High Note Magazine

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HIGH NOTE
CATY ARNAUD
INDESIGN
Dear readers,
Welcome to this edition of High Note,
the number one source for number
one music! We are excited to share
this issue with you and give you an
exclusive inside look into today’s top
artists.
In this issue, we have featured articles
on latin legend Bad Bunny, pop
sensation Dua Lipa, international
superstars BTS, and much more.
Plus, we also have special sections
on the amazing music within the Hot
100 Billboard chart, the best music
videos, and the newest upcoming
music!
ESPE GARCIA-CIRILO
ILLUSTRATOR
With this magazine, we want to connect
with you and all the music lovers
out there. Music has the power
to bring people together, regardless
of their taste, race, religion, gender,
and any other cleavage. High Note
knows how these differences can
pull us apart, but we also know how
with music, we can still manage to
come together.
Thank you for reading this edition of
High Note. Let the good times roll!
VALE MOTA
PHOTOSHOP
Signed,
Caty Arnaud, Espe García-Cirilo, Vale
Mota
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HIGH NOTE
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HIGH NOTE
The Puerto Rican reggaetonero has come to dominate global pop on his own terms.
By Carina del Valle Schorske
HLQMDLG,” the album we’d been waiting for, was finally
released on Leap Day — a mystical glitch in the time machine
— but at first it didn’t seem to be the nonstop party we were
promised. Instead of immediately pounding us with perreo, the
opening song, “Si Veo a Tu Mamá,” seduced us plaintively, with a
well-worn bossa nova hook. It was “The Girl From Ipanema,” unmistakably,
but in digital translation, getting us high — arrebataoooo,
choirboy-style — on late-millennial nostalgia. It was
the sound of a homebound teenager with nothing but a cheap
keyboard, learning to loop the love language of another time
over a crispy trap track.
Bad Bunny has a preternatural feel for the needs of the moment,
but his interventions very rarely come off as dutiful
or didactic. He seems, instead, to be doing whatever
he wants — at least, that’s the claim of his album’s
title, “YHLQMDLG”: Yo hago lo que me da la
gana. He performs the expressive freedom we
wish we could, clearing the global stage not only for
the charismatic spectacle of our joy but also
for the impossible demands of our grief. He
paints his nails purple. He talks about depression
out loud, in public. He waves the Puerto
Rican flag from the back of a flatbed truck in t h e
middle of a massive street protest. He disappears for
long stretches from social media — then emerges, looking
sullen, to register to vote.
When Bad Bunny appeared with J Balvin on Cardi B’s smash hit
single “I Like It” in 2018, the New York bugalú sample seemed to
signal a major crossover moment. There’s no doubt that feature
paved the way for his latest, greatest accolade: “YHLQMDLG” debuted
at No. 2 to become the highest-charting Spanish-language
album of all time. But this wasn’t really a conventional “crossover”:
Bad Bunny cracked “the gringo market” (his words) without assimilating,
without making the one concession that seemed unavoidable:
his mother tounge
It’s pleasurable, in a recent Billboard video interview,
to watch the host ask about the title
of the new album. When Bad Bunny responds
in Spanish, she smiles blankly, and he flips the
script on his own clumsy English by using it to call
her out — “you don’t know what I say” — before swooping in to
save her with the translation. If language is a power game, then
Bad Bunny is winning.
When I finally met Bad Bunny — not Bad Bunny the
star, just Benito — he seemed a little haunted by the
specter of his significance: “I feel like I’m an athlete representing
Puerto Rico in the Olympics. It’s ... diablo.
...” It turns out the world knows very little about his
homeland. The hurricane forced Americans to learn a
few basic facts they were never taught in school: Puerto
Rico is a so-called commonwealth of the United States,
and Puerto Ricans are so-called citizens, even though
they can’t vote for president and have no voting representatives
in Congress. But when most people think
of Puerto Rico, Benito says, “they think of reggaeton.”
At the end of my time with Benito and his friends, my mind
turned back to what we owe superstars (probably nothing)
and what they owe us (maybe something). The night was soft.
Ormani volunteered to drive me back to the garage where I left my
rental car, and it was easy to pretend we were friends on our way
out for pizza and a movie. He cued up a freestyle Benito recorded
around 2014, when he was just beginning to post on SoundCloud,
and I was startled to find his voice much higher, his flow more
frantic. He was broke back then, but he knew there was only one
way to get where he wanted to go: “Aquí nadie sube sólo, él que
te diga eso miente, uno siempre necesita ayuda de la gente.” The
verse hit like a prophetic footnote to his future fame — as if Benito
knew to warn Bad Bunny against understanding his own rise as an
individual triumph.
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HIGH NOTE
kim namjoon
Their new single, “Butter” is
out May 21st! Make sure to
give it a listen! Learn more
about what new music is coming
soon on page eight!
TS isn’t just the biggest K-pop act on the charts.
They’ve become the biggest band in the world—
full stop. Between releasing multiple albums,
breaking every type of record and appearing in these
extemporaneous livestreams in 2020, BTS ascended
to the zenith of pop stardom. And they did it in a year
defined by setbacks, one in which the world hit pause
and everyone struggled to maintain their connections.
Other celebrities tried to leverage this year’s
challenges; most failed. (Remember that star-studded
“Imagine” video?) But BTS’s bonds to their international
fan base, called ARMY, deepened amid the
pandemic, a global racial reckoning and worldwide
shutdowns. “There are times when I’m still taken
aback by all the unimaginable things that are happening,”
Suga tells TIME later. “But I ask myself, Who’s
going to do this, if not us?”
Today, K-pop is a multibillion-dollar business, but
for decades the gatekeepers of the music world—
the Western radio moguls, media outlets and number-crunchers—treated
it as a novelty. BTS hits the
expected high notes of traditional K-pop: sharp
outfits, crisp choreography and dazzling videos. But
they’ve matched that superstar shine with a surprising
level of honesty about the hard work that goes into it.
BTS meets the demands of Top 40’s authenticity era
without sacrificing any of the gloss that’s made K-pop
a cultural force. It doesn’t hurt that their songs are
irresistible: polished confections that are dense with
hooks and sit comfortably on any mainstream playlist.
BTS is not the first Korean act to establish a secure
foothold in the West, yet their outsize success today
is indicative of a sea change in the inner workings of
fandom and how music is consumed. From propelling
their label to a $7.5 billion IPO valuation to inspiring
fans to match their $1 million donation to Black
Lives Matter, BTS is a case study in music-industry
dominance through human connection. Once Suga
masters the guitar, there won’t be much left for them
to conquer.
BY RAISA BRUNER
park jimin
min yoongi
jeon jungkook
kim seokjin
kim taehyung
jung hoseok
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HIGH NOTE
In an era marked by so much anguish
and cynicism, BTS has stayed true to
their message of kindness, connection
and self-acceptance. That’s the foundation
of their relationship with their fans.
South Korean philosopher and author
Dr. Jiyoung Lee describes the passiwon
of BTS’s fandom as a phenomenon
called “horizontality,” a mutual
exchange between artists and their fans.
As opposed to top-down instruction
from an icon to their followers, BTS has
built a true community. “Us and our
fans are a great influence on each other,”
says J-Hope. “We learn through the
process of making music and receiving
feedback.” The BTS fandom isn’t just
about ensuring the band’s primacy—it’s
also about extending the band’s message
of positivity into the world. “BTS and
ARMY are a symbol of change in zeitgeist,
not just of generational change,”
says Lee.
And in June, BTS became a symbol of
youth activism worldwide after they donated
$1 million to the Black Lives Matter
movement amid major protests in
the U.S. (They have a long track record
of supporting initiatives like UNICEF
and school programs.) BTS says now it
was simply in support of human rights.
“That was not politics. It was related to
racism,” Jin says. “We believe everyone
deserves to be respected. That’s why we
made that decision.”
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HIGH NOTE
Watch out for new music from these amazing artists in
the next few weeks!! You don’t want to miss out!
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HIGH NOTE
Learn what music is currently the most popular in the United
States! This data was found and analyzed by Billboard.
Leave The Door
Open
Silk Sonic (Bruno Mars &
Anderson Paak)
Save Your Tears
The Weeknd & Ariana
Grande
Rapstar
Polo G
Montero (Call Me
By Your Name)
Lil Nas X
Levitating
Kiss Me More
Interlude
Dua lipa ft. DaBaby
Doja Cat ft. SZA
J. Cole
Peaches
Justin Bieber ft. Daniel
Caesar & Giveon
Astronaut in
The Ocean
Masked Wolf
Without You
The Kid LAROI
& Miley Cyrus
Chart Dated:
May 22 ,2021.
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HIGH NOTE
Read all about
the amazing performances
and
performers that
were apart of this
historic night!
Performing their
#1 hit, GRAMMY
nominated song “Dynamite”,
the septet deliver an
outstanding performance
in a multi-set stage all
the way from Seoul,
South Korea.
Do not worry!
You can watch a rerun
of their performance
in their channel BANG-
TANTV on YouTube and
join us in awe of their
choreography, vocals,
and charisma.
The GRAMMY
winning British pop
star definitely had one of
the best performances of the
night! In her amazing stage,
she performs her two hit
songs “Levitating”
and “Don’t Start
now”, accompanied
by a jaw-dropping
choreography and
a slight appearance from
Dababy. You can watch her
performance now in the
official “Dua Lipa”
YouTube channel.
In his joint stage
with Jhay Cortez,
Bad Bunny definetly
owned the stage while
performing “Dakiti”. With
his stage presence, one
cannot help but to
dance along!
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HIGH NOTE
n November, more than 5 million people tuned into an elaborate,
Studio 54-inspired livestream that featured cameos by
Elton John, Bad Bunny and Kylie Minogue, the last of whom
praised Lipa’s “clever songwriting” and “instantly recognizable
voice” in a tribute she wrote when Time magazine put Lipa on its
Next 100 list of young influencers.
Now Lipa, named best new artist at the Grammy Awards in 2019,
is among the most-nominated acts at this month’s 63rd Grammys
ceremony, where she’s up for six prizes, including album, record and
song of the year. (Only Beyoncé has more nods.) Though the Recording
Academy has yet to detail plans for the show, set to take
place March 14 in Los Angeles, Lipa is widely expected to perform
on the CBS telecast.
According to Grammy oddsmakers, “Future Nostalgia” trails Taylor
Swift’s rootsy “Folklore” for the highly coveted album award, which
Swift has won twice since 2010. Yet academy members have demonstrated
a soft spot for the kind of crafty, intricate, hand-played dance
music that Lipa’s disc represents: In 2014, Daft Punk upset expectations
when the French duo beat their highly favored competitors
(including Swift’s blockbuster “Red”) to take album of the year with
“Random Access Memories.”
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HIGH NOTE
Lipa’s album spawned a couple of monster streaming
hits in “IDGAF,” a tart kiss-off with marching-band
drums, and “New Rules,” which layers her low, husky
singing over a sleek, EDM-ish beat. But “the only
thing that connected each song was my voice,” as
Lipa puts it in a video call from her place in L.A.
A reliably glamorous presence on magazine covers and
in music videos, the singer is low-key this morning in
a baggy tie-dyed top and purple beanie as her dog, a
black Lab mix named Dexter, clambers onto the couch
beside her. Lipa, who lives with her boyfriend of nearly
two years, model Anwar Hadid (younger brother of
fashionistas Bella and Gigi), gladly splits her time between
here and London, though she admits she didn’t
warm right away to L.A. — in part, perhaps, because
her first crash pad was a “random Airbnb in the depths
of Hollywood with bars across the door.”
If space got crowded under the glitter ball, Lipa still
stands out. For starters, there’s the exceptionally wide
range of her appeal, which in recent months has led to
both a collaboration with the hip-hop boy band Brockhampton
and a country-fied cover of “Don’t Start Now”
by Nashville’s Ingrid Andress. (Among Lipa’s other duet
partners of late are Miley Cyrus, J Balvin, DaBaby and
Andrea Bocelli.)
“Dua is super-cool,” says Brockhampton’s Kevin Abstract,
a hero to Supreme-clad kids more attuned to
Camp Flog Gnaw than to the Hot 100. What did his
fans make of Lipa’s appearance on a remix of Brockhampton’s
song “Sugar”? “They were probably like,
‘Whoa, I didn’t expect this — but why does it kind of
work?’” Abstract says.
There’s also Lipa’s unique handling of her celebrity.
At a moment when music by many female pop stars
is scrutinized for insight into their private lives —
be they established A-listers like Swift and Ariana
Grande or up-and-comers like Olivia Rodrigo of
“Drivers License” fame — Lipa’s songs resist a closely
personal read. It’s not that they’re unfeeling; bangers
such as “Levitating” and “Hallucinate” combine
whooshing grooves with words about bodies in motion
to create something downright ecstatic.
Polished but forthright in conversation, Lipa cops to a
certain self-protective instinct after a few years in the
limelight. “I’ve grown to be more private because so
much of my life is public, and I probably censor myself
more than I used to,” she says. “I also don’t love the idea
of making music for headlines or for controversy.” She’s
seen “Framing Britney Spears,” the much-discussed
documentary about the teen pop star’s treatment in the
tabloid economy of the mid-’00s, and says she can relate
to a sense of being violated by paparazzi.
“There are a lot of eyeballs on my social media,” she says,
somewhat philosophically, of being judged on occasion
by some of her 61 million followers. “But I’m very much
the same person onstage as I am at home.” Her point
seems to be that she never puts on the persona of a
jet-setting glamazon; the reality can seem more like she
never takes it off.
“Her investment is totally legit,” says the Blessed Madonna,
the respected DJ and producer who oversaw the
remix set. “To me Dua is the pop girl who really gets it.”
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All photo credit to rightful owners. Article credits go to TIME, LA Times, and
New York Times. Vale Mota, Esperanza Garcia-Cirilo and Caty Arnaud thank
you, the reader, for choosing our magazine.