Entertainment

Five new songs you should listen to right now: 11/12/19

Charly Bliss – “Threat” Brooklyn-born band Charly Bliss followed up their critically acclaimed LP “Young Enough” with “Supermoon,” a five-track EP bridging the gap between “Young Enough” and their 2017 album “Guppy.” Rounding out “Supermoon” is the succinctly-written, sweetly-sung “Threat,” a three-minute ode to instability in relationships. Lead singer Eva Hendricks sings precariously of how she “can forgive anything [and] it’s absolutely terrifying,” and with her brother, Miami University alum Sam Hendricks, on drums, the song maintains its sense of authority and power the whole way through. 

Kanye … we miss the old you

I hated rap as kid.  Yet my entire family has always had a proverbial love for rap/hip-hop music. My mom had a deep love for Tupac. She remembers exactly where she was when she got the news he had been shot. My dad — a dedicated Biggie fan — was her direct rival. Lil Kim, Snoop and Jay-Z were also among the artists that would play throughout my house.  My music taste was solely limited to R&B and soul. At the time, I was dedicated to my faves: Lauryn Hill, Justin Timberlake, and D’Angelo. The thought of cheating on them with another artist outside of the genre was too much for my young self to handle.  For a while, there no rap artist that could hold my interest. Sure, I love the hip-hop classics “Big Poppa,” “No Diggity” and “Hypnotize” for example, but those are only singular songs. There was never an entire hip-hop album that held my interest from start to finish.  That is, until Kanye came around. 

#FreeBritney: Double standards in the music industry

It’s no secret that the music industry is notoriously sexist. But when Kanye West’s new album “Jesus Is King” dropped — coinciding with the  announcement West stopped taking his bipolar disorder medication during the album’s production —  I couldn’t help but think about Britney Spears. Granted, I think about Britney Spears nearly every day, and especially these days, because of everything she has been going through. That’s because Spears has been in a conservatorship since 2008, after her very public breakdown. A conservatorship is a legal hold which is put into place when someone is so mentally incapacitated, they cannot take care of their own medical or financial needs and someone is appointed to do so for the conservatee. 

After high hopes, “Hollywood’s Bleeding” definitely delivers

On Sept. 6 of this year, Post Malone released his third album, “Hollywood’s Bleeding.” If there is one word to describe “Hollywood’s Bleeding,” it’s diverse. Post has been called a versatile artist before, but it definitely shows in this LP.  Some of his songs demonstrate his ability to concoct another pop/rap hit, including “Enemies” featuring DaBaby, “Die for Me” featuring Future and Halsey and “On the Road” featuring Meek Mill and Lil Baby. 

‘Charli’ is mechanical yet emotional, synthetic yet heartwarming

Few people love to party more than Charlotte Aitchison.  Better known as pop star Charli XCX, she has built her brand on boys and bacchanalian nights. Since the start of her career, the singer-songwriter has proven she can reliably put out both industrial pop bangers and radio-friendly bops about the highs of living on the edge. But for the first time, Charli’s fanbase of “angels” have been treated to an album about what’s not so preferable about the eternal state of partying she’s painted pictures of throughout her career.

Hail to the chief

I spent many middle school evenings sitting at my kitchen table half doing homework, half watching whatever my mom had on TV.  One day, seemingly unprompted, mom stopped in the middle of washing a dish and pointed a soapy yellow-gloved finger to the TV, which was playing a re-run of “Seinfeld.” 

‘Love Island’ is a 21st century British invasion, and for some reason, we need it

What kind of hole have we created in modern society where we’re filling it with logical promiscuity and revelry about someone else’s unpredictability? I’m not certain. But I know that “Love Island” is filling it.

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Boy Harsher interview: the electronic duo discusses killer miners and country tunes

In 1961, country singer Jimmy Dean released a folk tune called "Big Bad John" about an antisocial, rough miner who sacrificed his own life to save others when the mine collapsed. Twenty years later, the cult classic slasher film "My Bloody Valentine" was released. In its opening scene, a man and woman in miner's garb head down into the tunnels, where they begin undressing and caressing each other. When the man, still in his mask, sees a heart-shaped tattoo on the woman, he goes into a fit of rage and kills her.

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