Blogs

I constantly make the mistake of agreeing to write about things I am too emotionally invested in. “Cranes in the Sky‰” is one of them. As I sit here writing about what this song means to me and this hell of a year we‰'ve all had, I decided to delete everything I‰'ve...

Danny Brown doesn‰'t follow the rules. Rappers don‰'t have their big break at 30, they peak with their debut album at 22. Rappers don‰'t sign to Warp Records, they sign to Def Jam or Atlantic. Rappers don‰'t sound like they‰'ve just inhaled too much helium while on an...

First off, Rihanna is an icon. So maybe I am biased in that she could have recorded herself making a cup of coffee and I would have adored it. On second thought, I doubt Rihanna makes her own coffee. In my eyes, Rihanna can do no wrong. My friends and I incessantly...

I‰'ve never been good at expressing my feelings in a non-self-deprecating-with-a-hint-of-meme way. I‰'ve always liked dancing, though. When the Spanish all gal garage rock band Hinds dropped their album Leave Me Alone, I found out dancing and expressing your feelings...

On August 20th, I found out that boys do, in fact, cry. After fours years of cryptic messages, twitter memes, and seemingly endless delays, Frank Ocean surprised us all with “Blonde‰Û. The “Thinkin Bout You‰” singer finally emerged from his hiatus to bless us all,...

Here I was, working one of my long weekend shifts at a catering company in (where else but) Ithaca NY during this past summer vacation. I was stocking back, and threw on a new album that had been recommended for me to take a listen to: Car Seat Headrest‰'s Teens of...

“The Season/Carry Me‰” is the perfect introduction to Anderson .Paak. There is no doubt that this dude is nothing short of amazing. SERIOUSLY. His type of music can't even be restricted to one or two genres. And those damn drums. THOSE DRUMS! The switch up between...

All and all, I‰'ve found being a music fan in 2016 to be pretty frustrating. It‰'s hard to think of a high profile release this year that didn‰'t have an over the top or torturously prolonged roll out (Blonde) or insisted on itself by putting out supposedly brilliant...

Part way through the first verse of Vic Mensa‰'s bombastic “16 Shots‰” he drops the lines, “And we all know its cause cause he black/Shot ‰em 16 times, how fucked up is that?‰” The track, a fiery response to the 2014 death of Laquan McDonald, marks Mensa‰'s emergence...

When I was told I get to write about ANTI, a weird stream of emotions rushed over me. I was excited. I was overwhelmed. I was worried about not being able to do this album justice. Repeat after me: Rihanna is more than a fashion icon. She‰'s an artist, badass, and...

I‰'m sitting on the edge of my bed, bare feet feeling into the worn-down grain of the cold wooden floor. I try to count the grooves like I always do. Like I always do when I‰'m sitting here and you‰'re way over there. Down the stairs, across town, states away... but...

Courtesy of Pitchfork Mykki Blanco has taken the aggressive rap of previous albums and added an impressive vocal range that works honestly with the heavy, introspective lyrics in her studio debut, Mykki. The queer, gender-fluid performer and alter-ego of Michael...

Just a month or so back, AU‰'s music mongers flocked to the Tavern to drool over Girlpool‰'s honest lyrics and swoon over Frankie Cosmos‰' psychedelic sweater at WVAU‰'s fall Capital Punishment show, but few expected to be blown away by the four-piece that led the...

Hinds‰'s 2016 LP Leave Me Alone is far from their first release; the Madrid-based quartet has been releasing music as far back as 2014, which makes their designation as “Best New Artist‰” a little dubious. However, 2016 is certainly the year that Hinds broke, turning...

Courtesy of Prince Rama I was way into Xtreme Now's album art before I knew it was inspired by energy drinks and Taraka Larson's prophetic vision of people base-jumping off planes while the Mona Lisa smiles back at them from their parachutes, but now I have even more...