Blogs

Courtesy of Creative Head/E Online/Paste. Last week, I talked about how important positive representation is and explained where my love for Yuna came from. This week, I‰'ll talk about some other great women in music who have also been positive influences in my life....

For this week‰'s edition of the Tough Crowd interview series, I sat down with APO member and best roommate ever Rebecca Pittore to talk about her musical firsts through playing an instrument. Being the talented woman that she is, Rebecca plays both the guitar and...

Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band‰'s 1969 double album, Trout Mask Replica occupies an interesting artistic niche. Depending on who you ask, the work could be anywhere from one of rock music‰'s crowning achievements or an hour of the most nauseating, untalented...

Courtesy of Consequence of Sound. With the release of Lemonade‰'s Minus Tide, what we encounter is a certain rebirth of Lemonade as a sophisticated pop act. With a broad reduction of the experimental and inexpressible qualities present on Diver (2012), Lemonade has...

Courtesy of BABYMETAL. Did you hear about what Japan just did? The country‰'s most recent oddity was BABYMETAL, the fusion of cheery, upbeat J-Pop and Metal. Baby Metal works to fuse the genres in appearance ‰ÛÒ the band consists of three pretty girls in frilly, jet...

Hey all you people, hey all you people, hey all you people won’t you listen to me??? In case you haven’t heard the news, we’re honored to announce that WVAU has officially been nominated for a CMJ College Radio Award this year, for the first time...

A friend of mine sent me the link to this video the other day. As soon as I saw it, I was hooked. Portugal. The Man (PTM) have always been on my radar. I‰'ve been aware of their presence through Spotify recommendations, Pitchfork reviews and various radio shows. To my...

Where Macklemore consistently pushes progressive social issues forward through his music, Kanye seems only to try and better his own ego‰Û_ Why are you here? Why did you click on this article? Anyone with any semblance of appreciation for the arts knows full well that...

Courtesy of Kindergachy. I don‰'t think a lot of people understand just how important positive representation is, especially for young women of color. I‰'m going to focus on representation in music because that‰'s what I know and love. Imagine 15-year-old me sitting...

For punks, your first basement show is a right of passage. It‰'s your first adventure into the real world of punk and for most, it‰'s a life changing experience. This week I sat in on WVAU‰'s own Punk Is The Worst Form of Music (except all others) online radio show to...

Courtesy of Tumblr. My initial reaction to this dry, uninspiring choice of a group name immediately set my gears running into overdrive. Was it going to be a musical duo whose songs play off romantically, albeit with a cheesy yet truthful tinge to it, or would it be a...

Courtesy of Tumblr “If I had to choose between a woman and a final cigarette, I would choose the cigarette. You can throw it away easier!‰Û If there was someone that could say that phrase with class, meanwhile holding a cigarette and laughing about how true it is, it...

A blurb about Coo Coo Ca-choo: Post-concert depression: it‰'s a real thing. We all know what it is, how it feels, and how it manifests itself. But why does it happen so frequently? Live music is addictive, and for good reason. It transforms audio into a visual...

Courtesy of The Vinyl Bridge One of the great musical discoveries that happened this summer was unearthing the gem that is Treble & Reverb, the 2012 album from New Zealand artist Aaradhna. The album made a big impact in its home country, winning several 2013 New...

Courtesy of Stereogum. First, let‰'s look at some accolades. Who likes the Velvet Underground? Rolling Stone and Andy Warhol, both of whom are mouthpieces that no one cares about except for dead white people and your dad. Who likes Grimes? Grimes is the future, as she...

Hello everybody! It’s an exciting time here at WVAU at American University – new faces on campus, wonderful new music coming to us and award season is just around the corner. WVAU has been on the air since 1947 but this is the very first year (that we know...

The Tough Crowd this semester will be an exclusive inside look into the musical beginnings of your fellow American University peers. As music lovers, we all experience the same “firsts” during our foray into becoming music aficionados. So, this semesters...

A friend and I started to talk on music. We talked on the beauty behind new genres we found. Talks of new music led to old. We came back to a common heritage, a genre we loved and never forgot: Metal. What was the reward in the furious grapple of gravelly voice burned...

Courtesy of DJ Mag Italia If the writing and recording of an album is really an ongoing process, then, it is an event that takes place everywhere. This means that both the moments when the artist writes the lyrical forms and expresses these forms in the confines of...

A great big welcome back to the school year! I‰'m super stoked to continue writing “Leading Ladies‰” and I hope there are some of you out there that are excited to continue reading it! This week, I just wanted to do a quick recap of some of the music that kept me...

Courtesy of AFP/Getty Images If I had my way, there‰'d be no more award shows, no more grading according to stars or letters or decimal points, no more best of insert arbitrary timeframe here lists. Intentionally or not, all of these practices cultivate a cancerous...

It‰'s no secret that Michael Cera, one of Canada‰'s finest specimens, was born to do great things. When he first emerged on our screens in Arrested Development in 2003, everyone immediately saw that this kid had pure comedic potential. This week, an album called true...

Courtesy of Billboard Let it be known; as August rattles its last breath and we're plunged from a dream of summer into the cruel ice bucket challenge of fall semester, WVAU.org will raise its sleepy head in service of the better things. After all, going back to school...

Courtesy of The Chicago Sun-Times At this year’s 9th installment of Pitchfork Music Festival, held in Chicago‰'s west side Union Park, yearly attendees and concert officials found themselves drowning in the claustrophobic masses of new concertgoers. On three...

Our first international guests, PAWS, graced our cozy studio for some pop-punk straight out of Glasgow. You can listen to an innocent pre-Morrissey PAWS, before they were burdened by BUZZ, SOCIAL MEDIA, and DRAMA. Regardless of whatever beef (he he) Moz may have with...

Over the last ten years, The Hold Steady have established themselves as one of America’s most joyous, intelligent, and overall best rock and roll bands. Between the combination of singer Craig Finn’s hyper-literate lyrical narratives and lead guitarist Tad...

If you’ve tuned into WVAU at any point this semester, it’s safe to say you heard a track off of Natural Child’s latest record Dancin’ With Wolves. The record’s been played non-stop since we’ve received it and to have the Nashville...

Right off the bat, “Cowboy Dan” sets the thematic tone of 1997‰'s The Lonesome Crowded West perfectly. It sounds western, it sounds like open skies, it sounds fragile and pretty, but it also sounds menacing and dark. The song‰'s title character is easily...

Before I dive into in this, I wanted to start out by saying thank you to those of you who have taken the time to read my pieces either from Shaken Not Stirred or Jazz Up Your Day from last semester. Prior to joining WVAU, I had no prior experience in creative,...