Music Reviews

It is said that music, like fate, reveals itself in waves—at times crashing in violent upheaval, at times receding into quiet memory. Van Halen, this band of jesters and alchemists, did not just play rock ‘n roll, they embodied a reckless, divine laughter.

Generation X was the era when guitar-driven hard rock and heavy metal truly came into its own. Bands like Guns N’ Roses, Metallica, and AC/DC brought raw power and virtuosity back to the forefront of popular music. This was a time when the guitar solo was king, and the energy of live performances was unmatched.

The heavy riffs and anthemic choruses of these bands connected with a generation that craved authenticity and intensity. Whether it was the gritty edge of Metallica’s thrash metal or the bluesy swagger of Guns N’ Roses, this era produced some of the most enduring and influential rock music of all time.

The late 1980s and early 1990s saw the rise of alternative and indie music, genres that truly came into their own during Generation X’s reign. Grunge, spearheaded by bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden, offered a gritty, emotional counterpoint to the polished pop of the ’80s. This was music for the disaffected, the outsiders, and those who felt out of step with the mainstream.

While rock was undergoing a transformation, hip-hop was entering its golden age. The late ’80s and early ’90s produced some of the most influential and innovative hip-hop albums of all time. Artists like Tupac Shakur, Notorious B.I.G., and A Tribe Called Quest used the genre to explore themes of identity, struggle, and empowerment.

Hip-hop during this period was not just music; it was a cultural force. It became a global phenomenon, influencing fashion, language, and politics. Generation X witnessed the genre’s evolution from its underground roots to its place at the forefront of popular culture.

On one hand, the punk rock movement—embodied by bands like The Ramones, The Clash, and The Sex Pistols—captured the raw, unfiltered energy of a generation disillusioned with authority and tradition. On the other hand, the emergence of hip-hop with pioneers like Run-D.M.C. and Public Enemy showcased a new form of storytelling that was both poetic and powerful.

Before the internet, music was a shared experience. Generation X was the last to experience music in this way, gathering around the radio, watching Much Music for the latest music videos, and buying albums to listen to from start to finish.

The music of Generation X endures because it was more than just entertainment—it was a reflection of the complexities and contradictions of the time. It captured the anxiety of a generation caught between the analog and digital worlds, the old and the new. It was rebellious, innovative, and deeply personal.

 

What is youth but the delirium of dreams, the reckless fumble toward ecstasy before the world crushes you into submission? Get the Knack is precisely such a delirium—brash and unrepentant in its yearning for something beyond itself.

The opening moments of Let Me Out announce themselves with a frantic urgency, a will to break free from the suffocation of ordinary life. The guitars drive forward like the pulse of a young man gripped by hunger, not only for pleasure, but for conquest.

What is My Sharona? What is this song if not obsession itself? Doug Fieger’s voice is that of a lover and a tyrant, pleading yet demanding, a desperate suitor on the edge of sanity. Sharona, the eternal woman, the phantom that lures and destroys, the archetype of all desire that can never be fully satisfied.

But passion never exists without the shadow of its own decline. Good Girls Don’t flirts with provocation, but in its smirking bravado lies a deeper truth, the clash between ideals and desire, restraint and indulgence. Purity, if it ever existed, is long gone. Even love, even music, carries within it the seeds of its own unraveling.

She’s So Selfish? What venom, what accusation! And yet, is it not a mirror of ourselves? Do we not all grasp for what we desire, leaving the rest to wither? Is there no fairness in human affairs—only power, only will, only the hungering void that each soul seeks to fill before it is cast aside.

But let us not be fooled into thinking Get the Knack is a mindless revelry. Beneath its exuberant energy lurks a darker undercurrent. The late 1970s, a world staggering under the weight of lost idealism. The children of the counterculture, grown weary, cynical. The revolutionaries of the ’60s, now bureaucrats and broken men. Beneath the infectious hooks and musicianship lies the desperate laughter of a generation aware of its own futility.

And yet, is it not uniquely human to laugh even as the noose tightens? Get the Knack does not offer answers, nor does it seek to. It merely plunges forward, driven by its own manic energy, a bright flame against the oncoming dark.

The morning began like any other in the quiet suburb, the sun rising reluctantly. Brenda Ann Spencer, a 16-year-old girl with flaming red hair and haunted blue eyes, woke up in her small room. The gun leaned against the wall, a stark reminder of a gift from her father — a gift that spoke more of neglect and misunderstanding than affection. The same gun that, in just a few short hours, would carve her name into infamy.

Brenda shuffled to the window, her hands trembling. Her father was already up, and she could hear his movements through the thin walls. The world outside seemed too bright, too indifferent. She looked across the street at Cleveland Elementary School. It was still quiet, not yet filled with the innocent shouts and laughter of children who had not yet learned to dread Mondays.

Her head throbbed with the remnants of last night’s argument — another in a long line of clashes with her father, a man who understood her as little as she understood herself. Her life was a sequence of Mondays, endless and unchanging, filled with the same hollow ache. In her mind, the thought formed again, a thought that had been echoing louder and louder: “I don’t like Mondays.”

It wasn’t just the day she hated. It was what it represented — a resumption of everything she loathed: the loneliness, the feeling of being invisible, the crushing weight of a life that felt like it was already over before it had even begun. She was tired of it. Tired of the indifference, the sneers, the alienation. She wanted to make a mark, to make the world stop for just a moment and notice that she existed.

The rifle was cold in her hands. She moved almost mechanically, pushing open the window, her eyes never leaving the playground. It felt strangely surreal, as if she were watching herself from a distance, a spectator in her own life. “I don’t like Mondays,” she whispered again, and this time, it felt like a resolution.

At 8:30 a.m., as the first children arrived at the school, Brenda took aim. The shots rang out like cracks in the morning calm, tearing through the air, tearing through lives. When it was over, two adults lay dead — the principal and a custodian who had tried to shield the children — and eight children and a police officer were wounded. The police surrounded her home, and when the call came asking why she did it, her response was chilling in its simplicity: “I don’t like Mondays. This livens up the day.”

Bob Geldof, the Irish singer and frontman of The Boomtown Rats, was in the United States when he learned of the shooting. He was struck by the senselessness, the sheer nihilism of Brenda’s answer. “I don’t like Mondays.”

Geldof called it the “perfect senseless act” with the “perfect senseless reason.”

The Boomtown Rats had just returned from their American tour, their heads still spinning from the whirlwind of shows, press conferences, and long bus rides. The band was exhausted, but there was an energy among them — a restlessness, a need to translate all they had seen and felt into something meaningful. Brenda Ann Spencer’s words, “I don’t like Mondays,” had lodged themselves in Geldof’s mind like a splinter.

Johnnie Fingers, the band’s keyboardist, came up with the initial piano riff. Inspired, Geldof began writing the lyrics on the spot. He was particularly struck by the nonchalant statement by Brenda Ann Spencer: “I don’t like Mondays. This livens up the day.” He used this disturbing phrase to build the song’s narrative, while Fingers continued to play the riff.

Phil Wainman wasn’t the band’s first choice to produce “I Don’t Like Mondays.” Known for his work with glam rock bands like Sweet, producing The Ballroom Blitz, Wainman was more associated with explosive, anthemic hits than the nuanced blend of irony and melancholy that “I Don’t Like Mondays” required. But the band’s management thought Wainman could bring a radio-friendly edge to their rebellious sound.

They chose to record at Trident Studios, located in the heart of London’s bustling Soho district. Trident was a modest building from the outside, almost easy to miss among the maze of narrow streets and lively nightlife. But inside, it was a hub of innovation and creativity. Trident’s cutting-edge recording technology was matched only by its warm, intimate acoustics. After all, this was where Bowie recorded “Space Oddity,” and where Queen layered the operatic harmonies of “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

The band gathered in the studio, surrounded by vintage Neumann microphones, stacks of Marshall amplifiers, and an imposing Steinway piano in the center of the room. Wainman decided to record the basic track live, with everyone playing together, to capture the immediacy of the emotion.

Geldof wanted the song to have a somber, almost dirge-like quality, while Wainman felt it needed a punchier, more dynamic sound to ensure it stood out on the radio. There were heated debates between Geldof and Wainman, with Geldof arguing for a minimalist approach and Wainman countering that they needed layers. “This isn’t just a newspaper headline,” he insisted. “It needs to feel like a living story,” .

Johnnie Fingers sat at the piano, his hands hovering over the keys, ready to play the riff that had set this whole thing in motion. As he struck the first notes, there was a chill in the air — a feeling that something heavy was hanging over them.

Wainman decided to experiment with the arrangement. He brought in additional musicians to add subtle string sections and even contemplated a choir to give the chorus a haunting quality. But after several hours, he scrapped the choir, realizing that the song’s strength lay in its simplicity. Instead, he focused on getting the perfect piano tone. He miked the piano from several angles, blending close-miked and ambient sounds to achieve a balance that was at once intimate and expansive.

Midway through the mixing session, an electrical issue, affecting only the lights, caused them to briefly black out. The band took a break while Wainman stayed in the control room, playing with the levels and adjusting the the EQ on the mixing board by candlelight. The blackout turned into an unexpected creative moment. When the lights flickered back on, Geldof, returning to the studio, found Wainman hunched over the console, his face illuminated by the soft glow of the VU meters.

He played the track, and the room fell silent. The piano riff was even more haunting, everything was crisper. It felt like the song had found its true form. “I think we’ve got it,” Wainman murmured, almost to himself.

“I Don’t Like Mondays was released on Ensign Records in July 1979, and almost immediately, it struck a nerve. It climbed to number one on the UK Singles Chart, and in over thirty countries worldwide. The American radio stations were hesitant though, most refused to play it. It was too soon, too raw. But the controversy only fueled its popularity.

For Brenda Ann Spencer, there was no such rise to fame. Convicted of two counts of murder and several counts of attempted murder, she was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. She became an inmate at the California Institution for Women in Chino, a name in a forgotten file, occasionally surfacing in parole hearings, but never released. She told stories of abuse and addiction, offered explanations, sought to reclaim some understanding, but the world had already moved on.

Now, decades later, “I Don’t Like Mondays” remains a haunting reminder of that fateful day. Brenda’s crime, and the song it inspired, both linger in public memory, forever intertwined — a single act of violence frozen in time and a melody that asks, again and again, why?

In the end, there are no answers — just the echo of a gunshot, the refrain of a song, and a Monday morning that refused to be ordinary.

There are certain creatures who, through the force of their will, or through some inexplicable fate, ascend to the throne of pop culture. One such creature is Taylor Swift, a woman whose sentiment has yielded a kingdom of devoted listeners. She, an empress of song, each note carefully positioned, each lyric smoothed to a palatable glow. Her music, rich in universal emotion, is a cathedral in which millions gather.

But Beabadoobee does not seek to erect palaces, rather, she dwells where chords dream, where melodies seem less constructed than stumbled upon. Her music does not arrive like a diamond; it is coarse, unfiltered. She does not fear the imperfect.
Her chord changes, dissonant and restless, as if each progression were a confession muttered in a lonely corridor. Beabadoobee chooses paths that lead away from certainty, where a song does not always conclude where one expects, where the listener is left not satisfied, but unsettled.

While Taylor Swift moves between her chosen styles with the grace of a monarch selecting different gowns for different occasions, Beabadoobee does not step lightly from one world to another—she collides with them, fractures them, fuses them together in new and startling ways.

Here, the aching nostalgia of 90s grunge finds itself wedded to the hushed intimacy of bedroom pop.

Here, the dreamlike haze of shoegaze shatters into the raw urgency of punk.

She is not a diplomat, carefully managing her alliances—she is a wanderer, an exile, never entirely belonging to any one kingdom.

Authenticity is a vague term, a word thrown carelessly into conversations about art. But Beabadoobee’s music carries this weight—not in dramatic flourishes, not in grand proclamations, but in its sheer refusal to obscure the flawed and the fragile. Swift, in contrast, constructs something more refined, more perfected, where emotion is captured, distilled, and framed neatly within the golden edges of a chorus. It is not a question of sincerity—both are sincere—but rather of how much one is willing to expose. Beabadoobee allows herself to remain unvarnished, her music less a product and more a confession scrawled in the dim glow of a bedroom lamp.

What, then, is true greatness in an artist? Is it the ability to reign over the hearts of millions? Is it the power to transform a personal sorrow into a universal hymn? Or is it something more dangerous, something that cannot be neatly sold, something that lingers uncomfortably in the corners of the mind long after the song has ended?

Taylor Swift is a master. She has built something vast, something enduring. Beabadoobee, in her quiet defiance, in the raw edges of her sound, represents something more elusive—perhaps not greatness as the world defines it, but greatness as the soul recognizes it.

Los Angeles, late 1979. A dimly lit control room in Producers Workshop.

Roger Waters and David Gilmour are locked in yet another shouting match—this time over Comfortably Numb.

“The verses need to be dry, stripped down. No big, emotional swill!” Waters insists, voice sharp, eyes burning.

Gilmour scoffs. “You’re killing the song! The chorus needs to soar, Roger! It’s the climax of the whole bloody thing!”

Their words ricochet off the walls, their frustrations festering. This isn’t just a disagreement—it’s a battle of wills, the latest in a long war that’s been raging since The Wall began taking shape.

In the middle of it all, Bob Ezrin rubs his temples, trying to keep his patience. He’s seen this before—two brilliant artists colliding, their egos clashing with their genius. But this time, he’s had enough.

Without a word, he walks over to the door. Click. The lock turns.

“Alright,” Ezrin says, voice calm, measured. “Nobody leaves until we get this right.”

A tense silence falls over the room. The two Pink Floyd leaders stare at him, dumbfounded.

“What the hell are you doing?” Waters snaps.

Ezrin meets his glare, unflinching. “You’re both wrong. And you’re both right. We’re going to do it my way.”

The room stays still. No one moves. No one speaks.

But Ezrin is about to make his stand.

No discussion of The Wall can start anywhere other than Roger Waters. This was his album, his story, his rage and disillusionment poured into music. By the late ‘70s, he was growing increasingly detached—from audiences, from bandmates, from the very notion of rock stardom itself. The seeds of The Wall were planted in 1977, when, during a Pink Floyd concert, he became so uncomfortable with the crowd’s behavior that he fantasized about building a literal wall between himself and them.

That moment of alienation sparked something in Waters. He envisioned an album that would explore themes of psychological isolation, personal trauma, and the dangerous allure of authoritarianism. Drawing from his own experiences—including the death of his father in World War II, a strained education system, and the pressures of fame—Waters crafted a narrative that was part autobiography, part dystopian nightmare.

With The Wall, he wasn’t just writing an album—he was building an entire world.

Waters may have had the vision, but the scale of it was overwhelming. Enter Bob Ezrin.

Ezrin wasn’t just there to produce—he was there to refine, to shape, to ensure that The Wall wasn’t just an indulgent, sprawling mess. When Waters presented his ideas, Ezrin made a bold suggestion:

“We need a script. Not just a track list—a real, structured narrative.”

At first, Waters resisted. He was fiercely protective of his work, reluctant to let anyone else shape its form. But Ezrin knew the power of storytelling, and he fought for the structure that would keep The Wall from collapsing under its own weight. He insisted on treating the album like a Broadway show, mapping out scenes, defining character arcs, and ensuring that each song served a larger narrative purpose.

It was Ezrin who brought in the school choir for Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2, convincing Waters that it would add a layer of eerie, detached rebellion. It was Ezrin who fought for pacing, making sure the album ebbed and flowed with the right tension. And it was Ezrin who, when Gilmour and Waters clashed over Comfortably Numb, made the call that would turn it into a masterpiece.

If The Wall was Waters’ story, then Gilmour provided the voice that made it sing. The creative tension between them was both the album’s greatest strength and its biggest obstacle.

Waters brought the raw, emotional intensity—lyrics drenched in paranoia and discomfort. Gilmour brought the soaring, melodic beauty—those ethereal guitar solos that felt like moments of breaking through despair. Together, they created some of the most iconic music in rock history.

But that tension was volatile.

And in Comfortably Numb, it came to a head.

Gilmour’s original demo was melancholic yet lush, its chord progression haunting and hypnotic. Waters, ever the minimalist, wanted it stripped down, stark, almost lifeless. Gilmour wanted it grand, cinematic.

Ezrin, watching two geniuses at odds, made his choice.

The tension in the studio is unbearable. Waters and Gilmour are still glaring at each other, neither willing to give an inch.

Ezrin exhales. “Roger, the verses stay your way—dry, detached, almost lifeless. That fits the story. But David’s chorus? It stays massive. Orchestral. Emotional.”

Silence.

Then, Waters sighs, running a hand through his hair. He relents.

Gilmour nods, arms crossed, still fuming, but willing to trust the man who had already shaped so much of The Wall.

Ezrin unlocks the door. “Alright,” he says. “Now let’s make history.”

And they do.

The final version of Comfortably Numb becomes one of the defining moments of The Wall, the contrast between the bleak verses and the soaring chorus cementing its place in rock history.

By the time The Wall was completed, Roger Waters had asserted near-total dominance over Pink Floyd. Richard Wright had been fired during recording, Nick Mason was largely uninvolved, and Gilmour and Waters’ relationship was beyond repair. The album’s sheer ambition had pushed everyone to the breaking point.

But The Wall wasn’t just finished—it became a cultural landmark. It went on to sell over 30 million copies worldwide, define an era of rock music, and inspire one of the most ambitious tours in history.

Today, The Wall is remembered as Waters’ magnum opus—a deeply personal, deeply political statement wrapped in some of the most haunting and beautiful music ever recorded. But its greatness also lies in the delicate balance of vision, musicianship, and production.

Waters built The Wall. Ezrin made it stand. Gilmour gave it its soul.

And for a brief, tense moment in a locked studio, they all worked together to make history.