All posts by Salma Ahmed

News, Review

Album Review: Armageddon in a Summer Dress by Sunny War

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A woman in a white dress walks along a shore, holding a pair of sneakers in one hand, as she approaches a group of flamingos and a black swan in the water.
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Sunny War, born Sydney Lyndella Ward, defies genre in her latest album Armageddon in a Summer Dress. The mixture of genres, such as punk, folk, and pop, makes the album feel like a rich experience where you get to taste different things in one place. The Nashville singer-songwriter brings with her a five-piece band, but you don’t feel distracted by this. It’s like listening to one unified sound that is being done by one person. 

The album begins suddenly as if it steals your breath away. One Way Train, the first song, starts immediately with no introductory music to prepare you for the lyrics. You find yourself diving deep into the world that is Armageddon in a Summer Dress. Just like War defies genre, she also defies logic in the first song. Despite the heaviness of the lyrics, which explore the current status we find ourselves in where the world is filled with fascists and not enough money to survive, you find yourself swaying to the upbeat music. It feels like a club song in the best way possible. It feels like a defying song. Something you will shout as you march against everything wrong with our world. 

Again, War continues defying logic as the next song is the same when it comes to how the music contradicts the heaviness of the lyrics. Bad Times makes you stare at the fact that poverty is beginning to prevail. You face the truth of “I’ve got no money, so I’ve got no power.” And just like you might feel close to the song’s lyrics, you find yourself wanting to say loudly “Bad times, stay away.” How many times does one find themselves wishing for bad times to stay away? Probably a lot more than the ones said by War, but they’ll do. 

War finally takes some kind of mercy on you in Rise, which feels like a lullaby you wish someone would sing for you at the end of a bad day. But War’s pessimism, which is understandable in our times, still seeps into the song in a way when she sings “Bad days go and they come / But the good do too, my friend.” We still have to rise because what do we have left if we give up? The sun keeps rising, and War reminds you that you, too, can be like the sun. 

A different road appears in front of you as you listen to Ghosts. It’s a road filled with eerie music and longing for someone who is long gone. The song becomes more meaningful when you realize that War wrote it after having hallucinations in her late father’s 100-year-old house because of a gas leak, but the lyrics make you feel like she truly saw ghosts. The music and the electric guitar at the end carry you to the end of the song. For a minute, if you close your eyes, you can believe in ghosts too.

The highlight of the album, to me at least, is Walking Contradiction ft. Steve Ignorant of Crass. It is a lyrical masterclass where you can’t find anything to judge. War and Ignorant’s combined voices can start a revolution if you listen to the song for the right amount of time. It’s a reflection of everything wrong with America and how “the genocide” is funded by Americans’ taxes. I found myself holding my breath when I heard “Your humanity does not outweigh your will to survive” because of how true it is. Walking Contradiction is the kind of song you wish everyone knew about. Just like War and Ignorant’s voices are weaved together, so are the rest of the album’s songs. You can’t help but start making connections in hopes of following War’s vision or coming close to it. So when you hear in this song “We sell labor, we sell hours, sell our power, sell our souls,” you immediately think of  “I’ve got no money, so I’ve got no power” in Bad Times.

Walking Contradiction remains with you even as the next song, Cry Baby, starts. It couldn’t come at a better place. War sings about hope amidst pain, and you have pain inside of you after listening to Walking Contradiction. “But you did it once before / I know you’ll do it once more,” War says and you think that this can be adapted to everything the world is going through, including America. History books tell you that nothing lasts forever, and that pain ends one day, and so does War. 

In keeping with pain, No One Call Me Baby reminds us of how lonely we can feel. It perfectly captures the essence of loneliness, and you find yourself feeling some kind of loneliness even if you are surrounded by people. “No one calls me baby anymore / I hold my own hand,” War says, but you still feel like she is holding your hand and guiding you through the rest of the album. 

Scornful Heart ft. Tré Burt comes next and you feel its relation to the entire album. The voices fading away at the end are just like this album, both stay with you after the end. The echoes remain with you, just like you still feel War’s hand clasping yours.

The heaviness of the album keeps going on in Gone Again ft. John Doe which the album gets its title from. If No One Call Me Baby captures the essence of loneliness, then Gone Again captures the essence of regret. You can almost imagine an old lady regretting her marriage and having kids, and for a moment, you are reminded of your own regrets. 

“In your old age as you prepare for death
Regret will haunt you ’til there′s no you left
It′s bittersweet, but at least it’s the end
You catch your breath and then it′s gone again”

Till this point in the album, War managed to handle carefully different emotions such as loneliness and regret. She is weaving a tapestry where there are different colors, but they somehow create something very much complete. 

A portrait of a woman with curly hair styled in two puff balls, wearing a black button-up shirt, standing against a pink wall with some peeling paint.
Sunny War. Photo by Joshua Black Wilkins and retrieved from the New West Records website.

Lay Your Body has its own heavy themes to show off. The longing for someone is a universal feeling, and War seems to know it too well. She asks “Won’t you come back?” and you find yourself thinking of all the times you asked the exact same question. The music feels soft, like pleading with someone to come back, but you can’t show the extremism of your emotions so you don’t scare them away. In a way, I was pleading with War to never end Armageddon in a Summer Dress.

The final song, Debbie Downer, also has upbeat music, and it feels like the perfect end to this journey. 

“You’re a negative Nancy
A Debbie Downer
You’re perpetually antsy
An infinite frowner
This life’s too short
And you’re too crude
Please don’t distort
Hijack my mood”

“Please don’t distort / hijack my mood,” is the feeling you have left at the end of Armageddon in a Summer Dress. The ending of this song feels definite, like a goodbye to the album. In a way, Debbie Downer ends as suddenly as the album started. You remain holding your breath as all the feelings created by Armageddon in a Summer Dress remain with you.

Now, you have ghosts of your own.

Essay, News

Cairokee’s Ya El Medan is a living memory of Egypt’s revolution

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“Tahrir Square ميدان التحرير”. Photo by Hossam El-Hamalawy, licensed under a Attribution (CC BY 2.0) license.

There are certain songs that are created at such a time that they become engraved in a nation’s history and in people’s minds. One such song that is part of Egypt’s history is Ya El Medan by Cairokee, an Egyptian rock band, featuring Aida El-Ayoubi. The name of the song means “Oh, Square.” It was released during the events of the 25 January Revolution, which is also called the 2011 Revolution.

This revolution was a moment that changed Egypt’s history, as the nation roared its opposition against a corrupt government that had been ruling for 30 years. The rule of Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president at the time, was one tainted by blood and corruption. His government stifled the voices of people and took away their rights to a decent life. That’s when Cairokee and Aida El-Ayoubi didn’t let their voices remain silent. Just like the wave of people in Tahrir Square in Cairo, which included Muslims and Christians, young and old, and men and women, these musicians took their firm place in the resistance.

Tahrir Square remains as a symbol of the Revolution, and so does the music. Ya El Medan is a song for those who lived through the revolution, and for those who lost their lives demanding social justice, freedom, and bread. The soft tone of the voices of Amir Eid, Cairokee’s lead singer, along with that of Aida El-Ayoubi, created a song that deserves to be remembered, just as the 25 January Revolution should never be forgotten.

No translation can do the song justice – only Egyptian dialect can truly reflect the meaning behind the song – but an attempt is mandatory. Ya El Medan isn’t just a song for the Egyptian people, but for all people around the world. It is a song that shows how a nation became united in hope of a better life, not only for themselves, but also for their children.

Oh, Square, where have you been all this time?

With you, we sang, we struggled, we fought our fears, and we prayed.
One hand, day and night—nothing with you is impossible.
The voice of freedom unites us; at last, our lives have meaning.
No turning back, our voices are heard, and dreams are no longer forbidden.

Oh, Square, where have you been all this time?

You tore down the walls, lit up the light, and gathered broken people around you.
We were born again, and a stubborn dream was reborn.
We differ, but our intentions are pure—sometimes, the picture wasn’t clear.
We will protect our country and our children’s children—the rights of those we lost among our youth.

Oh, Square, where have you been all this time?

With you, we felt and we began, after we drifted apart and were lost.
We must change ourselves with our own hands—you gave us so much, and the rest is up to us.
Sometimes, I fear you will become just a memory, that if we drift away, the idea will die.
That we will go back to forgetting the past and only tell your story in tales.

Oh, Square, where have you been all this time?

A square filled with all kinds—the betrayer and the brave.
Some who love, some who take advantage, some who shout, and some who stay silent.
At the university, we sip tea—we learned how to claim our rights.
You made the world listen, and the neighbors gather.

Oh, Square, where have you been all this time?

Our idea is our strength, and our weapon is our unity.
A square that speaks the truth, always saying “No” to the oppressor.
A square like a wave—some riding it, some being pulled along.
Some outside say it’s just chaos, but history will write what truly happened.

Oh, Square, where have you been all this time?

The words of Ya El Medan hold truth in them. Every part of the song carries within it the feelings of millions of Egyptians. “With you, we sang, we struggled, we fought our fears, and we prayed,” the song says – and we did pray. Egyptians prayed even as the police, controlled like dolls by the oppressive government, killed the youth. An example of the unity the song speaks of was portrayed in how Christians surrounded Muslims to protect them while they were praying.

The beauty of Ya El Medan is that it isn’t a political song – it goes beyond that. In an interview with Daily News Egypt, Cairokee were asked if Ya El Medan was a political song. Their answer was no.

“I don’t find the 25 January Revolution has anything to do with politics in the first place; we went down asking for social justice, freedom and bread. These demands are not political.”

You don’t need to have a political preference to be moved by Ya El-Midan. Just like you don’t have to be one of those who protested in Tahrir Square to relate to the words. For Aida El-Ayoubi, the Square in the song doesn’t just represent the one in Tahrir.

“Not just Tahrir Square, but all the squares of liberation across Egypt. The meaning here is symbolic, which is why the phrase “Oh, Square” was used. The music video itself includes other symbols that remain the same, whether the protesters were in Tahrir Square or any other square inside or outside Cairo. These include tear gas canisters, Central Security shields, and the protesters’ clothing marked by rubber bullet wounds and blood. Overall, the song relies on symbolism, both in its lyrics and visuals.”

Indeed, the music video carries a lot of symbols, even ones that are unintended. At the end of the video, footage of Egyptians during the revolution is shown, and as the video nears its end, the footage becomes blurred. The song hopes that the revolution will never be forgotten.

“Sometimes, I fear you will become just a memory, that if we drift away, the idea will die.

That we will go back to forgetting the past and only tell your story in tales.”

Now, Egyptians share these specific lyrics because there is the harsh realisation that many have forgotten about the 25 January Revolution and what it meant. However, the blurring of the protests doesn’t erase their existence. The fact that you can still see the protests, albeit blurry, makes you realise that those who still remember will never let the memory of the revolution fade away.

Essay, News

Paris Palomas’ Labour is the feminist anthem women have been waiting for

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In recent years, music hasn’t served women. Thousands of songs get released yearly, but only few of them make a positive impact on women’s lives. The majority, especially rap music, made it their goal to objectify women. It became the norm for a song to discuss a woman’s body or insult a woman. Clubs played such songs. The rise of TikTok brought forth a new wave in how music spread. But this wave didn’t leave a positive impact on women’s lives. Instead, TikTok music became a genre criticized by many. A song was reduced to 20 seconds and its worth was based on whether it went viral or not. That is until Paris Paloma released a new song.

In March 2023, Paloma started teasing a song that was different from the majority of songs found on TikTok. The rallying cry in the song, titled “Labour”, was a hint at what was to come. A foreshadowing of sorts. Labour gradually spread all over TikTok but for the right reasons. It wasn’t a song made to objectify women, but rather, a song that was made to unite them. It was a feminist battle cry.

The chorus made the rounds on TikTok, and suddenly you found yourself memorizing the lyrics. Women found it easy to learn the words Paloma sang because they were inspired by their own lives.

“All day, every day, therapist, mother, maid / Nymph then a virgin, nurse then a servant / Just an appendage, live to attend him / So that he never lifts a finger / 24∕7, baby machine / So he can live out his picket fence dreams / It’s not an act of love if you make her / You make me do too much labour” 

These words moved women all over the globe and the rest of the lyrics transcended any barriers language could possibly create. Suddenly, women came forth to share the message included in the reality of all women. A reality filled with misogyny, domestic violence, sexual violence, and other things that no one wishes to understand from a young age.

Paloma’s song didn’t just unite women, it changed the way TikTok songs were perceived. It wasn’t a song made to move bodies, it was made to move minds – which it did. The success Labour found only increased after the full version was released. The song passed all of Paloma’s expectations, and suddenly it had a life of its own. “It’s become something that’s a lot bigger than me,” the Derbyshire-born artist told NME in an interview. 

The rallying cry in Labour isn’t the only interesting part, but the lyrics themselves hold a kind of power that women need. These lyrics were shouted by women from everywhere as they faced the same wall with barbed wires. It’s a wall made of systemic gender inequality, sexual violence, physical violence, objectification, and many more terrors that form shadows in womanhood. It’s a wall that stands between women and freedom, between women and safety. Women’s movements have been making cracks in this wall for centuries, but it’s not broken yet. Paloma’s Labour made its own cracks in this wall as women kept shouting the song.

Labour has been embraced by women no matter where they are from or how old they are, because the nightmares women live have no language or age restrictions. Paloma’s powerful lyrics can be seen from many roads, and every road leads to the same end. A destination where women have a song that understands the ugly side of being a woman. This side is forced upon women, and Paloma is one more woman who knows this well. 

One of these roads is the simple one where the lyrics can be looked at and understood at first glance because women’s pain doesn’t need a dictionary. Another road is that of double meanings, and this adds to the beauty of Labour. Women’s abuse has been normalized to the point where it has layers, and Paloma captures these layers. The word “labour” doesn’t just mean the tasks women are forced to do as if their only worth is cleaning and cooking. It also implies how women’s worth is reduced based on whether they are capable of childbirth or not. In Egypt, many women face verbal abuse because they are infertile. The same women might go through divorce because their husbands care only about having a child.

@parispalomaofficial

Hearing all of you, together, singing this song at a time like this, is the most moving and powerful thing. I love you all and we have power in our shared voices. #women #feminism #patriarchy #womanhood #misogyny #toomuchlabour #womensrights

♬ LABOUR – the cacophony – Paris Paloma

The double meanings continue in “Just an appendage, live to attend him / So that he never lifts a finger.” Many men get with women not because of love, but because they are looking for someone to serve them. They don’t want to lift a finger. The other heartbreaking meaning is that many women have to serve men or else they will be abused. Both meanings are true no matter how ugly they are, and women are tired of experiencing them.

“Women are just doing more and more, and men are not doing any more than they’ve ever done. There’s still expectation for women to have this very traditional archaic role as a caregiver and a servant and a wife and a mother and a homemaker,but women have had enough of existing to serve other people,” Paloma said in an interview with Big Issue.

Labour documented women’s experiences in around four minutes, but these experiences have been around for ages. This is why the song feels like it carries years of ancestral rage. It’s an anthem that can fit in any era. It isn’t weakened by the restrictions of time. It isn’t just a song.

Labour is a lot more. It’s a shout, a rallying cry, an anthem, a song representing female rage, and many more things. All these things brought women together and formed a community where pain is shared because women feel it together. It is a song that can inspire change, and Paloma believes that music can cause change. 

“I feel like a small part in a big community that has grown around my music. I’m incredibly humbled by it, and watching how people take and grow a song that you feel is important – how could that not inspire social change?” Paloma said in an interview with Notion.

But Paloma wants the song to be about more than female rage. “I think I want them [people] to feel heard, or held, and whether they’re listening to something like ‘Labour’ and it’s something so angry, I want them to feel like their anger is valid. If it’s something else, I want them to feel comforted, if it makes them cry I want them to feel held while they do that. I hope that my music can serve as a vehicle for a protective sphere in which to feel any emotions that need to be felt,” she said in her NME interview.

Women are angry, but they are more than that, and that anger “doesn’t need to be romanticised.” It doesn’t need to be romanticized because women are more than their anger. They are hopeful, dreamy, courageous, beautiful, understanding, united, honest, loving, caring, amazing, and many more qualities. Qualities that aren’t appreciated by men and the patriarchal society that we live in. 

Despite common belief, Labour is also directed at men. 

“I am so moved at how empowered so many women feel through my music, and also how reflective a lot of men are when they listen to it, it’s the ideal response,” Paloma said.

“It [making change] starts with holding men and boys accountable for this behaviour, and making it less normalised and making them sort of aware that their actions or lack thereof have consequences. You don’t get to be in a relationship and treat another person like less than a human being and then be blindsided when that person wants to end that relationship.”

“I’ve got several messages from men who’ve realized [from the song] that they should be doing better in relationships,” Paloma says. “That’s amazing. Because I keep getting asked, ‘What can we do to solve this?’ And it’s not up to women: That’s the whole point. It’s up to men to listen and to take action,” Paloma told Billboard.

“Men should be picking up the slack.”

Even if the wall built by our patriarchal society won’t be brought down by Labour, and even if men don’t listen to Paloma’s cry, it’s enough that women have this song. It’s enough if this song makes cracks in that barbed wall instead of bringing it down.

Paloma’s concerts shifted after Labour’s release. They became a place where this community created by the song could thrive. Hundreds of women found a safe space in Paloma’s concerts to shout as loud as they wanted. Then, a new version of Labour was necessary to imitate how the chorus sounded like as hundreds of women shouted it. 

A year after the release of Labour, Paloma asked her followers to send her recordings of them singing the song, and women from different backgrounds and ages met her request. Paloma then re-recorded the song, but this time her voice was accompanied by the voices of hundreds of women. The new version was titled “Labour (The Cacophony)” and it was part of Paloma’s Cacophony album. 

If Labour was powerful in the first version, it became a lot better in the new version. Labour (The Cacophony) was the last chapter in a beautiful tale. The sounds of hundreds of women from all over the world coming together to recreate this feminist anthem. The different ages portrayed the truth about being a woman: the cycle of abuse and trauma starts from a very young age. 

Another truth regarding Labour is that Paloma is the perfect artist to create such a song. With her background in fine art and history, her lyricism is unique and powerful. The singer-songwriter previously shared that Labour draws from Madeline Miller’s Circe. The gothic and powerful feelings in the song are probably inspired by how Florence Welch and Hozier influenced her. 

Just like Labour (The Cacophony) made many voices become one, Paloma’s songs bring many genres together. 

“I don’t feel very pigeonholed, and when I think about my genre, I think about so many words like ‘indie’, ‘folk’, ‘alternative’, ‘singer-songwriter’… I get ‘witch-pop’ sometimes. I’m looking forward to not being so prescribed to any single one thing,” she told NME.

Along with not prescribing Paloma to one genre, we can’t tie her to just Labour. She has other songs with strong themes and many of them talk about female experiences. 

In “last woman on earth,” Paloma sings about how women aren’t safe even when they are dead and buried.

“That song [“last woman on earth”] is an entire metaphor for the way that people talk about women, view them and treat them. It’s so harrowing that that doesn’t even end in their death at all, whether it’s people like Marilyn Monroe or Amy Winehouse; they will continue to be exploited. It’s something that a lot of women and queer people are becoming incredibly vocal about, and the lack of tolerance that there should be for that. On a personal level, it’s the part of the album that deals with the role that patriarchal violence has played in stunting my personal growth. There’s just so much pain in that song that shouldn’t have to be there,” Paloma told DIY Magazine.

While in “boys, bugs and men” Paloma describes the ugly truth of how many men find delight in women’s pain and having power over them, or as Paloma described it “the quiet sadism of misogyny.”

But Paloma’s songs aren’t just about the ugly side of being a woman, there are ones about the beauty of it too such as “knitting song” which discusses female friendships. While “as good a reason” is “a song about the power of women learning from each other” as Paloma described it.

A trend in Paloma’s body of work is that all her songs are intertwined. “I think of my songs informing each other now rather than being specific. It’s now this considered thing which all have relationships to each other and inform each other. My next songs stand on the shoulders of my previous songs,” she said in her interview with Dork.

Just like Labour feels eternal, so does Paloma’s success. The song reached the Top 30 of the UK singles chart, but this is just the beginning for someone with Paloma’s talent, especially since she only started releasing songs towards the end of 2020. Even if Paloma won’t have any other song reach Labour’s success, it might be enough for her that she created a space for women to be heard.

Paris Paloma created the feminist anthem women have been looking for.