I'm Clifford Stumme, and I use literary analysis and research to explain the deeper meanings of pop songs. Feel free to leave a comment or to email me at clifford@popsongprofessor.com with questions or ideas!
All tagged literary
"Hymn for the Weekend" has got to be one of my favorite songs from A Head Full of Dreams by Coldplay. The song is slow, yet strong, and it features Beyonce's beautiful voice. The song's about as pop music-ish as Coldplay can get I think, and Chris Martin the lead singer, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, backs me up on that.
Adele's 25 continues to break records this week--she already sold over 3 million albums in her first week, and no one knows when it will end. The album is beautiful and heart-rending. People have enjoyed it immensely, and the songs continue to show new depths of emotion and thought on Adele's part. I think it's interesting that one of the most popular albums of our time is often so sad. Adele doesn't stay on the superficially "happy" partying level that a lot of pop music does, and people are reacting to it positively (even if it means they're crying).
The meaning of "A Head Full of Dreams" explained in detail by a scholar of literature
Coldplay's new album A Head Full of Dreams is awesome--not only the lyrics, but the music as well. Everything about this groovy disco-experimental album is uplifting as well as dance worthy. Billboard.com refers to Chris Martin explaining that he wants fans to "shuffle [their] feet" to the songs on this album, and as Wife-April and I were listening to it, we realized that even our prime dance style (west coast swing) would work really well with a lot of these songs. (We were pretty excited.)
Psy's "Gangnam Style" came out over three years ago, and since then the only thing we in American have really heard from Psy is the song "Gentleman," which was successful but didn't go off nearly as well as the first video. Now Psy's trying again. His new video for his song "DADDY" is certainly zany and weird. I wouldn't say it's as zany or weird as "Gangnam Style," but it tries. It does, however, contain a much more cohesive central idea and pushes that idea to its limits, all the while maintaining a musical style halfway between Korean and American pop.
"Million Years Ago" is a spare, lean song. The instrumentation is minimal, and Adele's voice is incredibly powerful. In an interview with Hattie Collins, she explains that it went on "at the last minute" and that it's "very stripped-back . . . just me on the guitar." The sparse musicality gives Adele's voice plenty of opportunity to do what it does best--wring ever tear and spare piece of emotion out of any listener who gets too close.
SONG MEANING: "Everglow" by Coldplay is about the feeling of warmth or happiness that comes with the sadness you feel when you think about a relationship, situation, or friendship that has now ended.
In an interview with NPR, Adele explains that the real River Lea is mostly disgusting: "My experience of it was, whenever I was in our version of the projects, the river ran through it — so it ran through all my aunties' houses, stuff like that . . . But the idea of the song is that, especially since I've become a parent, let alone writing this record, I'm dealing with myself for the first time. And I have a lot of bad habits. And rather than admitting that I have bad traits in my actual character, I blame it on where I'm from."
SONG MEANING: "Adventure of a Lifetime" by Coldplay is a fun, groovy dance song about feeling "alive again" because of a woman. The song is disco inspired and meant to not only be about good feelings but also to give them. Coldplay is coming out with a new album on December 4th, and it will be called A Head Full of Dreams. The fifth track on the album (and the lead single) is "Adventure of a Lifetime." After Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin was left by actress Gwyneth Paltrow, the band's next album Ghost Stories was quiet, suppressed, and even depressing. "Adventure of a Lifetime" is a reassuring return to a message of hope and fun, even if the song wasn't directly written by Martin.
SONG MEANING: "Sorry" by Justin Bieber is about personal regret for something wrong. It's not just about apologizing to a woman either--the woman may be a metaphor for the world. Want to find out how I know this? Keep reading!
Justin Bieber is coming out with a new album, and it's called Purpose. "Sorry" is the new single off the album--the second one released so far. It's co-written by Bieber, Julia Michaels, and Justin Tranter, and it's produced by Skrillex and BLOOD.
SONG MEANING: "Waiting for Love" is about love overcoming everything else, and it may not be the kind of love you think at first.
"Waiting for Love" by Avicii has been out for a while now; it was released on May 22, 2015, and it's still going strong, with over 184,000,000 plays on Spotify. And I'm sure we'll be seeing where this song and other hits from the album rank on the Billboard Hot 100 next week. For my part, I think "Waiting for Love" is likely the most solid track on the album--probably a reason it seems to have been used as the lead single. It's exciting and energetic and has just enough of a smattering of deep ideas and thoughts to make listeners ask some deeper questions.
SONG MEANING: Jojo's song "When Love Hurts" is a celebration of a couple's dedication to love even when things are difficult and neither member of the relationship feels like progress is being made. Keep reading to learn more!
What's a "tringle"? It's what you call three singles released together. Pop artist JoJo (or Joanna Noelle Blagden Levesque--I know her as the older daughter from RV) released her tringle III (actually pronounced "tringle") on August 20th. "When Love Hurts" is the lead single from that EP, meant to draw listeners into the rest of the album. There's also a music video that includes amazing contemporary dance but may not be appropriate for all audiences.
