vvvvlovesmusic: Titanic Rising by Weyes Blood

This album is a cathartic and breathtaking rollercoaster of emotions and ideas. No sonic space goes unexplored in this masterpiece of a project. I have never heard a pop album as full and rich with its sound palettes as this. This is pretty obvious if you’ve heard this album before, but the lyrics are also so well-written and even poetic at times. This thing is packed with heartfelt and raw passion. It just wouldn't work with anyone other than Natalie due to the fact that there is so much genuine emotion in her voice. I think every lyrical and conceptual choice was very intentional and relatable to further tug on the heartstrings of the listener. I would honestly be extremely shocked if she didn’t write these lyrics from her own personal experiences and viewpoints because it just sounds so believable. From the first minute of the opening track, you can already tell you’ll need the tissues on hand for the whole project. Few albums, let alone songs, evoke such emotion in me in such a short amount of time. I’m pretty sure anyone over the age of 3 years old can appreciate the lyrical content in ‘A Lot’s Gonna Change’ The extremely vulnerable, yet hopeful message in this track, “A lot’s gonna change in your lifetime, try to leave it all behind in your lifetime/Cause you got what it takes in your lifetime, try to leave it all behind in your lifetime”, is sure to either start a mid/beginning/end-life-crisis, or end one depending on your headspace. It’s also worth mentioning that this album focuses on these themes a lot. Whether it is as direct as in the intro or as subtle as in the following track, ‘Andromeda’. This song may appear to be a love song at first glance, but when inspected further, it is a tale of insecurity and desperation for meaning in what short time we have on Earth that I believe more people relate to than they are willing to admit. The disguise of passionate love quickly wears off when you look into the lyrics; “Something’s better than nothing, or so that I thought” “Running from my own life now, I’m really turning some time”. It becomes increasingly clear that she is referencing the expectation of finding love, or something that resembles it, to somehow give her life meaning. So many believe this lie because of what is perpetuated through media and elsewhere, but it’s simply untrue that your life magically fixes itself when you find a partner. It is, however, very fitting for the themes in this album of fearing the passage of time and finding something to make your time alive worthwhile. The next track, ‘Everyday’ is very similar conceptually to ‘Andromeda’. I don’t really know what to say about it that I haven’t said about track 2, so I will just say that musically it has one of my favorite hooks on the project, and a beautiful outro. Following ‘Everyday’ is my second favorite on this album, ‘Something to Believe’. The illusion of love has worn off as she reflects on her relationship with clarity and, in her own words, emptiness. The chorus, “And at night I just laid down and cried, the waters don’t really go by me, give me something I can see, something bigger and louder than the voices in me, something to believe” kind of confirms my interpretations with the last few songs, showing her absolutely desperate and anxious headspace to find “something to believe” and give her a purpose or anything to look forward to in this lonely life. After an instrumental interlude, we get yet another dense and rich, epic contribution to the themes of the album. ‘Movies’ is another reflective track, essentially being one big metaphor for her perception of love and existential dread. “Making love to a counterfeit” is her way of saying that her view of her own life’s purpose causes her to live to someone else’s standard and, in turn, figuratively living a non-life that’s completely fake, but appears to be successful from an outside lens. The outro, “I wanna be in my own movie, I wanna be the star of mine” gives a glimmer of hope to the otherwise depressing album and shows that she wants to change and find her meaning from within. ‘Mirror Forever’ is much less cut and dry with its lyrics, but from what I can gather it’s a breakup song. Compared to the rest of the album, it’s also quite pessimistic when referring to her ex; “Can’t stand being your second best”. Though she portrays her partner as less than ideal, she also acknowledges that she wasn’t the best with the refrain “Oh baby, take a look in the mirror”. The second to last full song, ‘Wild Time’ comes back to some familiar themes from before, full of regret for the loss of her relationship, even if it wasn’t perfect, “Didn’t know you were one in a million, stuck inside the wall, I’m wondering how we ever got here”. Toward the end of the track, we see pieces of a resolution with the lines “Love, pain, loving you, everyone knows you just did what you had to”. Finally, my favorite song ‘Picture Me Better’ finds her attempting to cope with the loss of her relationship. Though she tries to console herself, the weight of her expectations is too much and her true feelings slip through in the verses and haunting chorus, “Waiting for the call from beyond, waiting for something with meaning to come through soon”. If you recall earlier in the album, this is very similar to the hook on ‘Something to Believe', and in some ways ties the beginning and end together as a conceptual loop. The last instrumental, ‘Nearer to Thee’, further strengthens my claim because it is a reprise of the first track, ‘A Lot’s Gonna Change’. Overall, this album is one of my favorites of recent years and I feel like I learned so much, even as I’m sitting down and writing my thoughts. I feel as though I didn’t give enough praise to the musical aspects compared to the lyrics, but I would have gone in circles about how pretty it is if I hadn’t stopped myself and focused my attention to the poetic nature of the lyrics and analyzing the themes introduced in the project as a whole. If there is any takeaway from this album, it would be to look at your relationships and ask yourself if it’s what YOU want and not what others think it should be.

Titanic Rising

4/5/2019