This project really helped me to analyze media that I usually don’t pay enough attention to. Sure, I’ve listened to both albums a hundred times, but I never put much thought into them past what the lyrics were directly saying. Despite how well I thought I knew the songs, looking at all of the different criticisms brought up every detail that contributed to my enjoyment of them, whether I was aware of the exact reasons on my own or not. Although few of these criticisms looked at the songs in the same ways we have been analyzing literature in class, when they did go into how the symbolism and metaphors Grace uses in her songs they were pretty thorough, bringing up details and parallels that my casual listening would never have led me to figure out. It was really interesting to see the different levels of interpretation across critiques, from simple statements about whether they enjoyed it to the instrumentals to the exact wording of the lyrics. Most of what I expected was lyrical analysis due to the similarities between lyrics and poetry, but there was a lot more about the instrumentals. Sure, I knew they would be brought up, it is a musical album, after all, but I hadn’t quite thought about how the music helps create the tone, as well as how detrimental it could be when the instrumentals didn’t carry the same emotion as the lyrics or melody. A lot of my music listening, as well as most other people’s, is not how “good” a song sounds, just whether or not it’s enjoyable. I had never focused on how the instrumentals and lyrics fit together to create the whole experience, at least not in an academic setting. With a lot of comedy songs, the humor comes from a discrepancy between the tone of the song and the subject matter, but thinking about how these songs are constructed was the deepest I really ever got into that concept. Through this project, I was able to really delve into how songs are constructed to convey the emotions they do, as well as to see how some of my favorite music admittedly falls short compared to other songs when it comes to conveying the right emotions. Although instrumentals tended to be the focus, all of the critiques delved into the personal significance of the albums for Grace. Most of the critiques praised her for discussing her perspective in a genre where that perspective is rarely focused on. Despite one of the reviewers feeling that the subject matter got a little too unrelatable at times, the others felt that Grace’s exploration of her experiences through her music helped them better understand the issues that trans people face. One reviewer, FR Reviews, even said it helped him understand the struggles of two friends of his who are transgender because of the discussion of relationships in Shape Shift with Me. Despite how the critiques are, after all, music critiques rather than literary critiques, I felt that this project was a fantastic way to learn how to find the intricacies of media we enjoy in our day-to-day.
My opinion on the two albums has changed a little bit. Although I still love them both, it’s hard now to ignore the problems in some of the tracks. However, I will not stop enjoying Norse Truth no matter how wordy it is. It subscribes to the idea of “why use five words when you can use five hundred?” and it is amazing. I feel as if this project has changed how I interact with the media I tend to consume. It feels like now I’ll be able to look critically at any media I want without hating it afterwards. By using a mixture of youtube videos and articles online, I feel like I’ve had a pretty well-rounded collection of critiques. Although not all of them ae equal in validity, it was really interesting to see the variety of opinions published on the two albums. I actually had a bit of a hard time narrowing it down after finding a few I liked. Overall, this project absolutely helped to open my eyes to the benefits of looking at media we consume just for funsies with a critical eye; it adds to the overall experience no matter our personal opinions on them.
Media Project 