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(05/20/21 3:43pm)
I’ll never get over my fascination with the power of chance. Ever. As someone raised with no grounding faith, circumstance and chance will forever captivate how I make sense of the world. When it rains on bad days, I’m like, "Yep." When it’s sunny on good days, the same.
(04/09/21 12:57pm)
Cover songs are a wonderful artistic medium. They create a never-ending web of connections — artists to artists, artists to listeners, listeners to listeners. Covers are the foraged fruits of a musical community. Personally, they’ve connected me to some of my all-time favorite artists. As a pre-teen, I first found out about Radiohead from a cover of “Creep,” performed by an a capella group on that one TV show “The Sing-Off” — back when a capella was really in its heyday. The Cursed Years. I really don’t want to imagine being a college student back in 2009. Argyle everywhere. Yes We Can-Not Dress. Nightmare material.
(03/12/21 2:14pm)
On Feb. 25, Post Malone dropped a cover of the 1995 hit “Only Wanna Be With You” by Hootie & the Blowfish to celebrate the Pokémon’s 25th anniversary. Ellipsis. Yep, truth be told, when this headline first made it from my oculars to my brainstem, I could instantly feel my legs start to go cold. I frantically grabbed the closest grounded object near me — my bedpost — in a semi-delirious effort to ensure my mind and my body remained as one. Luckily, they did.
(01/30/21 1:47am)
I think anyone who writes about music describes their childhood the same way — early memories of huddling around the family record player, the crackling sound waves radiating enough fiery breeze to emanate past the mouth of the foyer and a laundry list of godmothers and godfathers on 12-inch. But as a child, music truly did not consume my life. Some of my earliest musical memories involve being convinced that the Black Eyed Peas were saying “boo-she” on the uncensored “Elephunk” CD my parents used to play in the car. Or listening to “Confessions'' while playing Madden 07 in my garage — pretending my lifeline space heater was the microphone, the blocky rendition of Giants Stadium on the pop-static screen my stage and realizing that what Usher was vibrating into my cochlea was not for the common man. The seeds had been planted, but in the soil they sat. Music didn’t start controlling my life until a road trip I took in high school.
(11/22/20 11:18pm)
Ice T is old. No disrespect intended, but there’s a reason why “old head” is commonplace terminology in pop culture discourse — and specifically in hip-hop discourse. After Soulja Boy’s “Crank That” blew up in 2007, some self-proclaimed “hip-hop purists” had something to say. Specifically, Ice T claimed Soulja Boy had “single-handedly killed hip-hop.” That’s a pretty audacious claim — no one man could have all that power. Soulja Boy responded in a now-infamous video, making a claim that reigns true to this day — “the reality of it is, the game has changed.” And that’s the truth — 13 years ago, the game had changed, and it will always continue to do so. Here, in 2020, some people assert that rap — in its modern form — is a dying art. I disagree. Exhibit A — “Sold Out Dates” by Gunna and Lil Baby, the greatest song of our generation, and of all time.
(10/26/20 8:06pm)
Halloween has irregular aesthetics. Every year, we find ourselves at the crossroads of pumpkin pancakes and emulating the mannerisms of the “Hocus Pocus” witches for a week. But that’s not a bad thing. Halloween is up for individual interpretation — making it one of our most cherished fabricated customs. You can perform Halloween with a movie, with decorations, with storytelling, with cookies — with just about anything else you could imagine — within the unspoken pseudo-supernatural guidelines, of course. You can also, believe it or not, perform Halloween with music — and with Halloween up against a global pandemic, this performance might be the safest bet. Let these entirely Halloween-unaffiliated songs get you in the mood for our favorite time of the year.
(10/08/20 10:01pm)
It’s hard not to act like a consumer, right? We can all be critical of a consumerist culture — one that values quantity over, say, sustainability, but we can’t critique ourselves for participating within the system when there’s no other option. In this 21st century world, we can get our tortoise-shell blue-light glasses super-deluxe-overnight shipped by robots while we watch Travis Scott’s Fortnite concert on livestream. Convenient? Of course. Dystopian? Sometimes. So yes, I’ll say it — it’s hard not to act like a consumer. But with consumerism comes an entitlement to individual benefit — an entitlement jarringly evident in the music industry.
(09/04/20 5:26am)
Being 14 was not cool. Entering high school, I needed to be socialized — and quick. I was in a phase where I thought my post-pubescent mustache looked kind of sick, and my emotional support and social mainstays consisted of online Minecraft friends from Ohio I’d never actually met and my bearded dragon. Luckily for me, I shaved, and I was saved. I found life-long friends in the most unlikely of places — a church youth group. And no, it wasn’t Young Life, good lord. I can afford my current pseudo-charisma to a quiet Baptist church in my hometown and the friends who invited me into their world.
(06/10/20 1:20am)
I am not proud to be an American, as I imagine most of us aren’t in the current moment. But this isn’t a new feeling to me, and it certainly isn’t to Black Americans. If this is a new feeling to you, you weren’t listening before. As a white Latino, I write this article fully understanding that this has never been and will never be my story — and I acknowledge the immense privileges that direct my every move and opportunity. I write today to turn solidarity into outward action through music, in an attempt to do good through an imperfect reflection — with the recognition that these privileges have done centuries of evil.
(04/28/20 5:51am)
I wish I had a better memory. My older brother is able to remember the time, location and social context of an obscure event from 10 years ago — while it would take me a few moments to remember what I did last weekend. Even in pre-quarantine conditions, where every day used to feel significant and unique, I struggled. So for me, Mr. Wait-What-Happened-Last-Tuesday, I find myself particularly allured by music’s ability to transport you, full body, into a version of yourself you’ve since left behind, but can sit quietly within — warmly accompanied by the golden glimmer of moments passed.
(04/03/20 5:00am)
Streaming services are an interesting microbiome. I imagine Spotify — the indisputably correct and proper streaming service — as a vast, ever-regenerating jungle. In my lifetime, there’s really no possible way I’ll discover every species that lies within — I’d have to flip over every rock at least five times to get even close. And, even collectively, we don’t really have time for all that.
(03/14/20 5:37am)
I’ve been collecting CDs for a couple years now, sprinting to the CD section of my local Goodwill since the dawn of my driver’s license. But my collection was merely a performance — no one in my house, myself included, owned a CD player. I’d throw a few dollars every month towards the aesthetically unpleasing, growing plastic pile on my bookcase. To me, it meant fulfillment. To me, it meant that if someday streaming services everywhere collapsed, I would be saved. I just needed a CD player.
(02/20/20 6:00pm)
It’s been raining recently. Lots of grey, lots of splash. In the past few weeks, I’ve done what any other rational twenty-something would do in these conditions — listen to sad music without feeling remorseful about my actions. It’s because it’s raining, okay? But in this drizzle-laden stupor, I quickly re-discovered a hidden gem — one of the uncut variety. It’s “If You Knew,” live, by Jeff Buckley, off of his “Live at Sin-é - Legacy Edition” album recorded in 1993. And it’s the best song of all time.
(02/06/20 5:14am)
I don’t buy all too much into astrology. The stars can be wishy-washy. Sometimes they make incorrect assumptions, sometimes they make me genuinely disbelieve in the self-fulfilling prophecy. But one personality trait that the hardy solar system really pinned me down on was my indecisiveness. Gemini reporting. Lordy, lordy me, making decisions is hard.
(10/16/19 2:15am)
It has been a busy year for Brooklyn-based indie rockers Big Thief. In May of this year, the band released their third studio album “U.F.O.F.,” an ethereal, gripping record with cover art that displays the band members sleepily loafing around in the woods. Just last October, lead-singer Adrianne Lenker released her second project “abysskiss,” a harrowing record containing a slew of rainy-day nap tunes. This weekend, the band followed up their hot streak with “Two Hands,” which proves to be their creative tip of the iceberg.
(10/15/19 2:03am)
According to your iPhone weather app, the average temperature for the next 10 days just dropped like 20 degrees. That can only mean one thing — fall is finally here. Too bad fall in Virginia only lasts about three weeks. Nevertheless, before all the leaves are gone and your cute sweaters get replaced by clunky coats, let these songs soundtrack your autumnal bliss.
(09/11/19 7:55pm)
Since the early 2000s, Interpol has been a shining light in the heart of New York City. The band put its name on the map with debut album “Turn on the Bright Lights,” released in 2002. After 9/11, the city was looking for a revival — and Interpol provided some answers. Their raw, warm tunnel-of-darkness soundscape turned the formed NYU pupils into internationally-renowned rockstars.
(05/03/19 1:27am)
The summer of 2017 was marked by a plethora of cultural phenomena — Beyoncé gave birth to twins and “Despacito” became the most streamed song of all time, among other great pop culture moments. But for some, the summer of 2017 was defined not by a single moment, but a gradual blossoming of the boy band Brockhampton.
(04/17/19 9:36pm)
It has only been a few months since Anderson .Paak dropped “Oxnard,” his solo follow-up to the critically acclaimed and highly-esteemed second album “Malibu.” “Oxnard” was met with lukewarm reviews — it had its happy moments, it had its sun-shiny radio hit that didn’t necessarily fit the November frost it was thrown into, and it seemed to lack some of that raw charisma and spunk that made .Paak a household name in the first place. For these reasons, perhaps there’s no surprise as to why .Paak is back so soon — less than a year off of “Oxnard.” If only it were possible to say that “Ventura” wasn’t more of the same.
(02/24/19 10:36pm)
As Old Cabell Hall was reaching capacity on last Sunday evening, there was an air of anticipation and wonder with soft chatter, clicking cameras and families. A scan of the room saw a broad reach of demographics — older couples, University students, faculty and young children. The buzz of the room was infectious, and when Baca stepped out — barefoot — to the roar of the crowd, the audience and Baca were one.