It would be easy to adopt a defeatist attitude towards how the COVID-19 pandemic has changed celebrations. Hell, it nearly wiped out the entire art of “celebrating” itself. There are no “real” parties, no “real” shows. No “real” champagne toasts, or accompanying hugs and handshakes.
Fortunately, VQnC doesn’t take the easy routes in life. She doesn’t take the pessimistic routes, either.
The Boston singer bucks cynicism today (April 2) as she releases a live video for her song “Fresh” to honor the two-year anniversary of her last record, Freedom. The video was recorded with a full band last February, before the music industry and gatherings at large screeched to a halt.
“Looking back on that day, I never would have expected that the world would be where it is today and that it would be the last time I’d be in a studio making art with those wonderful artists,” VQnC tells Vanyaland. “The pandemic has given me an almost sacred appreciation for the moments where I could invite my best friends and favorite musicians into a room to make music, which is how I wanted to honor the anniversary of Freedom.”
Thoughtfully recognizing album anniversaries is somewhat of a lopsided phenomenon itself. There’s no shortage of tweets and thinkpieces about certain works as they pass the 10, 20, 25 year milestones, but artists themselves look back at their work far less frequently, especially if a record is “only” a few years old.
It’s a pattern that VQnC hopes to see more of her peers break.
“It’s super important to honor release anniversaries because getting to a place where you are releasing an album is a major landmark in any musician’s life, and this is very true for me,” VQnC adds. “Creating an album is the manifestation of my lived experiences, it’s finding the right words to illustrate important moments into lyrics, cultivating a sound, and building the right team to bring that vision to life. It is also a celebration of pushing through a lot of self doubt. Being an artist is hard work and it is not for the weary. When you put out an album, your lived experience takes another form and is immortalized. There’s nothing quite cooler than that and ‘Freedom’ will forever be a symbol of that for me.”
As a bonus, the live rendition of the full-bodied funk bop also showcases just how many people it took to orchestrate the intricacies of Freedom — for instance, the 10-plus people involved in this video alone. And while VQnC is working on new tunes at the moment as well, she doesn’t think a moment of organizing the release of “Fresh” would have been time better spent on new material.
“I feel like as a creative, there is so much pressure to constantly create that our focus is often on what’s ahead and what’s next and we lose sight of the milestones that got us to where we are, so celebrating the projects that got you to this place is vital,” she concludes. “If you don’t celebrate what you’ve done and how you got here, [said like RuPaul] how the hell are you going to recognize your own process and growth as an artist?”
Choosing to turn the other cheek on bad times and celebrate despite the circumstances — that’s absolutely what Freedom looks like. Watch “Fresh” below.
VQnC credits her musical team and shouts out the following participants: Tim Hall, Ivan Pyzow, Mike Moore, Fiona Wood, Christina Stavrakas, Alex Miklowski, Mario Epstein, Tony Hamoui (Hamstank), and Warbird Creative.