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New Trend: Romanticizing Abusive Relationships
A new image has surfaced of an alternate scene from the recent blockbuster Suicide Squad showing the Joker exerting dominant body language and scolding Harley Quinn during the helicopter escape. The image reinforces the abusive relationship that the Joker and Harley hold in the comics, but that was controversially downplayed in the film in order to cater to a broader audience. Although I found the film entertaining and well cast, it did not seem like anything more than the most basic of basic superhero films. The fact that I had to type superhero bothers me, because this should have been a film about villains fighting worse villains, or at the very least antiheroes, but because of…
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BLM: Critical Review of To Pimp a Butterfly
Yesterday, Tumblr acknowledged that it’s been two years since the Ferguson protests began, which had me start thinking of Black Lives Matter, a movement I stand by closely. Last semester, I wrote a critical review on my favourite album of 2015, Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly for my pop culture class in reference to the current social turmoil. Here it is. Rapper Kendrick Lamar’s third studio album, To Pimp a Butterfly, was a favourite to win Album of the Year at the 58th Annual Grammy Awards, topping many critics’ “Best Albums of 2015” lists, including Rolling Stones magazine’s (2015). Described as a “masterpiece of fiery outrage, deep jazz and ruthless self-critique” (Tate, 2015, n.p),…
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Song of the Day – “Luv” by Tory Lanez
This is a song I’ve been hearing all summer and been digging, but had no idea who sang it. I was also never curious enough to Shazam it or anything. Being the Caribbean girl that I am at heart, I love mainstream songs with Caribbean influence, and with releases like “Work” and a good portion of Drake’s Views, 2016 seems to be the year for it. Although not an amazing dancehall tune, I know that when I’m drunk in the club at 1am and Tory Lanez’ “Luv” comes on, I am feeling that island fantasy. Listen to the song below.
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Song of the Day – “Hometown Girl” by Zhu
Chinese-American electronic musician Zhu recently released his debut album, Generationwhy, on July 29th. Although the album as a whole has received mixed reviews, it does includes some moderately impressive electronic tunes. I am definitely not an electronic dance music expert so I usually try to stay out of conversations surrounding the genre, but I checked out Zhu’s album and, personally, I thought it was good. This song, “Hometown Girl,” featuring vocals from Jaymes Young is a song that I would not characterize as one of the best electronic tracks that I’ve ever heard, but it’s one that I do enjoy. It contains a laid-back beat, a catchy hook, and simple lyrics reciting a…
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“Sluggish, Lazy, Stupid, and Unconcerned”
Who else could blatantly read a whole generation like that and be praised? Thank God Endless was released at the beginning of this weekend to absorb part of my overly ecstatic reaction to Frank Ocean finally dropping his new album. But for some reason, what I wasn’t prepared for is how perfect this album would actually be. *listens to #Blonde one time* pic.twitter.com/iduMLdaflU — Wantickets (@Wantickets) August 20, 2016 As I have mentioned of Ocean before, he is able to have the listener reflect on their own self while listening to his inspired tracks. Blond has substance; the overall subject matter of the album is able to have every listener rationalize with Ocean’s own thoughts and emotions.…
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Frank Ocean Re-emerges
Since first hearing about Frank Ocean getting back in the studio in 2013, I, just as many other fans, have been anticipating his crawling out from under that rock he retired to after channel ORANGE. I looked forward to him gracing the world with more evocative tracks from his inspired soul. At first I was patient, because I understand that art takes time. But after a handful of pushed release dates continuously giving false hope, I began praying that that channel ORANGE money would run out quickly (he wanted to be petty, well I had to play the game too). Well, no longer must I be petty, Frank. Although the visual album Endless is not the album that we are waiting for, it…
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The Resurgence of Vinyl (That I blindly didn’t see coming)
Fact: I (still) collect CDs. Crazy right? I do this for several reasons, but in short, I simply like having physical copies of my music, and I appreciate the sound quality of a CD playing from my stereo. I usually purchase new CDs from HMV or order new or used from Amazon, but at the beginning of this summer I realized that there was a more obvious option – used record stores. So the first time I entered one of these stores it was amazing. It was so exciting to me finding all of these CDs, some of which I had previously had trouble finding in HMV or online. I…
