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63 Overlooked/Underrated Pop Songs From 2020 (with write-ups)
Over the month of December I posted two songs per day in the Daily Discussion threads (one single and one album track (mostly)) that I felt went unnoticed by most people but would potentially be enjoyed, and this is a compilation of those write-ups. There’s a definite pop focus but I picked these tracks with an ear for diversity of sound/artistry so there’s quite a few different things going on here and some picks that might make you roll your eyes, but I think there’s something for everyone! Here is a Spotify playlist that compiles all the songs but a walkthrough of the playlist is below. FFO = "For Fans Of"
This an excellent example of using music to further storytelling: it begins with this almost old-western sounding piano line that slowly climbs as Chappell describes her small-town dreams, which are abruptly cut off by sparse, pulsing synths as she describes her apprehensions, only for the thrilling full arrangement to kick in once she overcomes her fears during the chorus. And all of this slaps, of course, the production on this track is fantastic and there’s even two triumphant electric guitar solos!
Ruth B.’s first foray into r&b the song is strikingly minimalist, it’s mostly just a drum beat with some sparse piano chords and Ruth’s ghostly voice lilting gently. It’s a total vibe that fits the melancholy air she’s going for and helps put the focus on the melody, which is packed with unassuming hooks and a lot of simple but memorable lines.
On the off-chance that any of you are into dudes you might relate to this track, which is a sun kissed synthpop ode to boy craziness. It’s a short song (only about two and a half minutes long) but it does exactly what it sets out to do, which is provide a nice little jolt of gayness to your day. The synth pads and sleepy melody are easy on the ears, Bronze brings a bit of steaminess to the track with his coy delivery, and if you can hold back from shouting out “BOYS!” with the chorus then you’re a stronger person than I am.
There’s a fairly straightforward pop song here but tv room choses to drown the song in reverb and synths that sound like they were taken from a video game loading screen to create this wall of music that you can just bash your head against, but like, in a fun way. It’s almost hypnotic, there’s something so soothing about putting this on and just hearing him repeat that sticky chorus over and over as the bass pounds in your ears.
“Trap based r&b with some jazzy inflection” has become iyla’s signature style and it’s never sounded so good, the plunking synths and surprisingly complex vocal arrangement really give this track a unique feeling. iyla does double duty rapping the verses and singing the chorus and she nails both parts, she’s got this way of having both poise and swag that’s really fun to listen to; she gets an assist from legendary rapper Method Man who provides a great counterpoint to iyla’s portions. As usual iyla is serving visuals as well and the opulent video is super #aesthetic and really elevates the song.
Driven by a piano and backed by trumpets, drums, and strings, there’s an old school feel to this song (appropriate seeing as the lyrics reference artists like Aretha Franklin and Marvin Gaye) that really captures the vibe that they’re going for. The frontman is hollering at the top of his lungs–it turns out the top of his lungs is a very high place because the notes he hits are very impressive–and you can hear the other two pouring their hearts out through their instruments as well. As someone who’s maybe had an experience with a breakup or two, this song gets it.
It feels like we’re having a big revival of ‘90s/‘00s culture right now and if you were waiting for the nostalgia machine to churn out some cheesy boy band songs, here you go. Mimicking Max Martin produced bubblegum pop sound that was driving the kids wild at the turn of the millenium, “cover girl” sounds like it was ripped straight from the soundtrack of a guilty pleasure teen romance movie. The “it’s all about you girl” lyrics are vapid in the most charming way and the boys nail the vocal delivery and instrumentation as well.
All of the collaborations Ally has released this year were varying degrees of good but “All Night” was one of the first and still probably the best. Ally sounds great and the production here really slaps, the heavy prechorus that builds into that drop that just makes you want to jump all over the room… they aren’t lying when they say they’ll keep you dancing all night.
And the award for best use of a sound effect in a pop song in 2020 goes to: the bubble popping sound effect in this song. Like a fizzy soda pop this song is sugary and incredibly addictive, one of those pop songs that decides that it doesn’t need anything other than hooks, killer melodies, and a bomb chorus. It’s repetitive enough that it’s easy to listen to but it’s paced very well so it never feels boring, plus there are all sorts of little quirks to the production that give it character.
I associate VINCINT with his huge vocal range and flamboyant pop stylings, and both are on full display here. “Save Myself” is a high energy electropop that’s got a thumping house beat and some nice verses but really, it’s all about that chorus. The song just explodes as he lifts his voice (hitting some very impressive notes) to boldly declare the title of the song, with a nice little falsetto hook thrown in there for good measure. It’s a big, no holds barred, unapologetic anthem of a track with a positive message too: it’s okay to want other people, but at the end of the day you can always count on yourself.
A super cute little track based around shimmering synths, it’s a bright and girlish song with a hook of this song that’s incessantly catchy regardless of language. The title/hook of the song (roughly translated) means “You Don’t Want To Love Me” and the track is easy to get a grasp on even if you don’t understand the lyrics thanks to Alba’s clear voice and emotive performance. A chief example of “if this song were by a bigger artist it would be a hit.”
The key to understanding bounce music is fairly simple: it’s just fun! There’s a brief moment of “huh?” but if you surrender to it you’ll be bopping your head, stomping your feet, and shaking your ass. Freedia obviously knows how to turn the party and she’s in top form here, oozing charisma as she barks out those classic Freedia bars; Kesha’s more melodic chorus is a nice counterpoint (especially once they start singing together). This is just such a happy, uplifting track about how queer people will always come out on top and everyone else can just deal with it!
nelward is known for his rather unusual off-the-wall production but on his latest EP he toned it down for a more subdued synthpop sound that highlights the bones of his songwriting and lyrical finesse. His lyrics twist together metaphors, strange turns of phrase, and personal anecdotes that both dance around and cut straight to the hard truths that his songs are about. There’s a nice contrast between his rougher voice on the heavier verses (which are candid explorations of something that sounds like depression) and Adron’s clear voice on the chorus (which encourages us to “smash thru” the things holding us back), and and when paired with the cool synth pads it results in a very “cleansing” track that’s uplifting despite the darker subject matter.
So technically this came out four years ago but the album it’s on only came out this year and really it’s a timeless song so I’m mentioning it because it slaps. It’s over-the-top cloying yet also weirdly dark and aggressively horny; in other words, a perfect homage to long dead bubblegum dance genre. Eurodance beats and sugary, heavily autotuned vocals give it that classic ‘90s sound but she still makes it feel relevant with a strong melody and deceptively clever lyrics. This is tooth rotting.
A combination r&b/dance pop song, this song has an amazing chorus that’ll get you bopping your head… but the bopping becomes a little bit unsettling when you really start to listen to the story she tells in the lyrics about the dangers and toxicity of Japan’s idol system. Over a hypnotic dance groove she strips back the glamor of the music industry and paints a picture of a city where everyone is lonely and everything is fake; it feels very poignant.
You might recognize pop/r&b girl WOLFTYLA from being one of the vocalists featured on the K/DA mini album dropped earlier this year, but her solo music is really good as well. A cut from her debut EP, “Candy” is that flirty, girly kind of pop-r&b that I eat up like… well like candy. Timbaland did the production on this track so you know it’s good, a veritable candy store of synths, beats, and quirky little hooks with an old school flair that satisfies the nostalgia sweet tooth, and they cooked up an ear worm of a chorus too!
“Lucifer Waiting” is something of a reggaeton/rock combo that layers grimy guitars and drums over a reggaeton beat, but mere description can’t capture the wild energy of this track. It’s got a freaky sound that pairs well with the lyrics that are full of fun, witchy imagery as she describes the evil that manifests around us in our lives; evil that we ultimately overcome through our inner strength. Angelica wails her way through the track like she’s having an exorcism herself, and the way she just attacks the song vocally is really cool.
DEQN SUE’s trademark is quirky pop with unusual lyrics and while usually this manifests itself in her going crazy and over the top, she goes in the exact opposite direction here to interesting results. With the sparse, repetitive strings here’s a focused intensity to this song that feels almost trance-like, and it helps sell the “stalker with a crush” vibe she’s going for. If someone staring at you for an uncomfortably long period of time had a sound, it might sound something like this.
“Almost Home” is yet another song that romanticizes being young and free but it treats the subject with a more tender touch that I appreciate, quiet car rides home at night like the one she describes were a truly sacred experience and she completely does them justice. Hearing her croon the chorus of this song as that toy piano tinkles in the background is so incredibly calming, it always makes me feel like somehow everything is gonna be okay.
Jessie is known for her raw, powerful vocals but she makes her voice like the edge of a knife here, a taut razor wire that’s hanging in the air ready to slice you to ribbons if you dare to cross her or try to take what’s hers. The gentle, contemplative vibe of the music and her performance contrasts with the overtly violent lyrics in a really interesting way, she feels so singular and self assured in her mission. The animated music video, which features conquistador lookalikes slaughtering the man Jessie loves, adds another layer of meaning to the song by transforming it into a critique of colonialism.
Just like the single cover art “Honeymoon Fades” is a silky and a tad smoky, a jazzy little number that ’s very laid back and perfect to vibe along with. R&B is a sound that suits Sabrina very well (I don’t think she’s a powerhouse but her tone is lovely) and she’s really feeling herself and the lyrics here, this is another great step in her musical growth.
This song feels like it should be in a promo for some edgy Pretty Little Liars-esque young adult show, and that’s a compliment! It’s got a sense of personal drama to it, a catchy chorus that’s poetically “deep,” and we all love that ’10s rock-tinged-but-radio-friendly-indie sound. The syncopated rap verse in the middle is a fresh addition to the old formula though, and I really like the lyrics. The theme of clinging to “pretty lies” out of fear of what would come after change is very relatable, and the music video they shot in the empty streets of LA under lockdown gives the song an extra ominous vibe.
Tayla Parx toys around with traditional notions of genre and structure to create songs that sometimes feel a bit like a collection of parts, but these parts are so good and they’re strung together so well that it just works. “Fixerupper” is a particularly noticeable example of this: there’s a stark contrast between the verses (which rely almost entirely on percussion and staccato lines), the prechorus (which is centered around strings and a smooth vocal line), and the actual chorus (which falls somewhere in the middle) but they work together beautifully. The lyrics, which see her warning a lover that she’s going to need some help reaching her potential, are very nice too.
“I Believe In Santa” kicks off with a traditional sounding choral section that feels a little bit scary and then with a maniacal laugh the trap drums kick in and suddenly she’s (vaguely threateningly) rapping about the magic of Christmas. Part of what makes the song so good is the way that it avoids typical Christmas music cliches: despite the incredibly festive lyrics the production is fairly straightforward trap-pop, and it’s good production too. And then there’s the music video, which features Jojo Siwa decked out in Party City couture and breakdancing with Santa!
I’m always a sucker for a mid-tempo r&b ballad with strings but “Pretend,” a confessional song about Queen Naija’s troubled relationship with love, is a particularly nice one. There’s actually a pretty hefty backstory to this song and its music video considering the somewhat troubled past Queen has had, but even without knowing all the details you can really hear that this song is coming from something real. The lyrics and the pain in her voice are genuine, and on top of that she sounds so beautiful and the song flows smooth as water.
“Don’t Kill The Wave” captures a great combo of rap and disco because it’s about one thing that both genres can agree on: grooving out. Bouncy synths position Ric as a dance floor mc who won’t tolerate anyone disrupting the flow of the vibe, and it sounds so fresh and fun I doubt there’ll be much argument. He’s got a lot of insistently catchy one-liners in there and the chorus is a lot of fun to sing along to, if we could still have parties like the one depicted in the video this would probably go off at one of them.
Teamarr really goes in with the lyrics of this song, they’re rambling but she paints such a painful picture of being insecure that I find myself relating despite how intensely personal the song feels. The chaotic behavior she describes is reflected in the unpredictable production, which full of speaker pounding bass that throws some extra power behind her keening voice. It’s harsh but it suits the confessional style that she’s going for, and it feels very current.
Alex Newell’s voice was just made to wail over pounding dance production and no matter how many times he releases some variation of this song I’ll keep listening to it. I think this is one of his finest tracks yet, it’s a sassy kiss-off track that’s in-your-face enough to be a bop yet also short enough to have a ton of replay value. The beat is catchy, there’s that dolphin whistle flute that I enjoy, and Alex’s voice is as thrilling as ever.
Although most people probably associate the banjo with American bluegrass/folk/country, the instrument actually has its roots in West Africa, which is what Bebe is referencing here as she offers advice on how to “play” her. It’s a tangy Afrobeat dance track that gets especially cool towards the end when the vocals drop out and it just starts to vibe.
There’s some clear Kpop influence in the video but the song itself is distinct from that style, despite the maximalist production it feels fairly subdued (without sacrificing on having an incredibly catchy chorus). The song sounds so chirpy and her voice is very sweet, but there’s understated drama to the story described in the lyric that grant a slight air of bittersweetness which prevents it from being too cloying. It also comes with one of my favorite music videos of the year!
“And the inevitable heat death of the universe / plays out in the background / of our lives” goes the instantly memorable chorus, the centerpiece of this brassy rock track from indie band Sister Species. The horns and percussion that are insistent and honestly a bit claustrophobic at times, as if they’re the looming heat death that’s slowly closing in, and it’s both evocative and a treat for the ears. The lyrics are strong and I like the theme of not letting the inevitability of demise prevent us from being there for each other; it’s fatalistic and life-affirming at the same time.
A flip on Sidney Gish’s “Imposter Syndrome, the original is already a pretty great song but russelbuck tears it apart and reassembles it into a piece of ear candy by shortening the length and leaning into utter chaos. The angst of the original song is twisted into pure mania, a cartoon battleground of crashing electronic beats and cartoon sound effects that Gish’s voice dances through gleefully. It’s the kind of song that makes my teeth vibrate and sets my hair on edge, if that makes sense, but I think that's just what I needed this year.
The smooth r&b groove with jazz stylings over the top makes for some really wonderful sounds and there’s something just so natural about the flow of the melody and the lyrics; everything is just as if it were meant to be. At the center of it all we have IV Jay’s warm, smoky voice, which is the perfect vessel for the song. It’s a subtly sad song as she muses over whether or not to leave some scrub, and by extension whether she’ll ever find love, but it’s that Sunday afternoon chill-out kind of sad that’s more just idle self-reflection than anything else.
I love Remi Wolf’s music because she’s just a lightning bolt of energy, she’s not scared to be loud and a little bit weird because she’s got the charm and the catchiness to make it all work. Everything about this track is so colorful, from the production to Remi’s delivery to the silly little story the lyrics spell out. She sounds so sassy when she delivers that deliriously fun “hello hello hello” hook, scooping the word upwards as if she’s mocking this man for thinking he’s pulling one over on her. It’s just a blast to listen to and the EP it comes from is nonstop fun as well, definitely keep your eye on her.
Blending psych-pop with rock and even a hint of disco, this cut from Ambar Lucid’s fantastic debut album conjures up hypnotic swirls of music built out of thrumming guitar strings and skittering drum beats that explode into one of the best choruses of the year. There’s a grimy, almost “witchy” air around this track as Ambar croons about how she’s so overflowing with power that no one can ever hope to contain her, and her defiant refrain on the chorus is instantly memorable and has kept me coming back to this track time and time again.
When Paradise Killer was released earlier this year to rave reviews many critics specifically praised its soundtrack, and rightfully so because it’s an incredible collection of synthwave music that really elevate the otherworldly aesthetic of the game. This is the only song on the soundtrack with lyrics, but it’s a real doozy. Sounding “futuristic” in that delightfully ‘80s way, this almost city-pop tune a highly stylized banger from start to finish. The lyrics vaguely relate to the story of the game but mostly they’re just cool-sounding nonsense that heighten the mood as you drink in the slick grooves, sassy vocals, and (naturally) that saxophone solo.
A quirky little tune that blends medieval sounding folk with, of all things, doo-wop, “I Don’t Want To Know” really stood out on this album for its catchy melody and quirky lyrics. It’s equal parts petty and self-pitying and the blend is actually kind of hilarious, Jessica clearly and fun writing in Bradamante’s brash voice because she went all out with the melodramatic wordplay. I promise you, this will be the only song I talk about this month where the lead instrument is a mandolin.
Powderpaint were one of my favorite discoveries of the year and I’m not going to stop screaming into the internet void to tell people to check out their self-titled EP because it’s nonstop fun and a great collection of queer anthems. “’80s synthpop” is kinda becoming played out in the pop scene but they manage to make it sound exciting again with a hefty dose of energy and fresh lyrical themes. “Constellation” is a great example of this, the melodies in this song are wonderful and play off of the intricate synth work beautifully, plus the song climaxes in a spoken word/rapped bridge which is a rallying call to arms to defy toxic relationships/societal norms and instead Powderpaint in their constellation of fabulously liberated folks.
A soft, string driven track with a gorgeous melody, the lyrics are so romantic and Alina’s voice is so velvety and it just melts me. Though it isn’t quite explicit there’s clearly painful background to the lyrics and the longing in her voice feels rather pointed, and so it’s as if this love is helping her to rise above it all. A great opener for a great album.
This is a chill little track that sounds slightly funky and really pretty (the dude’s tender, slightly rough vocals are very pleasant to listen to) but it gets bonus points from me for the lyrical content. A love song AND a song about sea monsters? It’s like a Venn diagram of my interests. I’ve seen people compare it to The Gorillaz and I’m not a fan so I can’t comment on that but I’ll trust the YouTube comments.
This song is a plea from Sondre to a lover to, of all things, abandon him because they’re too good for him. There’s no real poetic language in this song but the straightforwardness of the lyrics is effective in a different way because it makes him sound so… resigned. He sighs his way through the lyrics, his voice even giving out in the middle of some lines as if he can’t bear to go on. But then partway through the song there’s a shift and we start getting some major chords and heartier vocals and it feels like the song ends on a strangely warm and hopeful note? Perhaps we’re meant to believe that his plea has been rejected and this person has decided to stay with him.
With 404 Not Found FEMM found the perfect balance between their forward thinking electro pop and a new hip-hop sound, and this track was my favorite. It’s a dark ode to hedonism and grabbing everything you can; it sounds like something a super villain would release. With scary piano chords that tinkle ominously over the track and feel slightly out of synch with the hard trap beats and their low/heavy rapping, it feels like the song is falling apart as you listen to it.
“Please Be Nice” is an impassioned plea for people to be nicer to each other on the internet, and it’s as truthful as it is hilarious. The clanking, stuttering, almost industrial production (was this recorded using a broken computer?) is a wall of noise that feels surprisingly great to listen to, and the chorus is unexpectedly great to sing along with. Sometimes after a long day I listen to this and just scream “I’M A PERSON PLEASE BE NICE” and it makes me feel so much better.
“Farewell Wanderlust” is a song about falling into… not even mediocrity but just apathetic complacency, a song about losing the fire that once motivated you but not really having enough comfort in your life to fill the void that it left behind. Both of the vocalists do an incredible job here, flitting effortlessly between thunderous wails and searing whispers (cleverly matched to the instrumentation, which switches between a cappella/solo piano/full orchestra), and they fill every syllable with meaning. The pacing of the track is great and there are plenty of memorable one liners on the way to a harrowing conclusion.
Been in a very nostalgic mood lately and it made me think about this song, which is about friendships that remain close to the heart even when you aren’t that close anymore. It’s a heartfelt ode to friendship with a thrumming bassline for a pulse; it starts slow and low but by the end it achieves liftoff. Haiku Hands’s sing-songy spoken word style lends itself to ballads just as well as it does dance tracks and it really brings out the simple honesty and vulnerability in the lyrics, especially in the second verse.
You can always count on a Bollywood film to deliver a great song or two and this one definitely stuck out for me because it’s a lovely guitar driven ballad with a gorgeous (insidiously catchy) melody. The lyrics are in Hindi but the gist of them is “love is love” and while the song works beautifully in the context of the film, I think the message is clear enough to be appreciated by anyone. More gay Bollywood ballads please!
While Adam Lambert’s new album Velvet (blended the electropop sounds of his earlier works with a more mature funk/soul sound) has plenty of ballads and high energy, high belting tracks. the track that most sticks out for me is one of the most subdued. With those stuttering trap drums and the more low-key melodic vibe of the song, “On The Moon” almost feels like an r&b track and it’s a surprisingly good fit for Adam. He sings with a breathy tone that makes his voice sound particularly silky, and he really brings the heat to this steamy sex jam that uses space imagery to convey his desire.
Half of the songs on Colour Vision had featured artists on them and all of them were dropped as singles so I was worried that the solo tracks might be lackluster or something but NOPE they’re some of the best on a very strong album. “SOS” is a low-key song but when you pay attention to what’s happening in the production it’s surprisingly maximalist; it feels super fresh and polished. The star of the track is MAX’s voice though, he plays it coy at the start of the song (his performance is very tender, he almost sounds breathless with wonder) but by the end he’s slamming those falsetto notes like he’s Mariah.
It doesn’t surprise me at all to know that Sam Smith co-wrote this track because it has their fingerprints all over it, and when their brand of melancholy blue-eyed soul meets Cam’s story driven country stylings the result is a gut wrenchingly sad song. Cam places herself into the shoes of a woman who’s watching someone she’s in love with get married to someone else and she doesn’t pull a single punch, perfectly capturing the complex emotions of the situation. During the chorus she promises “one day I’ll be happier for you” but you can just hear it in her voice that there’s no comfort in the thought.
The fact that the only videos I can find of this song on YouTube are uploaded by EDM channels that use pictures of anime waifus in their videos should tell you everything you need to know, but like, in a good way! Producer AIKA and singer TOFIE have worked together several times before and their sounds always mesh well, but “Superstar” is probably their best collaboration yet. The track is around five minutes long but they make great use of all of that time, TOFIE’s sugary voice keening over AIKA’s all encompassing ear candy beats just feels so good to listen to, and that house drop is to die for.
A synthpop song with funky, thumping production that tells the story of a broken relationship, and the lyrics do a great job of creating a fully fleshed out situation that feels grounded in truth. He airs out his grievances to his distant partner but as the song wears on it becomes clear that perhaps his own interest isn’t the healthiest either, which brings us to a satisfying climax on the bridge. I like his vocals on this track, he’s got an interesting singing voice that’s not afraid to get weird or ugly and you can tell he’s really feeling the things he’s singing about.
This song tells a very silly story but Linus commits to the bit and finds all of the different shades of the situation, managing to highlight the adventure and comedy inherent to being stuck on the moon while also touching upon some genuine pathos. It’s an impressive bit of storytelling (even if the lyrics are a bit clunky at times) but it’s also a really fun pop song as well, his melodies are very “in your face” and the chirpy (almost calypso?) beats feel great to the ear.
This song is LITERALLY just Tank and the Bangas getting together with PJ Morton to complain about airport security confiscating liquids. The silliness works though, Tank is a gifted vocalist/lyricist who can make anything interesting (she definitely proved that with this one) and PJ Morton sounds great, so it’s nice to hear them just having fun together in this spacey funk/soul track.
Angela Muñoz’s songwriting is at its core very old-school but Adrian Younge’s production is very futuristic and when the two sounds come together the results feel very forwards thinking. It’s like she’s a lounge singer on a UFO, crooning an old standard about love as they whizz through the cosmos. Angela gives a great performance that ensures that the spacey synths and cavernous drums never distract from her soulful voice.
Musical supergroup LVCRFT tapped a lot of names for this album but probably the most surprising inclusion was drag queen Morgan McMichaels, who pops up on this electro pop track to drop some fun rap verses. Their somewhat unusual delivery and memorable lyrics (which reference a lot of horror movie cliches) give this track a nice flavor to pair with that catchy chorus and spoooooky dance production.
CHIKA’s rapid fire flow is impressive and she’s a very intelligent lyricist, but more than that she’s got a ton of heart and soul that really comes through in her music. Take “On My Way” for instance, which is a tender ode to a girl back home she misses while she’s on tour. The strings and “adult contemporary” production give the track a very sappy, romantic feel, but her feelings seem so genuine that it never becomes cloying; it’s refreshing to hear a song that offers up this kind of vulnerability.
This kind of melodramatic vaudevillian emo pop-rock has such a specific vibe that’s hard to describe (“edgy” falls short of its full appeal) but if you know, you know. And IDKHOWBUTTHEYFOUNDME know. They capture the smooth talking musicality of old school crooners in the song but then apply it to maniacal lyrics in which they describe an abject desire to hurt themselves in order to impress a distant paramour. It’s both troubling and a little bit sexy, which is a great combo.
It's not exceptionally common for a song on a commercial album to try to be funny, but hearing Ingrid's self-deprecating descriptions of the increasingly bad decisions she makes in an attempt to get over her ex manages to get at least a quirk of the mouth from me. She hired a string quartet to play on this song to make it sound more “classy” as an ironic contrast to the decidedly unclassy lyrics, but despite how plainspoken they are there’s still some great storytelling and wit in them (especially when delivered with Ingrid's brassy country twang).
Have you ever been listening to a song from the ‘00s/’10s where a girl tries to say something about a guy by putting down another woman and thought to yourself “wow this is a bop, but I wish there wasn’t so much internalized misogyny?” Well Marisa Maino has got you covered with “Hot,” in which she spends three and a half minutes singing about how cool her loser ex’s new girlfriend is. It’s a pretty funny song and a nice spin on an old formula, which does wonders to make the throwback ’00s pop-rock sound feel fresh again. She’s got a pretty nice voice too, very lively.
RILEY is a fantastic storyteller, honest about the darker side of life in “the hood” while still illuminating the brighter parts. Adding to the nostalgic tint is the throwback hip-hop/r&b sound she uses, which always sounds good but suits her voice particularly well. BJ the Chicago Kid is another nice addition, and their chemistry brings the track up another level. It's not the type of music I expected Amber Riley to release (I assumed she'd do ballads) but it's pretty great.
Olivia O’Brien released a lot of great songs this year, I don’t know what they put in her water but she provided a steady stream of bold, melody focused ‘00s flavored synthpop that all hit right; “Was It All In My Head?” in particular stood out thanks to the addition of some electric guitar, which was a nice touch that gave the song some extra meat on its bones. Vaguely self-pitying songs and songs about trifling boys are basically Olivia’s “thing” at this point so she feels right on this track; it’s catchy, fun, and relatable… textbook Olivia at this point.
This feels like the most firmly r&b thing CHANMINA has released (most of her music leans towards either pop or rap) and it fits her gritty voice well, as well as her brand of being moody/sexy. One thing that I like about her music is that the tone and intention is very clear even if you can’t understand the lyrics, and she drops enough f-bombs during the chorus that you can kinda get the gist of what’s happening here. The honeyed beats are nice to listen too regardless.
GWSN have a very futuristic dance-pop sound, but they fuse it here with jazzy piano/guitar and it’s such a sleek, stylish blend. It creates such a dreamy atmosphere, and the melody soars and dances as if it’s the titular aerialist flying through the universe. Adding to this is the way that the vocalists dance around each other and throw in sneaky little harmonies and ad libs means that the song is constantly full of delights! Really hope this group gets some more attention soon. Hope you all enjoyed and found something you liked. Also if you want more here’s the post I did for this series last year! Once again, I encourage all of you to embark on similar projects of your own, it's really fun to share!
“Ada, found perfect story for you. ‘Jade and Silk’ still pulling big numbers since the documentary. Player name ‘Echo’.” That was the short email from my boss that woke me up at eight sharp on a Monday morning. While that sounds fair, I’d stayed up until six a.m. working on live write-ups for the eSports blog. Ignoring the pounding headache coming from the bright light of my phone, I haphazardly swiped out, “Go fuck yourself.” God, I wanted to send that. After carefully deleting the words, I instead fell back on my classic: “Work hours.” And then went back to sleep. So it was some abstract time between midday and evening when I pulled myself out of bed and brushed my teeth, pulling on whatever clothes looked clean on the way. Eventually, I ended up at my laptop with a steaming cup of half-drunk coffee in front of me, only then waking up. I checked my emails, glad to see that there hadn’t been a follow-up message—it wouldn’t have been good for me if the story was urgent and I’d slept through it. I mean, as much as I liked my beauty sleep, it was a lot easier to sleep when I actually had rent money. A quick scan through my other emails didn’t bring up anything urgent either, mostly just various teams and players rejecting my requests for interviews (nothing new there). There was a clarification for one article, a correction for another, and then some random gossip and rumours to look into if I had the time, maybe enough for a fluff piece or two. Finally, I got back to my boss’s message. It was straightforward enough, which wasn’t always the case—George, bless him, could barely play Minesweeper. His skills as the editor-in-chief were actually amazing (I mean, he kept a digital magazine profitable), but he had to dump anything gaming on me and I relished having that responsibility. Jade and Silk was the defining Action Massively-Multiplayer Online game (AMMO for short), an emergent genre that blended aspects of traditional MMORPGs with the PvP focus of MOBAs. Well, that was the official tag line for the game. In simple terms, JaS was an online game set in a vast world. The combat was reaction-based like an action game, using skills at the right time and dodging enemy attacks, and it had more of an emphasis on player-versus-player (PvP) fighting than most MMORPGs did, but there was a lot of player-versus-computer content (PvE) too. Unlike MMORPGs, there wasn’t exactly a class or a role system, just different weapons; no healing, no magic, just attack the enemy and don’t get hit and maybe get a sip of a herbal tea. As the name suggested, it had an Asian setting, mostly borrowing from Chinese and Japanese history (I’m hardly an expert on Asian cultures, so can’t say more than that). While there were basic forms of guns and artillery in the game (historically accurate from what people said), combat was mostly centred around duels with swords and spears, although some events included “battles” of hundreds of players. And it dabbled in fantasy. While the players were masters of weapons, their supernatural abilities were mostly just things like running fast and jumping high and far. On the other hand, the computer enemies ranged from boring bandits, to assassins that could teleport short distances and turn invisible, to god-like deities that had descended from a higher plane of existence. As for the documentary George mentioned, that was big, an actual news organisation producing a ten-minute dive into the PvP scene that had become a hit spectator sport online, focused on the recent duelling tournament that featured a hundred-thousand USD prize pool. Even for people who never played games, the duels could be replayed from any camera angle, turning them into fights that would make an epic climax to any action movie. Well, maybe I was a bit biased with my hundreds of hours in the game and twice as many reporting on it. Moving on to the last piece of the email: a player named Echo. I knew the PvP scene inside-out and that name meant nothing to me, which made me think this was a bogus tip. Still, I liked to think of myself as a journalist—if only to give that piece of paper stuffed in a drawer back at my mum’s house more meaning than a confirmation of payment. So I got to searching. I started with forums and message boards, but struggled with how much “echo” came up not as a name (or as part of a longer name). And none of them had a user named “Echo” who had posted anything recent, just old accounts that pre-dated JaS or with a handful of random posts. A great start. Rather than waste more time on that, I worked with the assumption the tip was true and saw where that took me. Well, since I didn’t know the player, they weren’t involved with PvP. So I sent messages to people I knew who were on the PvE side. I also looked into a few of the other big games, but didn’t find Echo there either. My next avenue was to start up the game—for work-related purposes. With how important reaction times were, the servers were very split up (geographically) to reduce lag, but I had accounts on all the main servers. One by one, I checked the western servers for a player named Echo, only finding abandoned accounts; I asked whoever was online if they’d heard the name too, again getting nothing. That was until I asked the ex-girlfriend of a top US west coast player (who really should’ve been in class, even though she’d given me a great fluff piece a couple of months ago). “I think Sam watched... Lost Echo?” she messaged me. So I sent Sam (better known as Blink online) a DM. He was maybe a little upset with me over the article, more because I’d managed to track down his parents and speak with them than because of anything I’d written (it was a good, wholesome article), but I thought he’d answer me. In the mean time, I tried searching for Lost Echo… and ended up with the Linkin Park song. Well, I put it on—going back to my angsty youth, my entire personality one of woe as no one would ever understand me, playing classic games that sold millions of copies like Diablo II and Warcraft. Anyway, with no better lead until Sam got back to me, I kept digging through search results for both Echo and Lost Echo, adding on things like “game” and “JaS” to try and get something relevant. Eventually, I struck the smallest nugget of gold: a tiny, pixelated gif of someone playing JaS. I could barely make out the player’s name, but the caption did call the player Echo: “Who tf fights Zhu Ping lvl 1?? Echo: hold my sake.” The gif itself was also hard to make out, so I relied on the caption again. I knew the Zhu Ping boss as one of the first “hurdles” in the game, a story fight against an opponent that attacked quicker at lower health thresholds. He was also strong enough that, if you were under level ten, he killed you in one hit. If that caption was true (the gif too pixelated to verify), Echo was a top-tier player. However, that only made it all the stranger that I hadn’t heard of them. I stared at the gif, over and over, trying to decode the actions; it really was just two blurs darting back and forth. After a while, though, I picked out some of the random text on the screen. Since it didn’t move, it was almost legible… and it definitely wasn’t English—wasn’t anything with a Latin alphabet. I considered Cyrillic, but it looked more like Chinese. I mean, as I already said, I didn’t know much about the far east, so I knew I could’ve been completely wrong about that. But it was my only lead and it explained why I didn’t find Echo in the game: I only checked the servers in the Americas and Europe. The problem I now faced was that the Chinese servers had their own launcher which was, no surprise, in Chinese. The rare times I needed info from there, I asked my contacts who were Chinese and/or living in China. Thus I sent out another round of emails, nothing to do but twiddle my thumbs until I got a reply. Well, that wasn’t entirely true, my mind already trying to find the next avenue. I only thought the text was Chinese, but it could’ve been any of the game’s supported languages. It was just China with its own launcher, so I started checking the other Asian servers for Echo: Japan, Indochina, MSEA, then checking the Indian servers even though it didn’t look like Hindi. Nothing came of it. However, I wasn’t easily defeated. A spark of genius, I opened up my game settings and went to the language selection, scrolling through to look for something similar to the blocky text in the gif. And I found it: Korean. I clicked back to the server screen and scrolled down to it. For the first time in a while, I had to set up my account—JaS wasn’t big in Korea, so I hadn’t needed to use the Korean server before—pleased that my usual handle was free. Finally logging in, I let out a long sigh. The game loaded up, dropping me in the familiar sight of a small town where the tutorial took place. Ignoring it, I opened up the friends list and tried to add Echo; even if they didn’t accept, the name was added to the pending part of the friends list for now, which let me click on it and open the status screen for them. If the caption hadn’t mentioned Echo being level one, I would have thought this was just another abandoned account. Instead, I looked over everything more closely. Echo’s character was male, level one, base stats, not a member of a clan; and then the good part: last online a couple days ago, and was not using the default title for new accounts (instead using “Ronin”). To double-check, I flicked through the western servers again, but none of those Echos were as promising—some not online for months, all of them over level one. No, I felt sure this was my Echo. Having gone through most of the Linkin Park songs, I switched over to Blink182 in the hopes that it would summon Sam; while I waited for that, I reached out to my contacts in Korea. They were mostly involved with the other games that were actually popular there, so I didn’t have much hope. The couple that were online (I thought it was late there, but I wasn’t exactly one to throw stones) didn’t have any new leads for me, but promised to ask the JaS players they knew. Finally at a lull, I rubbed my eyes. The hours had run together and my stomach complained it had run out. Well, I hadn’t eaten anything to begin with. So I indulged in the finest cuisine known to plastic pots. Of course, halfway through George messaged me for an update. “Lunch break,” I replied, the time on my phone flicking over to 18:38. After slurping up the last of my noodles, I soaked up the leftover “broth” with some posh bread I’d impulsively bought a couple days ago, the staleness coming in handy. With that done, I put on some fresh coffee to boil and swiped out an actual reply to George. “Have leads, no story yet.” A few seconds later, his reply popped up: “Okay.” What a great thing to hear your boss say after admitting you had no work to show for the four hours you were going to invoice him. But that was George—he trusted me. Although I’d sent him a message, I had only really taken some ten minutes of a break, so I returned to my laptop with a coffee and the intention to relax. However, just the habit of drinking coffee made me feel restless, even before the caffeine kicked in. Idling away wasn’t an option, so I took out my wireless mouse, went back to the GB server, and messed around. I wasn’t about to go pro or anything, but I’d gamed all my life and played hard games too, so I was good at JaS. I had good reactions and, from my reporting, I knew a lot about the mechanics of the game at the highest level of skill. I couldn’t necessarily put all that knowledge to use, but I was at least aware of it. That said, I tried the “Echo challenge” and failed at the half-hour mark, not even making it close to Zhu Ping. The first fights had been easy, the enemies slow to attack and clearly signalled when they did, taking turns, leaving huge windows for me to attack; but it soon became hectic. One of the head developers, when asked if it was an RPG, had said that levels were their implementation of a difficulty system—that, if you struggled with a boss, you could level up to make it easier. The follow-up question, then, had been: “Can you beat the storyline at level one?” And the developer had laughed and ummed and ahhed, and then finally said, “I can’t, but maybe someone better than me could.” I keenly felt that answer at that moment. It wasn’t that I thought it was impossible, I just knew that I couldn’t dodge well enough for long enough and still do enough damage. But I could list a hundred players off the top of my head that could beat the mini-boss I was stuck on at level one, and most of them could probably beat Zhu Ping. Logging out, I tabbed through my emails and social media, scanning for new messages. Chocolate for my eyes, Blink__ had replied to me. And all he’d sent was: “Last_Echo.” So not Lost Echo, but it was an easy mistake, and the underscore was promising. I quickly thanked him and moved on to searching. The handle had a myriad of unrelated results, social media to books and movies to programming. I dug through a lot and still got nothing. Adding JaS filtered out a lot, but I only got something useful when I limited searches to .kr domains: an account on a Korean streaming website. It was a small account, a hundred followers (at least, that was what the machine translation software said the number was for) and they didn’t follow anyone. There were past streams stretching back a few months, some an hour long, some two, with the odd one reaching five and six hours (probably weekday versus weekends), and they seemed to stream about every other day. In all that time, they’d only played JaS. Oh so eager, I opened up the stream from the night before (it had probably been the afternoon for them) and skipped to halfway through. Unlike the gif, I could actually see what was going on now, but it wasn’t as clear as it should have been. It took me a long moment to realise they weren’t using screen capture, but pointing a webcam at their monitor. That was super weird, especially since the screen capture software most streamers used was entirely free and very good. However, I soon realised that, with this setup, they purposefully showed their hands on the keyboard and mouse. Soon after, I realised why. It was a good webcam that captured their movements, letting me see their fingers jump and twitch between the keys, see every jerk of the mouse. And the slower key presses, I could see that the character on the screen followed them, that Echo wasn’t just madly typing nonsense while someone else played. I had a story. I just didn’t know if it was my story. Idly watching as I thought, my gaze drifted to the short bio for the streamer: “Noise only dies when Last Echo fades.” I wasn’t sure how good the translation was, so I looked for a way to undo it. Once I found it, I switched the page back to Korean… and the phrase was still in English. “Noise only dies when Last Echo fades.” A tiny hunch formed in the pit of my stomach, telling me that this was my story. As much as I wanted to send Echo a message directly, I had found more success before in asking a Korean contact to ask on my behalf, so I sent off a request to the one I felt least bad asking for a small favour. Then I sat down and watched the entire stream from start to finish. It opened with a few minutes of fumbling, the game on in the background as Echo got comfortable and fiddled with the volume—not that they spoke, but the game audio had to be loud enough to get picked up by the webcam and compete with the keyboard’s clacking. Once that was all done, they had a sip of water and then began playing. I recognised the area as late-game, meaning they were near the end of the storyline, and the small 1 in the corner of the monitor blurred in and out of focus, confirming the character was still level one. A bit of walking, then a cutscene, and a fight began. It was Echo against four assassins, each with a season motif that reflected their supernatural abilities. Summer breathed fire, winter froze the ground, spring had a perfume that addled the mind, autumn could summon a gust of wind that shoved the player. What made them so difficult was that they paired up and used their abilities together, each pair deadly in their own way, while the others tried to attack with daggers (both thrown and held). I mean, it was seen as the second most difficult battle with only the final boss being harder. The players who’d made it this far by skill suddenly found it impossible to dodge everything, had to grind levels to be able to survive a handful of attacks. But Echo didn’t have that safety net. I watched as Echo (the character in the game) dodged, side-stepped. He kept a good distance, naturally corralling them into the same area, cautious. It felt a lot more like PvP than PvE. PvP had this incredible tension to it, the feeling that a fight wasn’t over when someone died, but when the first move was made. On the other hand, PvE was usually about attacking all the time and only dodging enough to not die; the computer didn’t adapt, so it was easy to abuse. And I felt so damn tense watching him shuffle around the room. From my own struggles with the fight, I knew all the recommended strategies. You waited for the summer-winter pairing and attacked autumn after dodging; or you grinded enough levels to tank the fire for two cycles and took out that one first—those were the best ones. Once one assassin was down, the other assassins wouldn’t pair up every time, making it a more normal fight. But Echo didn’t do that. No, he waited for any pair with autumn and, charging in at the right time, used the gust of wind to push himself out of the way of the other one’s ability, which gave him a moment to land a couple of hits on whichever assassin was closest before he had to dodge. And I realised, in that moment, that levelling up also let you do more damage; that a level one character hardly moved the assassins’ health bars. The boss battle that should have lasted between five and ten minutes became a drawn out war of attrition that crawled past the hour mark with no chance of ending soon; at least, not in Echo’s favour. Like a swordsman-in-training, the character repeated the same sequence of actions, over and over. He circled the room, waited for the autumn assassin to step forward, and then darted in at just the right angle. One hit, sometimes two, rarely three, then he dodged the daggers that whistled past his ear or slashed through the air where he just was. All the while, one hit and he was dead—even a glancing hit from a thrown dagger. Near the two hour mark, Echo took down the first of the assassins—the winter one. With the assassins changing their behaviour, Echo took on a more aggressive routine and landed a couple of hits every cycle, regardless of which assassins used their ability. My heart had barely kept me going this far, and this change made my own imminent death all the more likely, surely pumping more adrenalin than blood. The second assassin fell soon, already whittled from earlier, and the next came ten minutes or so after. With just one left—the autumn assassin—I thought Echo might become reckless, but instead they became more cautious than the start. Which was for the best because I’d forgotten how, left alone, the autumn assassin now used the “wind shove” to fling daggers at incredible speed. But Echo hadn’t, had kept a certain distance and, the instant the ability started to show, dodged to the side. The assassin now stuck in the cool down animation, Echo closed in for a couple of attacks—not getting greedy—before retreating. Over and over, this pattern played out. Near three hours since the stream began, the last assassin fell. And I was ready to scream at my screen, the rush incredible, far more intense than when I’d beaten the seasonal assassins for the first time. I really wanted to shout and clap, a stadium’s worth of enthusiasm surging through me. But all Echo got was a couple of emojis in the chat, by the looks of things maybe only ten people having watched live. Sobering. As much as everything I’d seen warranted a story, it hadn’t really evolved from earlier. It was the same story: skilled player defeats hard boss at level one. I hadn’t found the angle that made it my story. At least I had something to work with, though. I sent out a fresh bunch of inquiries to people to see what they knew about this Lost_Echo streaming a level one challenge in Korea. That included an update to George (timestamped to arrive at eight in the morning—I was such a considerate person). It wasn’t exactly late for me, but I hadn’t eaten dinner. A vegetable stir-fry at midnight sounded like a wonderful idea. After that, I watched some more of Echo’s past streams until I felt sleepy. Who knows what I dreamed about. The next (late) morning saw me inundated with threads to follow. Sort of. Only one other person had heard about Last_Echo, but didn’t have anything new to tell me. My Korean contacts similarly told me what I already knew: a skilled PvE player. Apparently, some people had tried to contact Echo before, but either didn’t get a reply or just a “not interested”. But Echo wasn’t the only person who’d tried a level one challenge before; there was even a leader board for it, seeing who could beat the first boss the fastest. But Echo wasn’t even on it. Still, I poked around and found a couple of the people there were online, so I asked them about the “level one challenge” scene. From what they said, it was only really a speedrun to the first actual boss, everything after that too difficult for people to get interested. That said, they gave me a few names of people who had tried full level one challenges. I looked the names up and there were videos of them beating various bosses in the storyline—even beyond Zhu Ping. None that got as far as the seasonal assassins, though. I checked them out some more anyway. A couple had stopped playing, one was still playing but moved to PvP. It felt pointless to look deeper. But one of the names stood out to me: Oda. That was entirely because it was similar to my name. Hooked, I tried to find them online, struggling as I discovered it was the name of a famous figure in Japanese history and a kind of common Japanese name. So I searched and filtered and trawled, the biggest headache forming from staring at text while scrolling. Eventually, it paid off: a single update on social media. “Foretold in the animes, Oda and Lancelot have finally met.” It was the caption to a picture of two people. By their looks, one was Caucasian and the other Asian, both in their late teens or early twenties if I had to guess. I couldn’t recognise the background, but it looked like a busy city, the text on an advert blocky similar to the Korean characters I’d been checking earlier. This was the most tenuous link between someone from the west and someone from Korea, yet something inside me just knew: Echo was related to this. Maybe my eyes had already noticed the real clue, though, which was the handle used by the person who had posted the picture: Noise. It made sense. I scanned through the notes I’d typed up, finding the phrase. “Noise only dies when Last Echo fades.” My blood ran cold. Trying to silence my instinct, I checked the account for when the last update was posted, but there hadn’t been anything for months—in fact, that picture had been the second to last one. My heart wasn’t so much beating as quivering, afraid. Something I’d been told about and had hoped to never need to do, I typed up a search for the death of a tourist in Korea on the day the last update had been posted. I found an article. Already teary-eyed, I struggled through the brief write-up of an accident in the evening. A car running a red light, crashing into another car and rolling it onto three people walking home from an Internet cafe—a tourist, his friend, and his friend’s little brother. The friend had died instantly, the tourist succumbing to his wounds on the way to the hospital, while the little brother fortunately had only light injuries. It broke me. I mean, I saw news stories every day about people dying, had known people who had died, but there was something so raw about discovering a person one moment and reading about their death the next. The picture of Noise and his friend, of Oda and Lancelot, fresh in my mind… it hurt, ached. You know, finally meeting your best friend you met online… and then… just… dying. I couldn’t tell how long I’d cried, only that I still felt like shit when I sat up. Finally got the fucking story I was looking for. Swaying between pain and self-hatred, I put on another of Echo’s streams to try and numb myself. As far as I knew, Echo wasn’t related to Oda or Lancelot, maybe using “Noise” as just a word, not a name. As far as I knew, Echo was Lancelot’s little brother. The main piece of advice one of my old lecturers had told us was to avoid drawing lines between coincidences, but I was too far gone to listen to good advice. After all, another piece of advice was, “Don’t get attached,” and I’d fucked that up already. The stream only lasted an hour this time, leaving me staring at nothing when it finished. I’d not really paid attention. Working by muscle memory, I checked through my points of contact, mechanically gathering the bits of information into my notes. Nothing disagreed with the picture I’d painted for myself. Taking that picture as the truth, I sent out a few more messages. I asked a Korean-American friend to verify the article and its translation, I asked the speedrunners if they knew anything else about “Oda”. Scrolling through Noise’s social media, I saw he’d been involved in the fighting game community, so I messaged the people I knew there too. All the while, I felt like such scum. I’d thought a digital magazine would get me away from the tabloid shit, but here I was, digging up info on a dead man for my story. Couldn’t even help myself because I needed to know. How nice it had felt to be praised for my high school biographies. Well done, teen me, you really made the world a better place by exposing just how much a piece of shit Churchill was. Now, let’s see what we can find to smear this dead celebrity for the clicks. My thoughts growing deranged, I just hung my head and tried to remember that it only hurt so much because I hadn’t lost all of my humanity yet. Slowly, I worked with the pain as my focus, outlining the article. I loved George for what he did for me, but he had no humanity left. If I wanted rent money, I had to write, and it had to get clicks. In and out, info dripped. I had a real name for Noise, a good quality photo to accompany the article, contact details for his mother, found out that his father had passed away when he was twelve, that he’d visited Japan right before Korea to meet another friend. “Lancelot” was pretty much a nobody, a Korean kid who’d been in his last year of university and played JaS as a hobby. A good student, good son—what the obituary had said in the university paper. It seemed like the two had met over the level one challenge and deepened over a love of history, some old updates by Noise mentioning Lancelot in those contexts. And I just couldn’t stop myself from thinking, one question coming to mind: Why would Echo memorialise Noise and not Lancelot? It ate at me and ate at me, undermining every sentence I wrote. No one could give me that answer but Echo. Well, I was still assuming that Echo was Lancelot’s brother. Then, as if to taunt me, Echo went live. It wasn’t a particularly interesting stream. Since they had beaten the assassins yesterday, today they had to grind through weaker enemies on the way to the next boss. Every fight was still technically life-or-death, so near to the end of the storyline that even grunts packed a punch, but the attacks were easy to dodge and left plenty of openings for a counter-attack. Watching such mindless action, my mind could only whir. The need to know festered inside of me. Pus; I’d heard journalists called that before, and it fit me now. When the stream ended, I noticed Echo hadn’t logged out yet. My instincts brought up the game, tapping in my password, choosing the Korean server. All the while, my sense of reason never stopped me. The friend request I’d send had been rejected, but, since I knew Echo was still online, I sent a private message in the hope they hadn’t turned them off. Unfortunately, I had to rely on them knowing English, my Korean a bit lacking. My message read: “Are you Lancelot’s brother?” There was silence, which was at least better than a notice that I had been reported for sending a message that went against the terms of service; and I could still view their status and see they were online, so I hadn’t been blocked. Fists clenching, I fought the urge to pry open the wound, and failed. “I want to help Noise’s echo last longer.” I felt disgusted with myself for sending the message. It wasn’t a lie, but the simple truth was that I wanted to know, that any redeeming factor came after my selfish need, and that I phrased it in exactly that way to prey on what I thought was their mental state. While I tore myself apart, they replied. “What you know?” The quiet voice of humanity in the back of my head got put in a box while I arranged for someone who spoke Korean to help us hold an interview. Luckily, I found someone online, not needing to schedule it for another day. “When the accident happened,” the translator said, “my brother and Noise moved to protect me. My brother was hit first and died, and Noise got hit heavily, but his arms protected my head when we fell. On the floor, I was scared and hurt. My brother wasn’t moving. Noise was bleeding a lot, but he told me it would be okay, and he somehow pulled us away from the car. When the ambulance came, he told them to check on me first. And when I asked about my brother, he told me had died. In the hospital, I asked everyone if my brother was okay, but they wouldn’t tell me, always changed the subject. If Noise didn’t tell me, I would have thought my brother was still alive, and it would have hurt even more when I found out he died.” That had all been said in spaced out sentences, Echo and the translator speaking in hushed and hurried Korean between each. At this point, though, Echo took a break to gather his thoughts, and I patiently waited. “At the funeral, my family spoke of my brother. They said how brave and kind, and how honourable his death was. But no one spoke of Noise. It was strange to me. When my brother was on the computer at home, he argued with Noise a lot. I thought they hated each other. When Noise visited, I thought for sure they would fight, that Noise had flown all this way so they could fight. But instead they laughed. I had never seen my brother laugh. He was always serious, always studying and always being filial to father and mother. So when I saw him laugh with Noise, I knew they were actually brothers. It turned out, they were even brothers destined to die together. When my family did not say this at my brother’s funeral, I felt like they had insulted my brother. I could not speak up then and even now I am too afraid to say this to my parents.” My hands typed along with every word, stilled with the silence. “My brother and Noise wanted to do this challenge. They wanted to loudly proclaim, ‘We are the best!’ They believed in Sun Tzu who said that it is supreme excellence to subdue an enemy without fighting. In Jade and Silk, you have to fight, so they decided supreme excellence is to subdue without losing blood. I have no ambition in life, but I have in me their blood through their sacrifice. All I wish to achieve is to honour their ambition.” So the interview came to an end with an agreement that I would let him look over the article before publication. Of course, I didn’t explicitly say I wouldn’t publish it if he disagreed with what I’d written, but it wasn’t like I planned to cause problems. Then there was silence. Deafening silence. The world never slept, always another email, another message to read, to send, but nothing about my story was changing any longer. No, I just had to sit down and type. Letter by letter, I hollowed myself out, putting aside my principles in preference to becoming the entertainer. No one would care about Echo, Noise, Lancelot—I had to make them care. I had to carefully decide on the order to present the facts, the context for them, designing everything to make that click worth it to the reader. And when I felt empty enough to collapse in on myself, nothing left to hold me up, I had to come up with the fucking clickbait title. “The Echo a death leaves behind.” “The Echo of a hero.” “Can an Echo be louder than the Noise which makes it?” George had a good eye for headlines, so I settled on those three for him to choose from; maybe he’d come up with his own. Just… I couldn’t bring myself to send the email. I stared. God, I stared, the words dancing over each other as my eyes lost focus. As if playing around, I tried to keep from blinking, let my brain turn the visual information into something semi-psychedelic, starting to wriggle. The further I strayed from thinking about the article, the less of a journalist I felt. Quiet at first, that sliver of humanity gradually filled the emptiness inside me with empathy, apathy giving way to that heartfelt aching. A steady and dull thump in my chest, reminding me why I’d quit that shit-infested tabloid near nine years ago now. Word by word, I deleted the article, deleted the copy, emptied the recycling bin. Deleted the draft email and emptied the bin. For the first time in years, I didn’t hide behind the facts. They weren’t my shield. No, I opened myself up, writing an unabashedly honest opinion piece. I wrote about how I’d suffered writing in the past, how I’d suffered writing this article. I included references to my teenage years, to my university years, to my few years at a “real newspaper”. God, I even included the story about me wetting the bed at a sleepover when I was eight. And then I wrote about how Echo had suffered. Not in the way I would write an article, but in the way I would write to a friend. I wrote how I couldn’t imagine what he’d gone through, that I admired his character and his love for his brother and his brother’s friend, that, even though I’d not known them and even though I knew he felt like he wasn’t doing anything special, Noise and Lancelot would have been so proud of him. I poured my heart out until there was nothing left. Rather than empty, though, I felt content. Last of all, I sent the article to Echo; George just got a short: “Article written pending confirmations, will send it later, ready for next story.” For the first time in a long time, I slept like a baby. Greeting me when I woke up was a short reply from Echo, written in decent English. “To be honest, I wanted to be obscene. I wanted someone to tell me I was stupid, unfilial and rude. I wanted to be a child and scolded like one. But now I see that my brothers spoiled me and what I really wanted was for someone to worry for me again. Sincerely, thank you. Your article has my blessing.” I didn’t deserve that, I knew. But fuck if I wasn’t going to cherish it ’til my timely death.
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