Music Review: Him "Beautiful"
Him
from 
JoeUser Forums
JoeUser Forums
Beautiful
Album: Deep Shadows and Brilliant Highlights
Year: 2001
The Finnish band Him prefer to stay out of media glare now. In turn, Villie Valo and the band also have managed to do some learning and growing after the 2001 release of Deep Shadows and Brilliant Highlights. They started out partying hard and being gossiped about in the UK, especially the heavily reported story of Valo drunk on an balcony and ready to jump.
Valo shows some indication he understands media bias. However, he doesn't quite get that journalists aren't being paid to be nice to band all the time. From the magazine Soundi 2003: "The trend seems to be that since there are all these wars and stuff going on, the media has to come up with celebrity news to take people's minds off the shitty reality. And maybe stories like that help some people to cope with their own reality..." Good point. I agree. It's escapism.
However the quote before it: "Those impotent, balding middle-aged journalists with a bad case of Napoleon complex have grown so bitter over the years that they have to pour it all on us and others to make themselves feel better." Valo, it's not all about you. Bad publicity is part of the dealing with the media. It's the unfun part of being a celebrity.
Nonetheless, in "Beautiful," Valo is painfully in love. He doesn't use the adjective beautiful as a vague, superficial word which only addresses his girlfriend's physical good looks. Instead, it's all encompassing. To Valo, his girlfriend is beautiful both inside and out. He tells her "just one look into your eyes...I'm crying/'Cause you're so beautiful." He finds her love uplifting and views it like a religious experience ("just one kiss and I'm alive/one kiss and I'm ready to die/'Cause you're so beautiful").
He also is aroused by her ("just one touch and I'm on fire...'cause you're so beautiful." He likes seeing her cheerful and he feels estactic when he is able to see her smile ("just one smile and I'm ready to die/'cause you're so beautiful").
He wails at the end, "oh you're so beautiful/my darling/Oh my baby/You're so beautiful"). Valo is warm and lucid in his singing, adding to the quiet, soaring tone of the single.
The lyrics are simplistic and rely on a alternating phrases instead of a chorus ("I'm crying...I'm ready to die"). However, lyrics are secondary. Him concentrates on the instrumentation and Valo's intrepretation of the lyrics to get the point across. It succeeds.
Thank you to marshmallow. What I like about requests is that I am exposed to music I wouldn't normally otherwise listen to. In this case, I wasn't aware of Him at all.
Album: Deep Shadows and Brilliant Highlights
Year: 2001
The Finnish band Him prefer to stay out of media glare now. In turn, Villie Valo and the band also have managed to do some learning and growing after the 2001 release of Deep Shadows and Brilliant Highlights. They started out partying hard and being gossiped about in the UK, especially the heavily reported story of Valo drunk on an balcony and ready to jump.
Valo shows some indication he understands media bias. However, he doesn't quite get that journalists aren't being paid to be nice to band all the time. From the magazine Soundi 2003: "The trend seems to be that since there are all these wars and stuff going on, the media has to come up with celebrity news to take people's minds off the shitty reality. And maybe stories like that help some people to cope with their own reality..." Good point. I agree. It's escapism.
However the quote before it: "Those impotent, balding middle-aged journalists with a bad case of Napoleon complex have grown so bitter over the years that they have to pour it all on us and others to make themselves feel better." Valo, it's not all about you. Bad publicity is part of the dealing with the media. It's the unfun part of being a celebrity.
Nonetheless, in "Beautiful," Valo is painfully in love. He doesn't use the adjective beautiful as a vague, superficial word which only addresses his girlfriend's physical good looks. Instead, it's all encompassing. To Valo, his girlfriend is beautiful both inside and out. He tells her "just one look into your eyes...I'm crying/'Cause you're so beautiful." He finds her love uplifting and views it like a religious experience ("just one kiss and I'm alive/one kiss and I'm ready to die/'Cause you're so beautiful").
He also is aroused by her ("just one touch and I'm on fire...'cause you're so beautiful." He likes seeing her cheerful and he feels estactic when he is able to see her smile ("just one smile and I'm ready to die/'cause you're so beautiful").
He wails at the end, "oh you're so beautiful/my darling/Oh my baby/You're so beautiful"). Valo is warm and lucid in his singing, adding to the quiet, soaring tone of the single.
The lyrics are simplistic and rely on a alternating phrases instead of a chorus ("I'm crying...I'm ready to die"). However, lyrics are secondary. Him concentrates on the instrumentation and Valo's intrepretation of the lyrics to get the point across. It succeeds.
Thank you to marshmallow. What I like about requests is that I am exposed to music I wouldn't normally otherwise listen to. In this case, I wasn't aware of Him at all.
