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Tyler Glenn struggles to reconcile his faith and his sexual orientation in "Excommunication."

by Taylor Brunwald
Music Critic

Tyler Glenn – Excommunication

The struggle of reconciling faith and sexuality has long been one of the driving antagonistic forces faced by the LGBTQ community. Countless young people have been disowned and thrown away from homes in God’s name, with the personal turmoil of “does God love me?” bringing queer people of faith to their breaking points.

Tyler Glenn, openly gay frontman for pop group Neon Trees, explores this in Excommunication, an angry electronic concept album channeling his inner conflict with his former Mormon faith. The bright bubblegum fun of his band is nowhere to be found here, with Glenn wrestling coming out with believing in God as he was raised to understand Him. Each song is a diary entry, from GDMML Girls (the self-explanatory “God Didn’t Make Me Like Girls”) to First Vision and Midnight,” which incorporate tenets of Mormonism.

“I found myself when I lost my faith,” Glenn ultimately declares in closing track Devil. His pain is visceral and too relatable for anyone who has gone through the same.

Excommunication is now available for purchase and streaming.

American Football – American Football(LP2)

What happens when emo college kids finally grow up? How do you follow up on your magnum opus? Were things really any easier back then?

American Football’s debut self-titled album was released in 1999, when the band members were still students at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, and shortly before the band broke up. It has since been hailed as one of the greatest in the emo rock subgenre for balancing its heartfelt lyricism with math rock signatures and horn sections.

Reunited by popular demand, the band, fronted by Mike Kinsella, is nearer to middle age on the sophomore album seventeen years in the making. Instead of regrets killing him, Kinsella – after pining after a girl – is flat-out miserable in married life. Across thirty-seven minutes, he’s “tired of fighting” (I Need a Drink [Or Two or Three]), compares sleeping beside his spouse “like condemned criminals on trial” (Desire Gets In the Way), and accuses her of infidelity (Born to Lose). The instrumentation is as beautiful and entrancing as on the first album, but this is one hell of a sequel.

American Football (LP2) is now available for purchase and streaming.

Kacey Musgraves – A Very Kacey Christmas

Country singer-songwriter and LGBT ally Kacey Musgraves continues to remind modern country of its classic sound on A Very Kacey Christmas, her first holiday album. Musgraves covers Christmas classics with a few original holiday songs, never taking “the Christmas spirit” too seriously.

Musgraves’ gorgeous voice makes her takes on yuletide favorites almost indistinguishable from their best-known versions. Standards like Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas and What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve intermingle with novelty songs like I Want a Hippopotamus For Christmas and Christmas Don’t Be Late for a perfectly nostalgic sound.

Her artistry shines through in the few original songs: A Willie Nice Christmas featuring Willie Nelson holds the obligatory marijuana praise, Ribbons and Bows tells her lover all she wants is his love, yet Present Without a Bow with Leon Bridges and Christmas Makes Me Cry are heartbreaking.

A Very Kacey Christmas is now available for purchase and streaming.

Fergie – Life Goes On

Earlier in 2016, bisexual pop star Fergie returned from an intermittent hiatus to release M.I.L.F. $, a jittering mess and colossal disappointment on every metric level, too far of a departure from what made Fergie a household name. On her latest single Life Goes On, the Duchess returns to form.

Life Goes On begins like her ballad Big Girls Don’t Cry (Personal), but she has no time for tears. Over a modern tropical house beat, Fergie recognizes her self-worth, realizes the life she truly wants to lead, and tells the subject she can get it just fine by herself. The independence anthem holds the sting of rejection and a hint of nihilism, which makes it a perfect product of its time. She has demonstrated not only how to keep up with the times but how to remain relevant in the fickle pop industry.

Life Goes Onis now available for purchase and streaming. Fergie’s long-awaited sophomore album is anticipated to be released soon.

A&E

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