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Why Did Prince’s Real Revolution Never Take Off?
A few years ago I favourited a tweet by B.J. Novak that I never forgot. I never forgot this tweet because I knew that it was a prophecy. For some reason, we act like entertainers are immortal, usually because they create media that we have the ability to preserve, well… forever. Our perceived humanity of such people is taken away until they die. Oh. This seems to be especially true for underrated artists–the ones that are perceived to be too different and unwilling to undermine their artistic integrity for sales. Despite how well-respected he was in his industry, I will forever claim that Prince is one of the most underrated artists…
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Drake as a Culture
When I was in Leeds in July 2016, we went to the university pub and had a “British Trivia” night. One of the questions was “who currently has the #1 track in Britain?” Four out of five people on my team, including myself, knew that the answer had to be Drake… no question. However, our last member was certain that it couldn’t be. I’m not gonna lie, this hesitance was warranted, since Drake’s latest single was “One Dance,” and the single was released over three months prior. But of course, the answer was “One Dance.” What did I learn from this? The answer is always Drake. “Who’s your favourite artist right now?”…
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‘Hidden Figures’ and the Importance of Representation
Remember that stand up routine of Chris Rock’s where he expressed that famous quote, “Why the black man gotta fly to something that the white man can walk to?” Well, if you don’t, here’s the video for your convenience. Hidden Figures is not only a film that captures the real life stories of black mathematicians working at NASA during US segregation, it is about female black mathematicians. I had never heard of the names Katherine Goble, Dorothy Vaughn, or Mary Jackson before entering the theatre to watch this film, and that troubles me. Despite a few inaccuracies, the film did a good job of portraying the double oppression these women faced at…
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Kim Kardashian Returns to Social Media… Why Do We Care?
Story time! I have a friend who I met while living in Barcelona in 2015 and we spent four weeks being almost inseparable. She left over a month before I did to go back to her hometown in New York, but I didn’t think of getting her number because I had her on Snapchat and Instagram, which were our main forms of communication together in Barcelona anyways. However, in early 2016, she went MIA. She went from posting on her Snapchat story almost every day to not at all, and honestly, it took me until late September to notice. Her Instagram was still up even though she wasn’t posting, and I…
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Top 10 Albums of 2016
Despite how terrible many of the events of 2016 have been, not everyone had a bad year. Honestly, there are quite a few music artists who had an amazing year. 2016 has been an incredible year for music and a year that has seen the emergence of so many new trends that are sure to carry on into the new year. Firstly, this year saw many artists experimenting with genre-mixing in their albums. It is beginning to be difficult to determine what constitutes R&B, rock, soul, indie, or even rap anymore. Artists who we associate with one genre have began branching out or incorporating multiple genres into their music. Many genre mixes were…
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Freedom! ’16
Pop singer, George Michael, has passed away at the age of 53. With the amount of times he emancipated himself throughout his life, whether in his music career or personal life, it is fitting that he passed away on December 25th, a day dedicated to new birth. There has seldom been a more emancipating music video by a recording artist than “Freedom! ’90.” Although he was forced to make a video to promote this single, what Michael offered is nothing shy from a brilliant fuck you to the industry that was making him do it. Not only did he not appear in the music video at all, but George Michael’s most noteworthy video has him…
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Not a Teen Choice – Starboy Review
Say what you want about The Weeknd, but he is an incredibly hardworking, prolific artist. The R&B singer-songwriter recently released his third studio album this past weekend after much anticipation (and extensive promotion). The Weeknd claims that his influences for Starboy were The Smiths, Prince, Talking Heads, Bad Brains, and DeBarge – quite an eclectic combination of 1980’s artists to influence a 2016 R&B album, showing the exciting future that is in store for the genre. Upon first listen, the album seemed to be slightly scattered in terms of genre, something that seems to be a trend this year. Are the aforementioned influences clearly heard in the album? Here and there……
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The New MTV
Yes, another piece about how the ‘M’ in MTV should not stand for ‘music’ anymore, and should instead stand for ‘millennial.’ But the fact that so many people are writing on this shows that it is an issue. The MTV VMA’s are probably the one time of the year that MTV actually attempts to showcase music. Sometimes they succeed in doing so, but other times, it just feels like a pop award show, with the music coming in second to the scandalous events sure to take place that evening. I have had less and less interest in watching the VMA’s in the past few years, but this year I decided; why…
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For What Would Have Been Michael’s 58th
I don’t know if there will ever be an artist that had as much of an impact on me as Michael Jackson. I can’t even tell you the first time I heard an MJ song, how old I was, or what song it was. I can’t remember because I feel like his music was always there, even though I was born in the mid-nineties. By the time I could say that I consciously remember listening to him, he was well past his prime. This definitely says something about the legacy this man was leaving even while still alive. When I first started using Youtube in 2006, I would spend hours watching…
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Young Thug Revolutionizing Hip hop… Unintentionally
Young Thug has recently dropped his newest mixtape Jeffery. The mixtape is a great one and I can already picture myself hearing many of these tracks in the club while sipping on my rum and coke. Although full of bangers, the tape is somewhat strange as well. Firstly, the songs are all named after idols of his, which apparently include Wyclef Jean, Kanye West (which features Wyclef), Riri, and Harambe. Why is Harambe one of Young Thug’s idols? I doubt that we’ll ever know because the lyrics to the song have nothing to do with Harambe or gorillas. However, the aspect of this mixtape that has drawn the most attention is the cover.…
