"Broken" by Gorillaz Review"
By Marvin Flores
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Broken is the 11th track of Gorillaz’ third album “Plastic Beach” and was written by Damon Albarn.
The song’s genre is Indie and starts with a melodica that later it starts adding other materials slowly, and worked well, the singer is also Damon Albarn in which I think is one of his best performances.
When I first read the lyrics, I was confused but after reading everything carefully, I would say the song is a love song, more specifically about a toxic relationship that is already ruined, here is some parts that made me think about that.
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What makes me think about this is (the most obvious) the part when it says “It's broken our love, broken, it's broken, our love” and as it says their love is broken, it can’t be fixed it’s already ruined. Also this is the chorus of the song and it’s repeated 5 times which makes it even more important.
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Also there’s a verse when it says “There's nothing you can say to her, I am without a heart, and the space has been broken” which from my point of view the “There is nothing you can say to her” sounds very hopeless like it’s over, and the part “I am without a heart” heart usually means feelings too, and that’s what makes us humans, so the fact that he says “I am without a heart” gives me the idea that he didn’t have feelings such as sympathy, so maybe that’s why the relationship is broken.
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Personally this is one of my favorite songs and top 3 of the album “Plastic Beach” it has a catchy start, Damon’s calm voice that syncs with the chill beat, and as we saw before a song that actually has a meaning, it’s easy to remember and great for most occasions, my rating for this song is a 9/10
"Talk to You" – Ricky Montgomery
A review by Siam Lian
I’ve never heard of Ricky Montgomery until a friend of mine told me to listen to his most recent song, Talk to You. The song was an amazing experience, when I first heard it, I loved the overall feeling, and I could relate to the lyrics. The song is about wanting to talk to someone, and we all can relate to that. We all have someone on our minds we want to talk to, but when we dig deeper into the song, and watch the music video, we learn the song is about his father who took his own life when Ricky was 15.
After listening to some of his other songs, I found out that Talk to You isn’t so different. Its his first solo song in 5 years and it very much sounds like the others. That isn’t a bad thing, its about consistency and its not the exact same as his old. Its better as he has become better as a Musician. His other songs touch on his emotions and his past while feeling upbeat. The lyrics were sometimes heavy, but the beat instrumentals and his higher vocal takes sound so upbeat.
"Talking to You" is no exception as its about his father who took his life, yet the overall surrounding feel feels good. At first, I thought it was a fun feeling song about a common feeling, but when I watched the video it felt so much more. The song focuses on what he feels and how the incident affects him today. The line, “Wonder if we met today, would it all end up the same?” feels much different after learning what it means. I loved the song, and it was a great introduction into his music.
"Favorite Crime" by Olivia Rodrigo
A review by Katherine Vu
Olivia Rodrigo’s highly anticipated debut album, Sour, came out on May 21, 2021, which features eleven tracks—brutal, traitor, drivers license, 1 step forward, 3 steps back, deja vu, good 4 u, enough for you, happier, jealousy, jealousy, favorite crime, and hope ur ok. I first heard about Olivia Rodrigo through her Disney+ show High School Musical: The Musical The Series. I started watching it because I didn’t have anything to do and wanted to see if it was as bad as people expected it to be, but it wasn’t at all that bad and I enjoyed the songs. One of the songs Olivia sang in the show, All I want, actually became popular on TikTok. That’s when I started following her Instagram and noticed that she posts a lot of her unreleased songs. Personally, my favorite song from her debut album is favorite crime for a multitude of reasons, but mainly, its lyrics.
I love that she uses a crime analogy to describe her relationship with a past lover. For example, “know that I loved you so bad / I let you treat me like that / I was your willing accomplice, honey / and I watched as you fled the scene / doe-eyed as you buried me / one heart broke, four hands bloody” indicates that despite knowing that this relationship wasn’t going to end well, she still stuck with him, making her a “willing accomplice.” The line “one heart broke, four hands bloody” indicates that she also had a role in breaking her own heart because both of their hands are bloody, which means that they’re both guilty.
She also says that she hopes she’s his favorite crime because he was her’s. She also talks about how she did so many things just to be able to call him hers, like defending him to her friends, just for him to leave her (“and I watched as you fled the scene / doe-eyed as you buried me”). To me, this song sounds really emotional and sad, but since I’ve never experienced heartbreak before, I can’t relate to it so I don’t feel that bad when I listen to it. I would definitely recommend her whole album to heartbroken people though, I’m sure it’ll take them on a whole rollercoaster with their emotions.
