Tag: indie pop

WATCH: Yola, “Stand for Myself”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Yola
Hometown: Brighton, England
Song: “Stand for Myself”
Album: Stand for Myself
Release Date: July 30, 2021
Label: Easy Eye Sound

In Their Words: “My school years were during the 90s and 00s, and Missy Elliott’s videos were always aesthetically superior to me. I feel that the video is set in the antechamber to freedom. The feeling of escaping something truly oppressive and heading towards an unknown with a sense of hope and choice you haven’t felt in a long time. We all have the capacity to go through this process in our own minds, I kinda look like a superhero at times, but I’m not. I’m just a person trying to be free.

“The song’s protagonist ‘token’ has been shrinking themselves to fit into the narrative of another’s making, but it becomes clear that shrinking is pointless. This song is about a celebration of being awake from the nightmare supremacist paradigm. Truly alive, awake and eyes finally wide open and trained on your path to self actualisation. You are thinking freely and working on undoing the mental programming that has made you live in fear. It is about standing for ourselves throughout our lives and real change coming when we challenge our thinking. This is who I’ve always been in music and in life. There was a little hiatus where I got brainwashed out of my own majesty, but a bitch is back.” — Yola

Directed by Allister Ann.
Photo credit: Seth Dunlap

WATCH: Last Year’s Man, “Still Be Here”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Last Year’s Man
Hometown: Eugene, Oregon
Song: “Still Be Here”
Release Date: April 30, 2021

In Their Words: “I wrote this song after a conversation with Ben Allen. Ben is a really fantastic composer and musician who recently started a sync agency in Vancouver, Washington. We talked about me writing something for his company that walked the line between burdened and hopeful and this song is what came almost immediately. I think we’re all eager for life to get back to what it was in some way or another and this is a love song built out of the idea that it will.

“For the video, I spent hours on archive.org not really knowing what I was searching for. It was dumb luck stumbling on these public domain videos from the 1930s and 40s. I started with a clip just to see and the music happened to line up with the dancing for a moment and it felt really beautiful. I pieced it together from there and was surprised by the wide range of emotion I felt from watching people dance in these old movies along with my song. It’s one of those happy accidents.” — Tyler Fortier, Last Year’s Man

Photo credit: Tyler Fortier

BGS Wraps: The Hello Darlins, “Do You Hear What I Hear”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: The Hello Darlins
Song: “Do You Hear What I Hear”
Album: Heart in the Snow EP
Release Date: November 6, 2020

In Their Words: “To us, Christmas is about our connection with loved ones. There’s also something peaceful, comforting and familiar during this time of year. It’s a time of looking back and wishing others well, but the true magic lay in memories of experiencing everything with a child-like spirit.” — Candace Lacina, The Hello Darlins

Enjoy more BGS Wraps here.