Record Rewind 2.0

  Canadian indie musician Leslie Feist first dropped the "Leslie" in her stage name when she independently released "Monarch" in 1999, but she didn't become synonymous with the word "feist" until her first major label album, "Let it Die," released on May 18, 2004. The album opens with the sweetness of "Gatekeeper" and "Mushaboom." From there,  though, the title track brings it back to solid ground with jazzy instrumentation and lyrics about letting a lover go. "One Evening" sees Feist trying to move on with someone going through the same struggle. Feist rounds out her album's originals with Bossa nova-influenced finger-snappers "Leisure Suite," where she describes letting someone into her personal sanctuary, and acoustic-driven "Lonely Lonely," which finds her ending a relationship due to the distance being too much to bear. The remainder of the album consists of groovy covers of lesser-kn...

  A year out from its release, Taylor Swift’s eleventh studio album “The Tortured Poets Department,” released on April 19, 2024, demands reevaluation. It remains an enigma in her storied catalogue for being an unexpected addition to the pantheon of “mass exodus albums,” a term coined by online creator Mic the Snare. On “The Tortured Poets Department,” Swift relishes in the opportunity to excise her emotional turmoil by queueing more lurid instrumentation and songwriting that often feels like freeform poetry. Sometimes this approach makes for a truly great song, but sometimes it falters, and each time it begs the listener to decipher the meaning for themselves. “Fortnight” appears to be about her brief relationship with Matty Healy, judging by the lyrics “I only loved you for a fortnight” and “I love you, it’s ruining my life.” Post Malone sings a decent solo verse and provides great backing vocals that contrast Swift’s well. The title track gives the impression that this album is a...

Around the time I started getting into music, whenever I would listen to a song, I would typically focus more on the lyrics than the music. I've mellowed on that belief since then; some artists are more focused on music than lyrics and that's fine. However, one artist whom I still go to mainly for lyrics is Ani DiFranco. Her 13th studio album, "Educated Guess," released on Jan. 20, 2004, is a decent example of why. Two songs into my first listen, I was getting a feeling that DiFranco was retreading old waters. Following the intro song "Platforms," "Swim" and the title track both sound like lesser versions of her classic material. Luckily, this was her first album in a while where no songs exceeded six minutes. Standout tracks that assured me the album was worth sticking out include "Origami," a song about needing space to breathe in a relationship, and "You Each Time," which is about ending a relationship going nowhere but in ci...