Listening to Ariana Grande’s “fake smile” and Holding onto My Teacher Persona
In her rejection of performing happiness, Grande invokes gratitude for the impact she’s made on others. I have to believe the same.
John Bazley is an essayist and critic from Monmouth County, New Jersey. He writes primarily about the intersection of music and home. His work has appeared in Substream Magazine, Alternative Press, and The Asbury Park Press.
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Listening to Fall Out Boy on the Brink of Collapse
The release of "Infinity on High" marked the final moments of the mid-2000s, a time when collapse nested on the tongues of everyone in my universe but never made it out of their mouths.
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As a Woman of Color, I’m Told I Can’t Show Anger—So I Let Courtney Love Do it for Me
Because it’s still more acceptable for white women than it is for women of color to show anger, I scream-sing along to Courtney Love’s rage.
Spice Girls and the Rise and Fall of Girl Power
Girl power was the freedom to make a scene, make no sense, join together and make something irresistible, spectacular, unproductive, joyful, and to radically claim one another.
Listening to Kelis Taught Me to Embrace Anger
Her anger had made its way to her music; my anger couldn’t find a home outside my own head.