symphony Hall in Boston, where he played Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, Opus 18.

Lang Lang’s performance of this concerto was staggering, and quite literally, rendered me without words. Silly as it is, I spent over 15 minutes composing a caption to put under my Instagram photo–I wanted to say that Lang Lang transcended perfection, but then it was so much more than perfection–it is the absolute, and if there is a truth, it is the absolute truth.  I suppose, in retrospect, this description seems like an exaggeration, but in the moment, and for the rest of my life, I know that Lang Lang is of divinity. One strives for completeness to fill the void in life and achieve purpose, but Lang Lang is so effortlessly complete that he seems like he cannot be reaching towards the same goals. He simply cannot be. Lang Lang exists. He is.

The Piano Concerto no. 2 and I have a long history together, and I collect recordings of it. Compared to my favorite recording, Leif Ove Andsnes with the Berliner Philharmoniker, Lang Lang used rubato much more freely, and he played at a moderate pace. Moreover, he emphasized the low bass notes, anchoring himself to the orchestra, and establishing very firmly the piano can also be percussive. The first movement was sweeping and expansive, the allargandi drew me in, and I waited, breathlessly, for the resolution and release. In the second iteration of the first movement’s main theme, Lang Lang chose to place emphasis on the transition octaves, which I found particularly novel and refreshing. Despite the notoriously hard rolling chords in the first movement, Lang Lang was nimble and precise, staying ridiculously clear with his rapid pedaling despite rolling out several bass notes in succession.

The second movement was incredibly moving. Inside my head, I am currently debating whether “incredibly moving” actually describes it accurately. It does not. Lang Lang clearly reverenced every note, moving elegantly and slowly, his face in nuanced, colored delight as he delicately but surely played every note. The piano was his partner, rather than something to be commanded. He coaxed, and the piano answered, shyly and beautifully. I half thought that he would just float away with the ethereal beauty of the second movement, and often, his eyes were upturned towards the ceiling. For the whole second movement, I could only tear away my eyes once to write “beautiful” in large letters on my program. Each note was so precious, even as it died, its likeness never, ever, to be heard again except that one time on 1 March 2013. It felt so tangible, yet it faded even as I beheld it.

The third movement was likewise as effortless as the first two movements. Throughout the entire piece, the orchestra’s playing was textbook. It was flawless, and the rapport between Lang Lang, the orchestra, and the conductor, was collaborative and tight; Lang Lang frequently looked at the orchestra and conductor, and even held a long stare with the flute soloist as they played together in the second movement. The Boston Symphony Orchestra has been without a permanent conductor after James Levine left in 2011, and so it was startling to see how coordinated and balanced the orchestra was under the visiting conductor Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos. Lang Lang’s cadenza was played with an ample amount of rubato, yet, it did not seem out of place, and Lang Lang placed the rubato with good taste and did not overstay his welcome. From the headlong hedonistic days of youth, Lang Lang has clearly matured since debut.

Of particular interest to me as a pianist were Lang Lang’s body movements. He made several idiosyncratic movements: flipping his hand entirely over after completing arpeggios and scale runs, little conducting moments with his left hand to himself, playing a staccato like the piano was a hot potato (several people laughed behind me), thumping both feet during exciting parts, and using his whole body to “push” down a key repeatedly, despite the key was already depressed in the first “push.” It has made clear to me that the paradox truly exists–things that piano teachers tell you not to do as a student, can be totally subverted and allowed in professional playing. It all depends if you have control over it, and clearly, Lang Lang has developed such precision. If I were to have one quibble, it would be the tapping of the left foot during exciting moments; yet in the end, I cannot totally criticize it, because the action betrayed his unquenchable enthusiasm–undeniably endearing.

the seventh round of applause.

It was my first time ever seeing Lang Lang live, and I and the rest of the audience awarded him with an immediate standing ovation and seven rounds of applause, before he finally sat down and announced a Chopin encore. At that point, I could not help it, and screamed. He is such a nice performer; most performers bow out at that point, and consequently, I was extremely touched. Previously in Symphony Hall, I had seen Yo-Yo Ma perform Dvorak’s cello concerto, but even he had only four rounds of applause, and he offered no encore.

This concert made it extremely obvious why Lang Lang is at the forefront of classical music, and why his concerts are so popular. Lang Lang is personable. Even if one is not familiar with the piece, just by watching his movements and facial expressions, one feels like they understand the piece, and intimately so. The audience cannot help but feel his reverence and his love for what he does, and this proves to be irresistible. I went with three friends, and all of agreed that by the end of the concerto, we were all thinking, “Please marry me.” Next year, I can only hope that Lang Lang returns to play Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto no. 1 and Chopin’s Piano Concerto no. 1.