E4 TUESDAY, AUGUST 27, 2019 LATIMES.COM/CALENDAR
longest No. 1 song in Bill-
board Hot 100 chart history,
at 19 weeks, and earned eight
MTV VMA nominations in-
cluding video of the year and
best direction (winning one,
for song of the year) — his
opinion has changed.
“Now I’m the person I
was mad at last year,” Cal-
matic, 31, said ahead of the
awards show that aired
Monday. “It’s interesting
how quickly things can
change. Last year was a
humbling experience, but
hopefully this year things
will be different.”
Still, Calmatic’s circum-
stance was unique. He was
commissioned to direct the
music video well before “Old
Town Road” had become a
viral sensation — it now has
nearly 300 million YouTube
streams — and he’d initially
felt the way that many other
people did on their first time
hearing the trap infused/off-
beat country single.
Striking gold
“Is this a joke?” he recalls
asking his manager. But af-
ter doing more research on
the 20-year-old Atlanta art-
ist, Calmatic realized how
much of an effect the song
could have.
As he worked on the
treatment for what was orig-
inally two music videos —
one for the original version
of the song and another for
the remix with Cyrus — he
watched the single sky-
rocket into popularity over
the next couple of months.
He further recognized the
song’s potential when it was
removed from Billboard’s
country chart and sparked
controversy.
The five-minute video,
which was shot in Los Ange-
les, features a star-studded
cast including comedian
Chris Rock (a role for which
Will Smith was originally
cast until he pulled out to
perform at the Coachella
Valley Music and Arts Festi-
val with his son), Long
Beach rapper Vince Staples
and superstar EDM DJ
Diplo. The video depicts Lil
Nas X’s character escaping
from Chris Rock’s character
with stolen cash, but being
chased into a portal by an-
other character that brings
him into a modern world — a
blend of country and hip-
hop in the ’hood of Los Ange-
les.
“He was very encourag-
ing and knew exactly what
he wanted and what his vi-
sion was,” Lil Nas X said of
Calmatic. “[When I first sawthe video], I thought it was
amazing and like a movie. I
didn’t know what to expect,
[but] it came out looking
outstanding.”Remembering home
Growing up in South
L.A., Calmatic, who calls
himself an L.A. historian,
was immersed in hip-hop
culture. Back in 2007, he re-
calls a wave of his peers be-
coming rappers. He began
making music and evolved
into producing beats. But af-
ter spending so much time in
studio sessions with friends,
he decided to pick up anoth-
er valuable skill.
He’d been interested in
computers since age 10,
when he’d spent most of his
free time in after-school and
summer programs at the Al
Wooten Jr. Youth Center in
South L.A. After high school,
he made MySpace pagesand built websites for his
friends who made music.
This led him to start a pho-
tography and graphic de-
sign business — creating fli-
ers and album covers for lo-
cal artists and businesses.
When Calmatic’s family
home was robbed in 2010, he
used the renters insurance
to upgrade his equipment
with a Canon 7D digital
camera. He used it to shoot
his first music video for a lo-
cal artist named Picaso.
Calmatic quickly became
known for his signature
styles, providing comic relief
in the middle of his videos
and making his subjects
larger than life, as he did in
the video “Pasadena” by hip-
hop quartet Overdoz, in
which members’ eyes pop
out of their heads as if they
were cartoon characters.
With every visual, he strives
to “keep the audience ontheir toes,” he said.
He also includes his
hometown in all his videos.
He brought soul singer Leon
Bridges to Jesse Owens Park
in South L.A., a place he fre-
quented with his dad in his
youth. For the “Old Town
Road” video, he duplicated
the Slauson Super Mall, an
L.A. staple, for a scene where
Lil Nas X gets a new outfit.
In addition to shooting
music videos, he began mak-
ing documentaries about
people in his neighborhood.
He traced the early careers
of local artists such as An-
derson .Paak, Leimert Park
rapper Dom Kennedy and
late lyricist Nipsey Hussle.
Of all the videos Calmatic
has shot over his 10-year ca-
reer, including for the likes of
Kendrick Lamar, Khalid
and Lizzo, he said directing
the “Old Town Road” video
involved the most creative
freedom he’s been given
since his early days of shoot-
ing projects for his friends.
“As I was shooting the vi-
deo, there were so many mo-
ments where I was like, ‘I
cannot believe they’re let-
ting me do this,’ ” he said.
Those moments include
a last-minute change to have
Lil Nas X’s first interaction
in the modern world be a
dance battle instead of a gun
battle. Calmatic credits his
24-year-old sister, Chanel,
for the new direction. Lil Nas
X liked the idea and even
gave Calmatic pointers on
how to make the video work
better for the internet.
“[Lil Nas X] didn’t have a
lot of ideas, but he knew how
to take ideas I had and
translate them to the cur-
rent culture,” Calmatic said.“He knew what the internet
would react to. He would
say, let’s do [a scene] like
this because we can make it
a GIF and it will go viral.”
Though this is Calmat-
ic’s largest project to date,
his family and friends recog-
nize that this is only the be-
ginning.
“Everything that he’s
been trying to do just culmi-
nated in that video,” his
childhood best friend, Tren-
ton Williams, said.
At the beginning of the
“Old Town Road” video,
Rock is chasing Lil Nas X
but suddenly stops after an
epiphany, and he says to his
men, “When you see a black
man on a horse going that
fast, you just gotta let him
fly.” Not only is this a theme
for Lil Nas X’s journey, but
also for Calmatic, who rec-
ognized that this opportuni-
ty would allow him to contin-
ue doing the work he loves.
Calmatic recently began di-
recting content for brands
like Target and Sprite, and
he plans to start directing
for film and TV soon.A lasting legacy
He later posted a photo
with Lil Nas X on Instagram
with the caption “Black his-
tory” because with a black
director, a black leading art-
ist and a predominantly
black cast, he knew it was an
important moment for his
culture.
“It just further proves
that black people can do
anything, and we’ve been
doing things,” Calmatic
said. “When MTV does ‘I
Love the 2010s,’ they’re going
to end the decade talking
about ‘Old Town Road.’ ”‘Old Town Road’ finds its roots in South L.A.
THE POPULARmusic video for Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” was nominated
for eight MTV Video Music Awards, and won the prize for song of the year.Vevo / Columbia Records[Calmatic, from E1]
Avoid
- “Me!”
Devoted Swift fans know
that her albums’ lead singles
are often red herrings, and
thankfully that turned out to
be the case again with the
wise and tender “Lover,”
which nonetheless an-
nounced itself back in April
with this excruciatingly
childish marching-band jam.
Nix it from your customized
“Lover” playlist and forget
that one of pop’s smartest
lyricists ever rhymed “I’m the
only one of me” with “Baby,
that’s the fun of me.” - “London Boy”
Much of “Lover” is
thought to concern Swift’s
very private relationship with
the British actor Joe Alwyn.
Here, though — following a
cute spoken intro by Idris
Elba, who really deserves
better — she seems to be
deflecting curiosity about
their romance by hauling out
every jolly old cliché she can
think of. - “I Forgot That
You Existed”
Like an unwelcome left-
over from 2017’s revenge-
minded “Reputation,”
“Lover’s” opener goes back to
the poisoned well that was
(is?) Swift’s feud with Kanye
West and Kim Kardashian.
“How many days did I spend
thinking ’bout how you did
me wrong, wrong, wrong?”
she sings, and you can be sure
she’ll count them up when
she’s finally done.
Meh
- “You Need
to Calm Down”
Swift’s overweening at-
tempt to present herself as an
ally of LGBTQ folks — whose
targeting by bigots this song
likens to a superstar’s bad
reviews — makes it easy to
miss how skillfully she’s
almost-rapping over pro-
ducer Joel Little’s crisp elec-
tro-trap beat. - “Daylight”
In keeping with tradition,
Swift closes “Lover” with a
slow, slightly bleary number
about cleaning up the rubble
behind her (if only to make
room for more to come). This
one’s plenty pretty, though
the melody never quite lifts
off in the way it seems to want
to. - “Afterglow”
“I’m the one who burned
us down,” Swift sings in this
metaphor-laden apology to
an ex whose devotion she just
couldn’t match. Elsewhere
she compares her behavior to
that of a crooked jailer, a
reckless chemist and a boxer
fighting with no gloves.Good
- “I Think He Knows”
The chorus has Swift,
freshly enamored of a dude
“with that boyish look that I
like in a man,” “skipping
down 16th Avenue” — almost
certainly a reference to
Nashville’s Music Row,
where she started her career.
Yet the funky, finger-snappy
groove has nothing to do
with country music; it feels
like Swift’s response to Billie
Eilish’s close-miked ASMR-
core. - “Death By
a Thousand Cuts”
Swift says this anatomy
of a breakup was inspired by
the Netflix romantic comedy
“Someone Great,” and in-
deed her writing is especially
visual here. “I look through
the windows of this love,
even though we boarded
them up,” she sings, which —
[weeps].- “It’s Nice
to Have a Friend”
Co-produced by Swift
with Frank Dukes and Louis
Bell (the new-to-her studio
team behind hits by Post
Malone and Camila Cab-
ello), here’s an ethereal
steel-drum-and-choir expe-
riment that ranks among the
strangest things the singer
has ever released. Bonus
points for the spooky “Big
Little Lies” vibes.
9. “Miss Americana
& the Heartbreak Prince”
Speaking of rich white
women! What begins as a
standard-issue Lana Del
Rey rip — woozy beat,
dreamy synths, lots of ironic
American imagery — some-
how turns into one of 2019’s
unlikeliest protest songs: a
bitter indictment, at least if
you want to read the high-
school allegory that way, of
the systematized privilege
that enabled Swift’s ascent.
“You play stupid games,” she
sings, “you win stupid
prizes.”
Great
- “The Man”
More pointed commen-
tary, in this case regarding
gender inequity, from a
once-apolitical pop idol
whose reluctance to speak
out in the past didn’t mean
she wasn’t taking notes.- “False God”
Swift is nobody’s idea of
a great R&B singer, but
“False God” blends sex and
religion with a breathy
assurance she’s never mus-
tered before. - “The Archer”
Producer Jack Antonoff,
Swift’s primary creative
partner on “Lover,” said on
Twitter that he and the
singer made this gorgeous
and jittery head-rush in
“about 2 hours,” which
sounds right: It tunnels deep
into a single emotional state
— the fear that you’ve be-
come the villain in the movie
of your life — then crashes
unforgivingly to a stop.- “Paper Rings”
As peppy as “Me!” but
incalculably smarter, “Paper
Rings” retrofits the fairy-tale
whimsy of Swift’s early work
to account for the lived
experience of a woman who
will turn 30 in December.
Grown-ups deserve happy
endings too.
Glorious
- “Lover”
For a songwriter univer-
sally regarded as being
preoccupied with falling in
(and out of) love, Swift has
some beautiful things to say
on this album about what
it’s like to stayin love. “You’ll
save all your dirtiest jokes
for me,” she dreams of telling
her partner in “Lover’s”
warm and waltzy title track,
“And at every table, I’ll save
you a seat.” - “Cornelia Street”
Of course, commitment
can breed complacency. So
here she worries from her
place of stability what it
would feel like if it all fell
apart — and does so in
language as vivid and specif-
ic as any in her songbook.
(Let’s just say there’s a scene
that appears to be set at the
entrance to the Holland
Tunnel.) - “Soon You’ll Get Better”
Returning to her old
country sound was probably
inevitable. And doing it with
her fellow Nashville apos-
tates in the Dixie Chicks?
Makes all kinds of sense. But
music-business strategy has
little to do with the power of
this hymn-like ballad, which
unsparingly addresses
Swift’s mother’s extended
battle with cancer. “Holy
orange bottles,” she calls the
containers that hold her
mom’s pills, just before she
admits to praying to a god
she’s not sure is real. - “Cruel Summer”
Agony and ecstasy as
only Swift at her best can
render them: “It’s new, the
shape of your body / It’s blue,
the feeling I’ve got,” she
sings in a razor-sharp, in-
dustrial-pop banger about
finding love in a hopeless
place. To make too big a deal
of the fact that she co-wrote
it with Annie Clark (a.k.a. St.
Vincent) is to indulge the
shallow notion that centrists
have no edge. Still, the part
of the bridge where Swift
shrieks about the devil
might be the punkest thing
you’ll hear all year.
Ranking Taylor Swift’s ‘Lover’ songs
To hear Taylor Swift tell it, the reason her new album is the longest she’s ever made is because she set
out to capture the fullness of love — “all the captivating, spellbinding, maddening, devastating, red, blue, gray, golden aspects of it,” as she writes in
the liner notes to “Lover,” which came out Friday and immediately sold nearly half a million copies in the United States, according to Bill-
board. ¶ But if Swift equally values each of the 18 songs on her seventh studio album, that doesn’t mean the rest of us have to. Behold, then, this
critical rundown of every tune on “Lover,” ranked from worst to best. You can decide for yourself which song is supposed to represent gray.
BYMIKAELWOODPOP MUSIC CRITIC>>>
SINGER-songwriter Taylor Swift at the 2019 Billboard Music Awards on May 1 at the MGM Grand Las Vegas.Kevin WinterGetty Images