Beach House

Beach House is an American dream pop band from Baltimore, Maryland, formed in 2004. The band consists of French-born Victoria Legrand (vocals, keyboards) and Baltimore native Alex Scally (guitar, keyboards).

Their self-titled debut album was released in 2006 to critical acclaim and has been followed by Devotion in 2008, Teen Dream in 2010, Bloom in 2012, and Depression Cherry and Thank Your Lucky Stars in 2015.

History

Formation and Beach House

Vocalist and organist Victoria Legrand, who graduated from Vassar College in 2003, and guitarist Alex Scally, who graduated from Oberlin College in 2004, formed the band in 2004 after meeting in Baltimore's indie rock scene, producing music composed largely of organ, programmed drums, and slide guitar. Of the origins of the band name, Scally said: "We’d been writing music, and we had all these songs, and then there was that moment where you say ‘what do we call ourselves?’ We tried to intellectualize it, and it didn’t work. There were different plant-names, Wisteria, that kind of thing. Stupid stuff. But, once we stopped trying, it just came out, it just happened. And it just seemed perfect." In an interview with Pitchfork Media, Legrand addressed their two member status; "[I]t's a way to challenge ourselves: What do you do when it's just the two of you... [O]ne of the reasons this has been such a fulfilling experience for me is that with two people, it's so much easier to achieve things that feel exciting and new."

Teen Dream

Teen Dream is the third studio album by American dream pop duo Beach House, released in January 2010. Produced by Chris Coady, Teen Dream is Beach House's Sub Pop debut. The album was well received by the music press, who hailed it as one of the best albums of 2010.

NME Magazine included it in their 2013 edition of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. The album was also included in the 2011 edition of the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

In August 2014, Pitchfork Media ranked the album the 5th best album of the 2010s so far.

Recording

The recording of Teen Dream took place after extensive touring of the Beach House's previous album, Devotion (2008). According to Legrand, while on tour "we definitely stored up a lot of energy and ideas that we had. By the end of the touring cycle we couldn’t wait to get back home to start working on the next record. In some ways, touring is a restraint on the creative side, because it’s hard to write on the road. So you just have to wait, and sit on this anticipation until the time you’re able to spend days, weeks, months working on something." The duo strove to create a more "sophisticated" album and, according to the group, the demos of this record were comparable to the final tracks that made up their previous record. Also, their use of extensive reverb was held back significantly. According to Alex Scally "There's very little reverb on the record".

Copula (linguistics)

In linguistics, a copula (plural: copulas or copulae) is a word used to link the subject of a sentence with a predicate (a subject complement), such as the word is in the sentence "The sky is blue." The word copula derives from the Latin noun for a "link" or "tie" that connects two different things.

A copula is often a verb or a verb-like word, though this is not universally the case. A verb that is a copula is sometimes called a copulative or copular verb. In English primary education grammar courses, a copula is often called a linking verb. In other languages, copulas show more resemblances to pronouns, as in Classical Chinese and Guarani, or may take the form of suffixes attached to a noun, as in Beja, Ket, and Inuit languages.

Most languages have one main copula, although some (such as Spanish, Portuguese and Thai) have more than one, and some have none. In the case of English, this is the verb to be. While the term copula is generally used to refer to such principal forms, it may also be used to refer to some other verbs with similar functions, like become, get, feel and seem in English (these may also be called "semi-copulas" or "pseudo-copulas").

To Be

To Be may refer to:

See also

To Be (song)

"To Be" is the English title of a Japanese-language song by Ayumi Hamasaki. It was released as the singer's eighth single on May 12, 1999. The song begins "Dare mo ga toorisugite...", and does not contain the phrase "to be" or any other English lyrics.

Information

"To Be" was released less than a month after her first number one single, "Love (Destiny)." Hamasaki's first song to be composed by Do as Infinity composer DAI, "To Be" was unable to reach the top position on the Oricon, unlike its predecessor. Hamasaki re-recorded "To Be" in celebrating her 10th anniversary in the music business in 2008 and it appeared as a B-Side on her Days/Green single.

PV

The music video for "TO BE" was directed by longtime collaborator Takeishi Wataru. It shows Hamasaki singing as seen by a little boy through a kaleidoscope. It makes use of various backgrounds, outfits, makeup, and wigs to bring as much color as possible into the world the little boy sees. At the end, the kaleidoscope lens breaks, and Hamasaki is seen in black and white.