Chinchilla - Deep Dive

About to start my Chinchilla Deep Dive.

Before this, I've seen two songs she did with Ren, the Little Girl Gone music video, the Fingers live for HungerTV and the Elements lyric video.

My favourite so far has been Elements. Little Girl Gone is the second best. Fingers is a song that I don't yet love, but I have a strong feeling it just takes time. It's one of those songs that slowly grows on me and then I love it to bits.

On Spotify, she has 1 EP, 9 solo singles, and a song someone called NOËP and her made together called On My Way which has a bunch of remixes (5-6). On YouTube, she has 8 different songs with lyric videos / music videos / live performances, one of which is a cover. The cover and one other song (Terms and Conditions) don't seem to be on Spotify. (Unless it's a B side on one of the singles, or only on the EP, but that's doubtful.)

Earliest singles are from 2019 and the EP is from 2020, so I think I'll start from the 2019 singles, listening the song first and then watching the music video, then after 2019 singles I'll do the EP, then the rest of the singles and YouTube videos of 2020-2022. Then the Marvin Gaye cover and Terms and Conditions, since they're both from 2022. This year she's only released Little Girl Gone (understandable, since she's independent), but I'll probably listen to that again, after hearing her earlier stuff.

(I'll skip the songs she's featuring in, for now, since finishing even this list took me way too long... I went through most of it, then lost my phone, then went through a little more, then my work schedule changed and I have less time to listen to new music (I talked about this on a Weekly Recap). Now I'm discovering new artists and listening "old" ones again, and want to get to their stuff, but I'm sort of holding myself accountable to finish this Deep Dive first... I don't know why. My blog has zero readers and if I'm not feeling it right now, forcing myself to do it makes zero sense...

Just a note to self: including music videos on a Deep Dive is a bad idea. I can't look at the screen when I'm on a bus, which is where I write these posts, and then I apparently don't want to finish the Deep Dive. Sorry, Chinchilla or Chinchilla fans, if you're reading this. There's absolutely nothing wrong with her, this is a me problem...)

Elements

Elements is apparently her first single. Or, first as an independent artist? I'm not sure.

But yeah, I LOVE this song. Definitely some Eastern vibes. Someone on YouTube said jungle (as in, the EDM genre) - I only know DJ Snake, but I like him, so... I agree. If I remember correctly, jungle originated in India, but is very popular in the UK, where Chinchilla is from.

Her singing is just... phenomenal. Can't wait for Charismatic Voice (YouTube channel) react to this and explain to me why this is so great... All I can do is say it sounds cool, but Elizabeth knows exactly what a singer is doing and how to explain it so that mere mortal music fans like myself understand it.

I love how this is just basically some computer-made drums and a bunch of her vocals. No "real instruments". I don't know how can someone's brain even come up with how to do this... 

I hear a lot more adlibs now than I did yesterday. When I travel (i.e. now I'm on my way to work), I use these chordless over-the-ear headphones that are quite good. Best ones I've ever had. At home I use a different pair. They have a chord, so I can listen to hours on end without worrying about recharching, and they're a lot lighter (they're those very cheap over-the-ear computer headphones) so they don't hurt my ears, either. Heavier headphones start to feel uncomfy at some point. Anyway, the downside of those is that the sound quality is a lot worse than on these other headphones, and that makes me miss some production details, like the adlibs and surround sound things of this track.

Fabulous

Nice track. Some rapping in there, as well.

The hook/chorus is very nice: "F A ima B U L O I guarantee U'll see the beSSt of me, fabulous down to a tee".

After watching the lyric video, I catched a lot more bars than on the first listen. It's a great song! Simpler than Elements, but sometimes simple is beautiful.

Demand Respect

It started off simple, like Fabulous, but grew... Third verse and I was completely sold. Those high notes are gorgeous and she makes them sound so effortless... In the last chorus, she had some high notes in the back of the mix and I got shivers and a rush of endorphines. Full on eargasm. God that sounded good!

There's no music video or lyric video, but I'm coming back to this song later, definitely! But rn, I'm moving on to the next one.

Cold Water

A beautiful piano ballad. I'm more in a fast song kinda mood today, but she slayed those high notes and the belting so well that I still enjoyed myself.

Awakening EP

Garden of Eden

An intro thing. Beautiful and haunting.

One Time

I LOVE IT. The lyrics and notes and bass hit me like a ton of bricks. And I loved every second of it. God she's good!

Know No

Suddenly, a soul song. And a swift to a rap song!! Her rapping voice is smooth like butter, it's melting my ears and heart. <3

You're kinda... [Heads]

THAT BASS, THOUGH! She keeps going back and forth between hot and cold, lyrically. This song is a nice mix of rapping and smooth... something. Very sexy. Modern R&B. That's the genre I'm looking for.

Shadows [Tails]

I like this ballad more. Why is this not on a movie soundtrack somewhere?? It's mezmerising and stops you in your tracks. I love this. And I'm rarely into ballads. I'm not a very romantic person (I'm gray-aromantic). Bass near the end sounds like heart beats.

A Fruit Forbidden

Short interlude. So short I didn't have time to form an opinion.

Bitches

More of that smooth rap... with a couple of left turns. I love it. She's such a badass. I love her. I miss most of the bars, I have to come back to this song as well.

Awakening

Outro thingie. Love it. Very ambient and cool.

The Awakening EP lockdown visualizer 

Chinchilla, sitting at a table full of houseplants, seductively eating berries with her fingernails. I'm swooning for the first three songs, and a bit after that. On the song Bitches, I'm just vibing along.

On My Way

In collaboration with NOËP. Quite a typical, good EDM house song.

VIP mix has a bit more kick to it. Reminds me of the big room house songs I danced to in bars in my early 20s as a university student in the early 2010s. I like this more than the original.

VIP funk remix is giving French house / Daft Punk vibes. I like this as well.

Shahin Shantiaei remix I cannot pinpoint the EDM subgenre this is, I'm not familiar enough with the subgenres. Got me thinking about the lyrics, though. Can't pinpoint the story exactly, but I think the narrator has been hiding from their problems, and they have a lot of them, but can't hide anymore. Something like that.

Kyka Deep remix is a lot more instrumental than the others. There's more bass and some clinking sound on the mix... It's even more dancable than the VIP mix that took me to my wild college days... The scarse use of vocals isn't my thing, though. This is also almost 6min 30s long...

The Lockdown Getdown

Yeeey, more rapping! As expected by the title, it's a dance-y track about the lockdown. Made me smile. Very relatable to everyone who went through COVID-19 lockdown as a young adult living on their own.

Video has Chinchilla and a bunch of dancers vibing and dancing in yellow jumpsuits. Chichilla is wearing a yellow tophat (she seemed to have a big tophat phase in 2019-2020), the dancers are wearing yellow gasmasks. And then there's yellow caution/biohazard tape. The jumpsuits remind me of Breaking Bad.

Fingers

First time hearing the studio version. A lot cleaner and less challenging than the live version. Very cool alt pop song. The epitome of coolness. And obviously the lyrics are amazing, as in all of her work.

 

Video shows 6 murder suspects, which are all Chinchilla, dressed in gorgeous outfits, sort of themed by color. She certainly has a thing for color, and for hats. Her videos have a certain vibe and she has a clear style. I love it.

This was about 4th time I saw the live, since I had a 1,5 week gap between listening The Lockdown Getdown and Fingers (lost my phone and then Sleep Token swept me away for a week)... This live made a lot more sense now that I had heard the original song. It's a very artistic take on it, and as I suspected, this song grew on me. It took a few listens, but now I love both versions.

Moon Maintenance For Dummies

The front page of Chinchilla discography says this is a single, but when you open the "single", it's an EP... With Terms and Conditions AND Fingers on it.

Terms and Conditions

Nice, dreamy, space-y pop song.

Trigger

Country vibes... Acoustic guitar. Very nice singing. 

Who's Your Mummy

Rap!! Yey!! Amazing. Instantly one of my favourite songs by her. Funny, boasty lyrics.

Round Town

FEATURING REN! She's rap-singing and rapping. Multiple cadences and deliveries. Ren only shouted a couple words, he must have been helping with production or something.

Fingers

Million Dollar Multicolour Bliss

Smooth... Sexy, old school rap (?)

Chalk Outlines

First time hearing studio version. Ren's vibrato is so nice. Chin is better live, she's a little too subdued here. They're both such amazing singers, though. They can do whatever they want with those voices and repeat that live.

Live video is great. I'm not a huge fan of ballads, but their talent really shines through in this... 

Terms & Conditions (video)

Chinchilla, on stage, an absolute boss bitch. Hot men on stage, wearing lingerie. Same vibe as Ashnikko's Special (music video).

Sexual Healing ft. Ren (Marvin Gaye cover, live, YouTube only)

They were busking, playing on the street. And they freaking slayed it. Huge amounts of respect and admiration for the talent and the guts it takes to do that.

Little Girl Gone

I didn't re-watch Little Girl Gone for this, I've seen it plenty of times before, and also, I only thought about listening to it again after the older stuff so I could compare them, but it's been weeks since I saw the older stuff, so... There's really no point anymore. Here are my thoughts about it anyway:

The first song I heard from Chinchilla. Ren was blowing up and the alghorithm brought Chinchilla to my Tiktok FYP. It was a preview clip of this song. I was instantly in love. A feminist anthem that's so good that even men like it? I don't know how, but she did it. 

(I've seen the lyric video before, and knew it wasn't moving, like some of her other lyric videos, so I didn't see the point of including it.)

The video is great, too. Chinchilla is an absolute badass yet again. Feminine and powerful.

I love her. And I follow her on multiple social media platforms and hopefully don't miss it when she releases more music <3