When I came to college, DePauw University busted the music world wide open for me. It seemed that every person I met gave me 500 new songs to listen to. Many of my favorite bands have come from the friends I met at DePauw.
One persistent friend bothered me about Foster The People and their debut album "Torches." I remembered seeing the same Lollapalooza set my friend saw that summer and not being too impressed, so I didn't give them much of a chance at first.
When I finally gave in and picked up a copy of the album, my opinion of the band drastically changed. Mark Foster had a fresh voice reverting back to 80s pop, something that was forgotten before the release of "Torches."
I enjoyed the album's peculiar album artwork most. The art depicts a group of creatures, some resembling the animated creatures in The Beatles motion picture, "Yellow Submarine." Others looked as if they were from "Where The Wild Things Are." The somewhat-sighing faces all seemed to be looking for something, holding lit torches of their own hands.
This past week when the graphic artist for "Torches" came into WGRE - in CD form.
Young & Sick is an Los Angeles based artist and musician. He has been designing album covers for years for artists like Foster The People, Maroon 5 and Robin Thicke. Last year, Young & Sick emerged as a musician.
Young & Sick's debut, self-titled album is something to celebrate. Combining elements of R&B, electronic and jazz styles, Dutch-born artist Nick Van Hofwegen created something brilliant.
His songs combine smooth bass lines with harmonizing high-pitched tones, resembling coins rippling through an electric kaleidoscope. But then he retracts and slows down, bringing in his 80s pop ballad and jazz influences. Each song on the debut follows true elctro-R&B style with a constant reminder of how beautiful life can be.
Young & Sick begins the album with "Mangrove," a song that self evaluates itself. During the song, he realizes something must be wrong in his life for him to be so optimistic.
As we see on the next track, "Heartache Fetish," Van Hofwegen's world came to a halt after a breakup. As the album progresses, we see Van Hofwegen torment himself in attempt to discover what happened. In "Feeling Pain," he describes his experience in dealing with breakups, burning memories and forgetting about the love that once was.
Without warning, Young & Sick follows up one of the saddest songs on the album with "Gloom," a jazzy delight, complete with syncopated beats and a sexy trumpet accompaniment. And after slowing down, the only way is to build back up by playing up-tempo dance beats.
"Glass" follows and kicks up the energy before "Valium" slows it down again, singing "you started fires in me / and watched me go down," reflecting on how the heartbreak affected him.
With all the pain and time that consumed the life of Young & Sick, one must hope for a happy ending. At first glance, "Nowhere" sounds as though he has moved on and over the past relationship, singing the chorus "there is nowhere that I'd rather be than right here."
As it turns out, he had not moved on, but was back together with his former relationship. In fact, Young & Sick wanted a happy ending so badly that he says "let's not wait for happy endings / let's not talk there's nothing left to say / let's make love" before the chorus.
As we see in the final track on the album, however, she left him again, leaving him heartbroken. The album ends with the final line "I just can't wait for this night to be over and over / sick of finding out over and again, over and over" and an instrumental fade out.
In Young & Sick's beautiful debut, we see Van Hofwegen come to a realization on relationships we all can agree with: they don't work one sided.
-Austin is a junior English writing major from Terrance Park, Ohio