VVIBE CHECKING: PRESSURE MACHINE

I called it last year when I vvibe checked Imploding the Mirage, they have found their voice and now The Killers are back with a beautiful album.

It really surprised me when they announced another album so soon, especially after the 3 years between Wonderful Wonderful and Imploding the Mirage. I can’t say I was expecting it but it was silly not to, having found their voice, why wouldn’t they use it.

Although different from the previous albums, it doesn't feel experimental, it’s confident and graceful. It doesn’t waver like Lover by Taylor Swift or Father of all… by Green day, it plants its feet on the ground and tells a story.

Pressure Machine reminds me a lot of Sam’s Town, to me it’s their second album but earthy, mature and artistic. It’s not as personal but the recurring themes are still there; The difficult relationships, the small town blues, the wanderlust. 

This album has very little divine in it, there’s almost no sky, it feels grounded in many ways. The story that is told itself is one of people tied to a small town, to their “birthright”, people who would have been different in another place, in another life. People who wanted more.

It didn't make me cross my heart like Flesh and Bone or Neon Tiger, but it got me dancing at 8 am, it got me laughing just because the way it sounds makes me feel all this energy. My favourite songs were In The Car Outside and In Another Life, for some reason they are like tasting something that makes you wonder how you lived without it until now, they just taste like the first jagerbomb I ever had that good in the mouth, the kind of song that every line, every progression, hits you like it wasn’t what you expected but it’s so, so much better.

I feel like it's a fever dream album, it’s conceptual, there are characters that I haven't understood just yet because I only listened to it like 3 times. Much like folklore and evermore by Taylor Swift, the personal elements are weaved through the lyrics in a way that’s almost imperceptible, something that is very new to this band. Brandon has always written lyrics that are closely tied with his own experiences and views on love, religion, everything really, so it’s amazing to see this kind of distance because it feels new to us but it’s probably also new to him and the rest of the band. 

In my last post about them I said Imploding the Mirage, an album that I am dying to listen to live,“was like hearing someone who finally got to the place they were supposed to be, like breathing deeply after holding your breath for a little too long.” and this is what happens after. Pressure Machine feels like having fun in this immaterial place, like vvibing just because they can, so there are violins and harmonicas, songs that feel like theirs but another side of them, a side we haven’t seen until now but it’s amazing and exciting and I hope to see more. 

VVIBING TO: OLIVIA RODRIGO AND TEENAGE RAGE

I started out on the wrong foot already, I listened to SOUR at work. I held on tight for most of the album but hope ur ok broke me.

Her debut album is definitely a no-skip and God, Olivia is doing her shadow work. Listening to this album felt healing in a weird way, like my inner child being seen, maybe it’s because she is half asian; But she really dived deep in her own feelings and had the courage to sing about all of them, even the “ugly” unpopular ones no one likes to admit they have, and I think that as much as it made me cry and it hurt a little bit, it was like hurting with her and running my hands through my inner child’s hair, like “hey, look, this young girl is also going through it, see how much she is loved even if she’s singing about the things you don’t say out loud? Maybe you’re not as bad as you think you are”.

I don't relate to Olivia Rodrigo exactly, I mean, I don't even know how to drive, but there are snippets of her lyrics that are like being stabbed, just the way she says it, it's just like the rhythm thoughts come when you are breaking down and I relate to that.

The way it starts slow, and then it builds up and gets agitated, the feeling gains confidence, it starts being mean, and then it screams in sadness and rage, it has bitterness in its voice, and then it gets quiet, it's just sad, like acceptance.

Miss girl really managed to make an album that, although I can't relate on a subject level, I can relate in a cadence of thoughts level, it's like girly bottled up every breakdown I've had through my teens and almost 20s in this album.

She managed to sing in detail the feeling of when its cloudy and late in the afternoon and the cold wind hits you when you are walking somewhere and the sadness of grief slowly builds up on the way, and your thoughts start racing until it makes you want to scream and then it's quiet, a tiny voice, childish, barely a whisper, that says "I miss you".

I may be projecting hard here but a mixed kid raised by a white mom gave us SOUR. This kind of rage, loneliness, and jealousy, brutal self-awareness, is something I’ve never seen someone who is not “different” show. Like not that other people don’t show “ugly” feelings like this but I have never felt more seen in music, I swear to god, those were my adolescence struggles and also I have carried some of them into adulthood.

I mean she never says anything like that in the songs with all the words and like I said, maybe I am projecting, but I feel like even if you have friends and feel loved, being bi-racial makes you crave belonging in a way that is rarely talked about. So when you finally do and you feel like it’s you and them against the world, and the person ends up breaking your heart, I feel like maybe it cuts a little deeper. And it takes a little longer to heal. But when you drop the act, all the things you do to get closer to belonging, you find your own select group of castaways.

As much as it hurts and grieving relationships is hard, things get better, I swear. One day that whispery voice becomes a casual visitor in your head, you welcome it like an old, old friend, let it linger for a bit, you ask it how it’s been and if it needs something. Sometimes it needs a scent, sometimes a song, sometimes it’s just there to congratulate you on how far you’ve come; and then you say your farewells and hope it doesn’t come back soon. One day you look around and there's nowhere else you want to be, you finally belong with yourself and to yourself.

VVIBING ON TAYLOR SWIFT AND HER NEW GRAMMY, AND LIKE IN GENERAL

So Taylor Swift won another Grammy. GOOD FOR HER OH MY GOD SHE DESERVED IT.

Men, cis, and straight mostly, hate Taylor Swift, we all know that. They will go out of their way to tell you how her music is bad, how she only sings about breakups, how she’s lame, without ever stopping to listen to one of her songs.

Well, I personally think they are afraid of her. I think men, guys, boys, are afraid of the young pretty girl who calls them out on their bullshit, who sang “Well maybe it's me and my blind optimism to blame // Maybe it's you and your sick need to give love then take it away” at 20 years old. They are afraid because Taylor profits off their lies and lives her best life. Girls, gays and theys who listen to Taylor Swift are not afraid to be soft but are not to be messed with, at least not since Blank Space was released. So men act like her songs are boring and childish.

But they don’t get it. They can’t even begin to fathom that maybe the reason why we love Taylor Swift so much, and scream-sing her lyrics like they are sacred texts, is because she writes about a thing that’s fundamentally human, relationships. Mostly heartbreaking ones.

And it doesn't matter who breaks your heart, it doesn’t matter if it's a boy from college, or high school, or Jake Gyllenhaal; heartbreak is heartbreak, and an universal feeling that unites people all over the world singing All Too Well crying at 3 am.

She started her career with cute songs about love then grew up to be one of the most successful women in the music industry and GOOD FOR HER. She is loved by millions of teenage girls around the world because she sings about men breaking her heart, and not something considered cool and edgy. She sings about highs and lows, and sometimes things we feel, ugly things, that we can’t even admit to ourselves. 

(click the pic for source)

And Taylor Swift puts all those feelings, the emptiness, hopelessness, heartache, envy, jealousy, anger into lyrics, and that’s very brave of her. She helps us put the feeling into words, so we don’t have to do it alone, and feel seen and heard, comforted; because then we know for sure we are not the first, nor the last to feel like their heart might as well implode and take your body with it so you can stop crying over a stupid guy. Yet, as much as her lyrics are sad, they are hopeful, there are good relationships in the world too, there are better days to come, this sadness is not everlasting, it can’t be. If she is alive and well, you too will heal, you know?

That’s the beauty of her discography. She calls men out the way we wish we had the courage, or the words, or the chance to do; she keeps writing from the heart, even if the media comes after her again and again, and she wins every time because they can break her heart and say some nasty things about her but they can’t stop her. She sings with us through nights of dreaming, of grieving relationships, and promise after promise to never be caught in a situation like this again, still, her songs won’t ever judge if you ever do.

To me sitting with my headphones on, listening to Taylor Swift is comfort. It’s knowing if she got over Harry Styles, you can get over that crusty dehydrated guy; it’s knowing there’s always a new beginning and you’re gonna be ok and find someone who you would marry with paper rings. 

VVIBING TO MILLENIAL ANTHEMS aka FUN.

I have been a huge fan of fun. since I discovered Barlights because of an Avengers College AU back in 2012(?). You may remember them by We Are Young, which was their biggest hit, but this was the first band I liked in my teens and I was thinking about it because indie music has come a long, long way, but to me, fun. is the very definition of 2010’s indie.

The band started in 2008 (hmm merry crisis I guess) when the band members were around their mid-20s if I’m not mistaken. Born in the eighties these were three millennial men, like they say in Barlights, they were the get-rich-quick-kids who never got it right, making music in NYC, just you know…. trying to make it, trying to become stars, trying to succeed and well, succeeding but having to deal with it in ways they never thought about.

The song that opens their first album, Be Calm is a fucking anthem, to me, those are the words of someone who is really trying hard in many ways and who knows failure “after all you lost your band and left your mom”,  “now every single crack, every penny that I pass says I should either leave or pick it up”, “If I could only find my people or my place in life”, to me, fun. represents the resentment, the disappointment of millennials. In some ways, it’s the theme that carries on through the whole first record, and I adore it.

They were the face of what hipsters were, the skinny jeans and suspenders, dress shoes, and short-sleeved shirts. The colorful melancholy of leaving home and trying to make it in a big city because well, what else is there to do? Leave your mom, leave your friends, survive, feel alive because of it, become someone else, become immortal. It’s the most millennial thing I’ve ever seen, it is in my point of view the millennial dream and also the millennial fall. 

The bands I like to call Mainstream Indie, like The Killers or Arctic Monkeys, reached ridiculous success too early in some ways, Alex Turner was only 16 when Arctic Monkeys started, Brandon Flowers was 23 when Mr.Brightside blew up. Nate Ruess, Jack Antonoff, and Andrew Dost started a band in 2008 looking for something and they found it, it wasn’t exactly what they wanted I guess, because Some Nights is an album that questions, from the opening track, what they got from Aim and Ignite, “I sold my soul for this? Washed my hands of that for this? I miss my mom and dad for this?”, “Five minutes in and I’m bored again, ten years of this and I’m not sure if anybody understands”.

It’s an album where I think Nate, and I mean Nate specifically because even though he did go solo after fun., he is not interested in singing anymore, whereas Jack Antonoff is still making music, questions, if 1) this is really his place in the world and 2,) if it was worth it, and expanding it a little more, it wasn’t; because if he didn’t stick around after the success that was We Are Young, the millennial generational anthem, then it really, really wasn’t it.

But the evolution from Aim and Ignite to Some Nights to Grand Romantic and Bleachers is a beautiful thing to see. Aim and Ignite has a weird pessimism behind its happy and colorful first impression, Some Nights questions and questions but also burns in youthfulness even though it’s mature, to me there’s no band, no record that captures the voice of millennial youth better than these, the same way that Declan McKenna, Conan Gray, Billie Eilish are some of the artists that capture older Gen Z’s voice beautifully. “I close my eyes and think about tomorrow, it never came true”, It captures the voice of a moment that happened right before Instagram, right before smartphones and  Tinder, right before chaos.

They were invincible, they were the future, the same way we are now, they were glorious, they were young, and in New York City, what could possibly go wrong? But aging is terrifying, not reaching an idealized idea of success is terrifying, and that’s the beauty of it, this was the generation that could not get jobs, that could only have the things society promised the later in life or never even got them so they blew up Instagram posts of their lunches and made avocado toast and light (millennial) pink a thing. 

“I’m standing in Brooklyn just waiting for something to happen, I can’t help but love thinking that everyone doesn’t get it.” And I don’t think people get it, the older generation thinks millennials are spoiled brats who can’t do anything and the younger generation thinks millennials are just crybabies when honestly, they were raised to live in a world that doesn’t exist anymore and they really weren’t ready for it no one would have been. There is resentment and I think that fun. fully embodies this very specific millennial feeling of resentment and does it beautifully.

“Cause no one here is gonna save us”

 

VVIBE WITH ME: a loving review of Father of All Motherfuckers by Green Day

The fanbase hated Green Day’s latest album, Father of All…(implied motherfuckers bcs I’m sure Spotify would have flagged it) but I didn’t, and here is why:

I did not vvibe deeply with it, I’m not gonna lie, but Green Day has had a very long journey in the industry and they finally have the autonomy, the respect and the means to do whatever they want, so I don’t think it’s weird that they wanted to do something experimental.

That’s how this album felt to me, experimental, like American Beauty/American Psycho by Fall Out Boy, the pop mess that was so fun to listen to but wasn’t really that cohesive, got a little tiring after a while and it really felt like an album made for testing out what the band was capable of doing but still very enjoyable. 

It feels like this is exactly what this new album is supposed to be, fun to make, a little raw and a little messy, but the blueprint of an absurdly good next album, like Fall Out Boy’s Mania, which not only made a lot of sense as an evolution from AB/AP but it felt glorious, new and timeless at the same time, the kind of album that quickly became one of my favorites and had so many feelings tangled in it that even though I rarely listen to it these days, I absolutely adore it, 3 years after it’s release it provokes emotions so intense that it feels like the first time I heard it.

Green Day is a band that has evolved and keeps evolving album after album, to me it was actually weird to see them release Revolution Radio, an album that seems to me like a copy of American Idiot. They have grown and their albums sound like that, they sound like men who keep getting better and better for themselves and not for their audience, so I think Father of All… was a courageous fuck you to the music industry and to some of their fans still stuck in a 1993 album and I vvibe DEEPLY with that. 

I absolutely adore Green Day and have been listening to them since I was 7 and they have been a band longer than I have been a person. I mean 34 years to 22? The band was already in middle school by the time I decided to show up. And they have grown, from young adults when they released Dookie to actual middle-aged men, and I don’t like this culture of expecting artists to keep making the same things through 30 years, I think it’s what people think they want but when it happens, see Red Hot Chilli Peppers, they don’t like it. 

I believe fans exist to support and to understand artists and their decisions. As a fan of Green Day, I think we have to be grateful that they are still a band and still releasing new songs, also, still giving 300% of energy at every single concert. I always say a Green Day concert is an experience in itself, the way Billie Joe leads the crowd, the way he is 100% present, it’s a difficult thing to find these days, it’s raw, it’s glorious.

So I think Father of All… is good, not because I love it, but because I feel like I understand where it comes from, and am just happy they are still growing and experimenting and happy to be doing it as a band and the fact that they decide to share it with us, I love that. I think, considering the albums that come before, but not Revolution Radio, so yeah, the trilogy, it’s simply growth, evolution and I can almost feel them laughing through it.

In conclusion, I don’t think Father of All… is their best album, but I think it is the first glance we got of one. 

VVIBE CHECKING: Imploding the Mirage by The Killers

There's a strong divine element on Imploding the Mirage and I vvibe deeply with it. I think Brandon Flowers finally overcame the commercial success that Battleborn was 

Sam’s Town feels like a prayer and so does The Desired Effect, I’m gonna be honest, despite being a huge The Killers’ fan, I haven’t listened to all of their albums, I feel like later on in life I’m gonna have a new The Killers phase, but at the moment I’m having a Declan McKenna phase. 

But I always feel like there are divine elements in their albums, Hot Fuss has a little bit of it in All These Things That I’ve Done, Sam’s Town is the champion, the whole album feels like prayer, and Imploding the Mirage is really close to it but I can’t tell if more or less of the vibe right now because it’s too recent. Battleborn has it in some songs like Flesh and Bone which gives me real chills and is the number one song that feels like a prayer on my “songs that feel like praying” playlist. 

From the first images they revealed, I felt this feeling could be coming back in the album, but when they released it, it was so much more than I had anticipated. Someone said to me that this album is depressing but I don’t agree. I think it’s inspiring, the same way Alex Turner made an entire album about decadence by embracing it, I think Brandon Flowers learned from it. Brandon’s lyrics sound and feel like a person who has found true glory would.

It wasn’t going to be easy to write a masterpiece after the commercial success of Battleborn, that I consider to be a masterpiece album that is basically everything an album by them should be amped to the max, it’s romantic, it’s a little sad and it’s divine, but I feel like Imploding the Mirage is everything and a little bit more. It’s mature, it's something that has healed and it's celestial. It’s not Miss Atomic Bomb, it’s Dying Breed, Brandon is not talking about treason and regret, he’s fighting for real love, he is finally safe, secure, after years of anxious love songs, full of overthinking, deception and miscommunication.

It feels self-conscious in a good way, this has been a recurrent theme throughout their songs but this time it sounds more sincere, I mean: “but man I thought I could fly, and when I hit the ground, it made a messed up sound and it kept on rattling through my days” won me over 02:05 minutes into the album, it’s mature, it told me what this album was about and it was like hearing someone who finally got to the place they were supposed to be, like breathing deeply after holding your breath for a little too long. 

Neil Z. Yeung from ALLMUSIC said “feels like more than just one of their best albums, but a triumphant and invigorated rut-reversal that shines with a hard-won confidence.” and I couldn't agree more.

Wonderful Wonderful was a big flop, and I think now the band is back on track and ready to take on the world all over again, not with another Mr. Brightside, like everybody expects them to make, but with the ease and grace of a band who consciously found their voice and is never gonna lose it again.

A VVIBE: Arctic Monkeys live

I was thinking about it yesterday and I really wish I could see them live again. The way Alex Turner writes lyrics, it just charms me, because it’s so easy to feel them under your skin. I feel like the lyrics to Alex’s love songs melt in your mouth like chocolate when you sing them, they feel so good on your tongue. Actually, Alex’s songs, in general, feel good in the mouth, all of them, there’s a sensation that accompanies his lyrics that I can’t describe, it’s like saying the right thing at the right time maybe? Anyway, it feels good in your ears, when you hum them under your breath, and even better when you scream them in a crowd at the top of your lungs.

And I feel like they are personal to him, they are far from vague but in the vaguest way possible if that makes any sense. It’s like he knows how to talk about things in a way that’s vague enough to resonate with other people, yet the details he gives us are sometimes so specific that you can’t help but feel like this was part of his life? I was talking to a friend about it and it’s a little cringy when you think about the songs because of this, but when you are actually listening to them, it’s a completely different feeling.

Suck it and See is personally my favorite album by them, the second half is raw in a way that truly describes what heartbreak feels like and I just vvibe deeply with it. It also talks about love in a way that really pleases me, it feels real. From falling in love to falling apart, it’s a journey that I feel like Alex just knows too well, actually, I know he does because he writes about it in a way that only people who have truly been to heaven and hell know how.

That’s why I think an Arctic Monkeys concert is so personal, take The Killers for an example, their concert is a divine experience, it feels like your upper body is radiating light, to me most of the songs feel like a connection with God and divine energy that Brandon knows how to put in his songs, but in an Arctic Monkeys concert everybody sings 505 to a different person, everybody screams “I crumble completely when you cry” for a personal and particular reason and it’s about the crowd, it’s about you and the taste you feel in your mouth. I personally feel the taste of youth when I sing 505 because it reminds me of my teenage years and the way I wish someone had felt like about me back then.

These songs just hit different live, not that they weren’t already an experience in my earbuds but I remember thinking I had to listen to them live just to have this moment, just so I could scream the lyrics at the top of my lungs because they feel so right and they feel so good.

What concert would you like to see again? Why?

"no thoughts, head empty"- Alex Turner, 2018 alt. title: VVIBE WITH ME: a review of tranquility base hotel and casino in leopard print and shorts

vvibing to the Arctic Monkeys' The Ultracheese, I'm a firm believer that if you didn't like Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino you are just not really listening to it and letting it tell its story. It tells you everything you need to know to like it, from the moment Alex sings that he just wanted to be one of The Strokes at the beginning of the album to the moment he sings that he's probably not deep in thought, that's just his face.

The evolution from AM to Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino is delightful to see, AM being the top, the maximum fame that Arctic Monkeys has ever had with the catchy songs and the construction of Alex's character during that period; You know,  going from the whole bad boy look of the 50s, the way AM talks about parties and bars and people to TBHC being the opposite of it, talking about the illusion of fame with a debauched tone but at the same time with a touch of loneliness, like a drunk person who makes fun of the situation he is in but knows that in the background there’s a little bit of truth to the jokes. The way it talks about dressing up like a fictional character from a place he calls America seems to me like a perfect response to the life he lived back in the AM era.

AM is a peak album, an album dazzled by a surreal American world and perfect to conquer American youth and TBHC is a deep dive in this tattered illusion, a beautiful album about decadence. In a way I feel like AM has an adolescent energy, perhaps because I listened to it a lot during my teenage years, but also because of the way Alex Turner describes things in such a dramatic way, full of life or death, love or hate, in the lyrics and sounds like someone who's drunk on teenage power. The disappointment of AM is not the same as that of TBHC, the disappointment of the former is singular, it’s a person; while in TBHC it’s the world, it’s the creative scene, it is the industry. I feel like the band but mostly Alex, understood that trying to make another AM was simply ridiculous so even if unconsciously they embraced the idea that the thing after that was decadence and they built an entire reality around it, like what would decadence feel like? How does it sound? How does it look? And to them it looked like the vacation spot on the moon, far away from humanity but still human, being treated like a god and then being forgotten.

The criticism towards society is also so on point in this one, while AM was quite empty in this subject, a thing that pops up every now and then in Arctic Monkeys’ songs, see Teddy Picker for an example, Tranquility Base just goes deep into it, from technology to politics and not in a forceful way, I mean it’s clearly there, but it’s also not just about it and it’s not a political album like the openly critical about the government American Idiot by Green Day. Alex sings very delicately about the way social habits have changed in the era of social media in The Ultracheese, talking about freaking out from a knock at the door when you haven’t been expecting one, and satirizes advertising in Four Out of Five with the idea of selling people things in the verge of an apocalypse.

The way he does not demonize any of these things, but just kind of brings it up, makes me feel like there’s a bright future for the band even after the great success of AM and the popular hate on TBHC. It feels contemporary, I feel that in a personal level Alex is aware he’s aging and he doesn’t try to stop it, he embraces it, he collaborates with new younger artists and he is not the young and wild rockstar anymore, and I am talking about the way I read it, but he feels secure in his age and it shows so much that it feels like to the outside world he is perceived as cooler than he has ever been because Alex writes about this part of probably his career without making us listeners feel like it’s just an old man's complaint.

One other thing I really like in this album is this dark and golden vibe it has, the '70s inspired aesthetic, I think it ties well to the idea of decay and rejection of modernity right now since the '70s were an era of embracing modernity and rejecting tradition, people who didn't agree with the technological advances of the time or failed to open their minds to a new moment in history were left to decay and be forgotten. I think the fastest way to decay is to not accept and embrace modernity like I can see this in my own generation in the way people reject Tik Tok just because it’s new, it’s young and dumb when in reality it being young and dumb is what makes it so amazing. Being open-minded and getting in touch with another generation and at least partially understanding them is a blessing and I think the band understands this so although people hated the album back in 2018, I feel like it’s on the way to becoming a modern classic.

vibing in leopard print shirt from Zara (R$119, 2018), running shorts, that I bought because "make some noise" is written on them and I just really like MCR, from Renner (R$69, 2018), sunglasses (R$40), old ass picture of NYC that is around 11 years old (R$??????)

What did you think of Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino? How are you feeling about the end of the world?

VVIBE WITH ME: Declan McKenna

 The way this boy has such a clear idea of what he wants is so scary and also the reason I adore him and his music. 

Declan is 21 years old, he was born in the same year I was, and his songs bring me peace. Not because his songs are calm or talk about the world the way Jack Johnson (except on Sleep Through the Static, which was a very heavy album) does, but because someone else sees what I see and someone else is mad enough to scream about it. 

makeup always on point

I only started formally listening to his songs last month but since then I’ve been completely obsessed with everything he has to say. From the song’s lyrics to the interviews, the way Declan sees the world around him is fascinating. His songs talk about social problems, about politics, about prejudice, and the way people are suffering but it’s not annoying and well… pedant like some other artists. It’s the voice of someone who has grown up seeing this stuff and just wants to call people out on their bullshit. I feel like he is very sincere in his songwriting.

The feeling he gives me is that he’s not purposefully trying to write these songs, these are just the subjects running around in his head all the time. Maybe it’s because we were born in the same year and I’m projecting my own dissatisfaction in the world onto him, but I feel like we come from the same place, just laying your head on your pillow and thinking: “am I the only one who feels like the world is ending and not one cares?”

And the way he talks about it... how he has such a clear idea of what he wants for each song and how he talks about the subjects he beautifully writes about with so much certainty, I mean I love the confusing and artistic way Alex Turner breaks down his music but it is refreshing to see someone with such a clear idea of what they were trying to convey.

I have listened to both of his albums and can’t get enough of them, the first one, released when he was 18 if I’m not mistaken, is ridiculously mature for an artist so young with songs like Paracetamol, Listen to Your Friends, and Brazil, which are on the more serious side and my personal favorite, Why Do You Feel So Down, a fun energetic song where he kind of makes fun of himself.

vvibing in a polo shirt, large, ralph lauren ($myex's), holographic sequin hot pants(?) or shorts(?) from forever 21 (R$99, 2014), pink duvet ($mybrother's), silk pillowcase that looks like the one from Howl's Moving Castle ($ I made it), sunglasses (R$40, 2019), dog cap from renner (R$30max, 2018)

And this second one, released last month, Zeros is the name of it, full of even more serious subjects, like humans destroying nature, technology, people’s expectations, conspiracy theories, and ignorance. All of this in a slightly futuristic, sci-fi sounding album. I currently can’t even name a favorite song of this album because it’s simply fantastic and it hits something deep, deep inside me.

So I want to dance to those songs, I want to see him live, I want to shout all the lyrics because they just make me feel hope. Not because there is something truly hopeful in them but because someone else sees what I see.

vvibing to Why Do You Feel So Down by Declan McKenna. Do you ever get this weird impression that people think you are cooler than you actually are and they are a little disappointed when they get to know you? Or is that just me?

VVIBE WITH ME: in a Large Ralph Lauren Polo Shirt + Pink Fishnets

I think I peaked at 19 and should have died there, I’m not being dramatic, I just had everything I had ever wanted.

I was living in London when I was 19, studying at the London College of Fashion, living the dream you could say. It had always been my dream to live there because of Doctor Who and my ridiculous love for British stuff, from music to tv to food, I still miss cocoa pops.

This polo shirt is from that semester abroad, it’s my ex’s, he was fucking huge, he was a rugby player on the weekends, hence why the shirt is a dress on me, but I didn’t vibe with it until this year and before that, I didn’t vibe with polos in general until I got obsessed with Kingsman: Secret Service in 2019.

vvibing to Greek Tragedy by 

The Wombats because it

 was my song with my ex,

his name was Paris and

the first thing that crossed

my mind when we met was

“what a fucking greek tragredy, huh?”

You see I already adored Kingsman and Taron Egerton, but I had a brutal Taron Egerton as Elton John phase in which I watched only Rocketman for a month and a half. Every friday I’d go to the cinema and watch it alone.

There was something so delicate and brutal about that movie, might write about it someday, but back to the point, I was having a mean bitch phase, I was angry and that anger turned into only wearing boy’s clothes and black, red, and grey for 6 months, and I was obsessed with Eggsy, so I bought a black polo shirt.

Also, the existence of chav culture fascinates me, not in a bad way, I just think it’s kind of cool and also the origin of the word “chave” in Brazilian Portuguese, which is used to describe the Brazilian version of chavs.

I then declared, probably whilst drinking a beer, that polo shirts would come back soon, in 1 year to cool kids and 2 to mainstream buyers, I think I was correct, I’ve been seeing them a LOT over the last few months and I believe after Covid officially ends we are going to see it everywhere.

vvibing in a polo shirt, large, ralph lauren ($myex's), pink fishnets (R$12, 2013), pink duvet from zelo($mybrother's), red duvet from zelo($mymom's), sunglasses from 25 de Março (R$40, 2019)

Anyways, I really vibe with them now and I also want a striped rugby jersey, as soon as quarantine is over I’m gonna go thrifting with Tina to find it.

Are you also vvibing with polo shirts? How are you guys? What's the next thing on your wishlist?

OUTFITS, OUTFIT OF THE DAY, OUTFIT INSPIRATION, TREND FORECASTING, POLO SHIRT, OVERSIZED, OVERSIZED FASHION INSPO, DARK BLUE, ROYAL BLUE

VVIBE WITH ME: to Conan Gray's Generation Why

I am 22 and I feel quite lost. I truly don’t know what to do with my life, I can’t bring myself to believe in the system we live in and I don’t know how to deal. I feel like a spoiled child who has now discovered they have to work to be able to live, so when Conan Gray said:

“We are the helpless, selfish, one of a kind
Millennium kids, that all wanna die
Walking in the street with no light inside our eyes
We are the worthless, cursed with too much time
We get into trouble and lose our minds
Something that I've heard a million times in my life
Generation why”

I really vvibed with that because I was born in 1998 and although I always knew I’d have to work, since I was born middle class in an emergent country, it infuriates me that the idea of success to the world these days is basically selling your soul for money and status. You have to give up everything to have a successful career and, if you wanna have a “real job” in anything, it’s expected of you to give up your health, your happiness, your sanity, all of your time, to make money to other people (because they don’t pay much even if you are doing yours and other 3 people’s job) so they can pay you a mediocre health insurance until maybe one day if you are really, really lucky and you find a fucking pot of gold, you can actually make money too.

And we are fucking depressed, it’s too much since the day we were born; have good grades, get into a good college, the phrase “work while they sleep”, just let us chill for one second, geez. I mean we are gonna end up losing our dream job to someone whose daddy is in the business anyway.

vvibing in a green plaid shirt ($15 in a nyc clearance store), a double-sided jacket I made for my sportswear class (R$400, the fabric was custom printed), black high waisted shorts from forever 21, (R$70, 2014), lobster cap from renner (R$30max, 2018)

Then there’s the problem that rich people have been saying young, poor and basically working people should die left and right these days. And we have to work for them? Kiss the ground they walk on? Be thankful for the scraps from their table? What the fuck?

No wonder my generation is trying to make money selling foot pics instead of getting a job where they will be treated as a disposable part in a machine that doesn’t care if they die. Have you seen job applications lately? It’s insane, you go looking for a receptionist job and they want you to have 5 years of experience. And then they treat you with no respect for a salary that won’t even let you move out of your parents’ house.

We have all the right to be confused and depressed and anxious you know? Look at the mess they put us in.

Anyway, how old are you guys and how are you coping with the collapse of modern society?