{"id":80911,"date":"2024-09-03T09:36:56","date_gmt":"2024-09-03T14:36:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/?p=80911"},"modified":"2024-09-03T09:38:36","modified_gmt":"2024-09-03T14:38:36","slug":"devotchkas-how-it-ends-a-ray-of-little-miss-sunshine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/2024\/09\/03\/devotchkas-how-it-ends-a-ray-of-little-miss-sunshine\/","title":{"rendered":"DeVotchka&#8217;s &#8220;How It Ends&#8221;: A Ray of (Little Miss) Sunshine"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>BY DOT SMITH<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Many people have heard of \u201cLittle Miss Sunshine.\u201d Far less have experienced the unfiltered brilliance that is its music. Boasting pieces from Sufjan Stevens and Rick James, this film\u2019s soundtrack is heavily inspired by indie-folk and rock in the best way possible. However, what truly stands out is the original score, composed mostly by Tony Tisdale, Mychael Danna and DeVotchKa.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Out of the three contributors to the score, the one that has the most impact on the tone of the soundtrack is DeVotchKa. DeVotchKa is a very genre-flexible but folk centered ensemble consisting of Nick Urata, Tom Hagerman, Jeanie Schroder, and Shawn King. When listening to their 2004 album \u201cHow It Ends\u201d, you can really hear the influences from the band. Especially in two songs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThe Enemy Guns\u201d and \u201cHow It Ends\u201d both will sound familiar to anyone who has listened to the \u201cLittle Miss Sunshine\u201d soundtrack. That is because the instrumentals for those pieces were used for the score. The opening song, \u201cThe Winner Is\u2026\u201d is the instrumental for \u201cHow It Ends\u201d while \u201cFirst Push\u201d is the instrumental for \u201cThe Enemy Guns\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In fact, that\u2019s how I found \u201cHow It Ends\u201d (The album, not the song). And I couldn\u2019t be more grateful. This album is chock-full of amazing compositions that range from somber and a bit sad to upbeat pieces that make you just want to run.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While I think every song on this album deserves to be praised, there are four songs that I think are exceptionally wonderful. Even if you don\u2019t listen to the entire thing, you should at the very least listen to these.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><b>You Love Me <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">is a slow, ballad style guitar piece. The only instrument that this song features is an acoustic guitar backing the Urata, the lead singer. There\u2019s something beautiful about this simplicity, at least compared to the other tracks on the album. It\u2019s the sort of beauty you get when you\u2019re sitting around a campfire during a summer camp, staring up at the stars and just appreciating life.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><b>Twenty-Six Temptations <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">is the first piece in the album to feature some relatively non-traditional instruments. It features a sousaphone, violin, and a drum set that heavily utilizes the cymbals. This song keeps an upbeat tempo for the bass line, which makes the elegant smooth vocals all the more impressive. Urata, exemplified especially here, is really able to make his voice match the prominent instrument in a piece as he lets his voice slide gracefully between notes to match the violin.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><b>How It Ends <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">is the song on this album that you\u2019re most likely to have heard. It\u2019s easily their most popular piece, which is made very clear based on the fact that it has more than 3 times as many listens than every single other song on the album combined. And for good reason. This song has an amazing build-up that takes a while to get to the point, but my god is it worth it. This song is sad, beautiful, and nostalgic all at once.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><b>Such a Lovely Thing <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">is such an odd experience. When I first listened to this album, it gave me whiplash. This is one of those songs that you should go into knowing absolutely nothing. It is fun, whimsical, upbeat, and so many other things all at once. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s really any other way to describe it as circus clown meets \u201cThe Ballad of Buster Scruggs.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The album has many inspirations, ranging from anywhere between spaghetti westerns and cabaret folk. Due to these varied inspirations, the album switches between genres quite a bit. One minute you\u2019re listening to something that could be straight out of \u201cThe Good, The Bad, and The Ugly\u201d and the next you\u2019re listening to a waltz.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For the most part, this variety is fun. It can be jarring, but the album is able to utilize transitions between songs expertly. They ease you into the next song so you don\u2019t get musical whiplash, but also keep you on your toes. Throughout the hour and thirteen minutes of music, you\u2019re never bored.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This album has a special place in my heart, probably being one of my top 5 albums of all time. Which is why I was so thrilled to hear that it got re-mastered earlier this year. The joy I felt when I saw that I could listen to this album in a higher quality <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">get to listen to amazing live versions is something that I haven\u2019t felt in a while.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you get a chance, listen to this album. It\u2019s everything that is beautiful about music compacted into an hour and fifteen minutes. I promise you won\u2019t regret it.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BY DOT SMITH &nbsp; Many people have heard of \u201cLittle Miss Sunshine.\u201d Far less have experienced the unfiltered brilliance that is its music. Boasting pieces from Sufjan Stevens and Rick James, this film\u2019s soundtrack is heavily inspired by indie-folk and rock in the best way possible. However, what truly stands out is the original score, composed mostly by Tony Tisdale, Mychael Danna and DeVotchKa. &nbsp; Out of the three contributors to the score, the one that has the most impact [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":80913,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,4,3268,3235],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-on-kjhk","category-music","category-music-articles","category-music-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/in-review.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80911"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80915,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80911\/revisions\/80915"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}