Skip to content
Published in pop ·

Luca Malina

FCKRZ

'FCKRZ' is a 2021 single by the Viennese singer Luca Malina, R&B-inspired pop about the darker side of relationships, produced by Luca Pivetz with guitar by Lukas Koffler and a self-made video.

Review

Genre and Mood

Luca Malina brings a dark edge to FCKRZ. The Viennese singer makes R&B-inspired pop, and this single uses an electronic production with live guitar to carry a lyric about the darker facets of relationships. The energy is real, but it is not a party: it is the energy of someone fed up.

Song Summary

“FCKRZ” shows Luca Malina working with a small, credited team: Luca Pivetz on production, Lukas Koffler on guitar, Nikodem Milewski on mixing and mastering, and Fabian Unger, also known as Der Traurige Gärtner, on the video. Her artist profile groups it with her debut “Don’t” as songs that explore the darker side of human relationships, and the title, which reads as a swear word with its vowels removed, makes the attitude plain.

Musical Breakdown

Intro: Setting the Vibe

The production sets the mood first, an electronic frame for the song before the voice comes in.

Build-up: Layering Elements

Layers are added as the track develops, the guitar and the beat finding their places around the vocal.

Drop: The Dancefloor Moment

The fullest section of the track is where the beat, the guitar and Malina’s voice all work together; this is pop structured for impact rather than a club drop.

Bridge: Melodic Interlude

A contrasting passage changes the texture before the last return of the main idea.

Climax: Full-Force Energy

The song returns with everything in place, its strongest statement of the title’s attitude.

Outro: Gentle Fade

The track winds down at under four minutes, a pop single’s length.

Concepts in Focus

The release credits make FCKRZ a good introduction to mixing. Producing a track (writing and arranging its parts) and mixing it (balancing all those parts into one finished stereo recording) are different jobs, and here they are done by different people: Luca Pivetz produced, Nikodem Milewski mixed and mastered. Listen for how the voice stays in front while the guitar and beat sit around it; those choices are made in the mix.

The music video was made by the same small circle: Fabian Unger filmed and cut it, and he, the guitarist Lukas Koffler and the cover artist Pia Suchan appear in it. For an independent artist the video is not a marketing extra but part of the work, and on YouTube it is how most listeners meet the song.

Artistic Context

Luca Malina is a singer from Vienna who comes from a family of artists and has sung, danced and acted all her life. Her first single, the R&B-inspired pop song “Don’t”, spent more than three weeks in the top 3 of the chart of Austria’s alternative radio station FM4, one of them at number 1, and her debut EP is called Trust Me When I Lie. FCKRZ was published in June 2021 with support from the Österreichischer Musikfonds, the Austrian Music Fund.

Cultural Impact

FCKRZ is a young artist’s single rather than a hit, and it belongs to the Viennese pop scene that FM4 has long championed. It is here as an example of how a modern single is made by a small, credited team, and of a voice using pop to say something unfriendly. Read the credits, then listen again.

Learn from this track

Introductory

What you will learn

  • Name the roles credited on a modern independent single: singer, producer, mixing and mastering engineer, guitarist, video maker.
  • Explain what mixing is and why it is often done by a specialist.
  • Describe how a self-produced music video extends a song's story.

Listening guide

  1. the opening How the production by Luca Pivetz sets the mood before the voice arrives: pop built on electronic sounds.
  2. the vocal Luca Malina's R&B-inflected delivery, the style that took her debut Don't to number 1 on the FM4 charts.
  3. the guitar Lukas Koffler's guitar, credited on the release: listen for where it sits inside the electronic arrangement.
  4. the whole mix How voice, guitar and beat are balanced against each other, the work of the mixing and mastering engineer Nikodem Milewski.

Concepts in this track

music video

57 tracks

A short film made to accompany a song. Since MTV it has shaped how songs are remembered, and on YouTube it is often the main way a song is heard.

mixing

2 tracks

The stage of making a record where all the recorded parts are balanced into one finished stereo track: their levels, placement, tone and effects. Mixing comes after recording and before mastering, and is often done by a specialist rather than by the producer.

Listen next, and why

Questions for discussion

  1. The release credits six different people for production, mixing, guitar, video, cover and photos. What does that tell you about how an independent single is made today?
  2. The single was funded by the Austrian Music Fund. Should public money support pop music?
  3. The title reads like a swear word with the vowels taken out. How does a title like that prepare you for a song about difficult relationships?

References

  1. Luca Malina. Luca Malina - FCKRZ (2021). Video
  2. Last.fm. Luca Malina. Database
  3. Bandsintown. Luca Malina. Artist

Weighted overlap of genres, feelings and moods.

Neighbourhood

This track, the tracks most like it and theirs. Drag, zoom, hover; a dot opens the track.

Show as table