1000 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
(02/07/10 6:00am)
These days country music is often associated with cheese like
Taylor Swift, Tim McGraw and Rascal Flatts. Because of this, it's
hard to give the genre the benefit of the doubt. More often than
not, the only thing such artists ever add up to are catchy melodies
and clichéd heartache. In a genre once infamous for being
remarkably honest, it has now turned the corner onto Pop Street,
and honesty has been sacrificed for one-dimensional, radio friendly
garbage. The glory days of Johnny Cash are behind us, and thus it
seems quality country music is as well.
(02/02/10 6:00am)
Back in 2001, a little known band named Fridge released their
album Happiness.The album consisted of nine tracks with
titles such as ""Cut Up Piano and Xylophone"" and ""Sample and
Clicks,"" exemplifying the band's ability to make musical ideas out
of chopped and looped fragments. Although Happiness lacked
full-fledged songs and barely registered a blip on the radar of the
American music scene, the album demonstrated Fridge frontman Kieran
Hebden's capacity to craft gorgeous melodies and truly unique
grooves.
(02/01/10 6:00am)
It was a game of streaks for the Wisconsin women's basketball
team Sunday night against Northwestern. Each team had its share of
impressive scoring runs and frustrating droughts. However, after 40
minutes, the Wildcats' streaks simply outdid the Badgers'.
(02/01/10 6:00am)
Deer Cardinal-
(01/27/10 6:00am)
In the frantic waning moments of ""You! Me! Dancing!,"" Los
Campesinos! frontman Gareth Campesinos! hastily shouts, ""And we're
just like how Rousseau depicts man in the state of nature: We're
underdeveloped, we're ignorant, we're stupid but we're happy."" And
that, in a nutshell, is an appropriate thesis for LC! at their
onset. They re-invented twee pop, sprinkling teen angst on top of
their signature brand of ebullient sonic candy. But what also
reinforces the lyric's weight is that it foreshadowed the overt
misery, melodramatic grandeur and tinted worldview on their latest,
Romance is Boring.
(01/24/10 6:00am)
Cada 31 de diciembre miles de personas deciden empezar el año
nuevo con una lista de propósitos que les ayudarán a mejorar como
individuos. Dietas para adelgazar, hacer ejercicio, beber
menos...etc. Yo, como todos estos ilusos, también me plantee
mejorar personalmente en el 2010: quiero dejar de fumar. Sin
embargo mi propósito no se me planteó el 31 de diciembre. Es más,
en la fiesta de nochevieja debí fumar más que en toda mi vida. Creo
que sufrí las consecuencias del humo y el alcohol durante más de
una semana.
(12/15/09 6:00am)
There are a million adjectives that could be used to describe
Antony and the Johnsons' 2009 release, The Crying Light,
none of which would do justice to the drama of the energy Antony
Hegarty's operatic falsetto and lush orchestration. But for lack
of a better way of explaining the album's intensity, they must be
used: spellbinding, passionate, transfixing, compelling, striking;
the list goes on and on.
(12/11/09 6:00am)
Someone had to make pop music suck less. That someone was Justin
Timberlake. Though he first emerged with 'N Sync in the middle of
American music's darkest hour, the kid grew up, and so did his
music. Debuting his first single, ""Like I Love You,"" at the 2002
MTV Video Music Awards, a grimmer future seemed to be on the
horizon. Donning a hat and gloves, delivering a deathly serious
performance full of dance breaks and falsettos, his solo career
seemed doomed to be more of the same old crap—a dime-store Michael
Jackson for teeny boppers. But Timberlake hit his stride quickly.
He honed his vocal skills. He forged relationships with strong
producers. While the Neptunes produced that disappointing first
single, they also produced ""Rock Your Body,"" one of the best pure
pop songs of the decade. Working with Timbaland led to two of the
best scorned lover songs of recent years in ""Cry Me a River"" and
""What Goes Around ... / ... Comes Around."" He also developed a
great public sense of humor about himself. In an era of humorless
A-Listers like Kanye and Bono, Timberlake instead became the only
must-see ""Saturday Night Live"" host of his generation. It's
easier to get away with saying you're bringing sexy back if you're
willing to follow it up with ""Dick in a Box."" It has allowed him
to become his own persona and make a cultural imprint beyond his
music (well, that and showing us half of Janet Jackson's rack).
(12/10/09 6:00am)
It would sound absurd to call platinum-selling, arena-filling,
most-critically-beloved-band-in-the-world Radiohead an underground
act. But on the other hand, they don't operate or sound anything
like a mainstream, best-selling rock band (even the ones that have
gotten popular aping mid-90s Radiohead): You'll hardly ever hear
them on the radio or see them on TV; their idea of promoting an
album is mentioning it on a blog ten days before it comes out; and
they've built their reputation on some of the strangest, most
original music of the past two decades.
(12/08/09 6:00am)
The thought of growing up scares the shit out of me. In fact,
the only thing that scares me more is thinking about being old.
(12/08/09 6:00am)
""I am so / I am so / Out of tune,"" Jeff Tweedy sang at a solo
acoustic set he performed as a rogue while recording Yankee
Hotel Foxtrot, simultaneously turning it into a lamentation of
personal, professional uncertainty. Overall, its directness is so
mysterious, ambiguous and genuine it discomforts and reassures at
the same time. Despairingly crying out in self-awareness, Tweedy
emotes a candidness that only a Ditch Trilogy-era Neil Young would
be bold enough to pull off, calmly finishing the stanza, ""With
you.""
(12/06/09 6:00am)
Of all the stressful activities I experience in a day—writing
last-minute essays, deciding what to do after college/where to do
it/how to do it/if I can do it—one of the greatest stresses occurs
early in the morning. Around 10:15 a.m. after I wake up, take a
good shower, and consider joining the rest of civilized society by
getting dressed, I pick out my underwear.
(12/01/09 6:00am)
Racist. There has been a bit of a stir on the Daily Cardinal
opinion page recently regarding that word, as well as its relation
to a column written by Andrew Carpenter. I won't address the merits
of Carpenter's argument, I'm sure he can explain himself a lot
better than I can. But there was one aspect of the criticism his
article received that continued an all-too-common trend I've seen
on campus. It seemed that the natural, gut response from most
readers was to call Carpenter a racist.
(11/30/09 6:00am)
While this writer would've preferred to see Ryan Adams with a
top 10 position on this list, it fits Adams' critical reputation to
see him with an honorable mention ranking. The quality of his
output is often derided as inconsistent, and sometimes this label
has followed his work unfairly. Indeed, Adams seems to have
squandered most of a loyal fan base, already partially formed from
solid late-90s work with his group Whiskeytown, by following his
classics Heartbreaker (released in 2000 and created with
the ridiculously underappreciated duo of Gillian Welch and David
Rawlings) and his 2001 breakthrough album Gold (made even
stronger with a limited edition bonus disc) with a random-sounding
collection of studio outtakes in Demolition (a clunker
despite jewels like ""Cry on Demand"" and ""Chin Up, Cheer Up""),
the regrettably rockier Rock N Roll, and the overly-hyped
label-delayed Love is Hell. By the time Adams formed a permanent
backing band and became Ryan Adams and the Cardinals, many were
willing to lazily dismiss 2005's two-disc Cold Roses as
predictably inconsistent and rife with filler. A second listen is
in order for those who have overlooked this sleeper classic, and
those who never even gave the follow up Jacksonville City
Nights a try are missing out on one of the finer albums of the
decade. His checkered history has caused all reviews for later
albums to be introduced by a similar-sounding introduction, but no
amount of background can save the rambling and boring 29, or the
pleasant but predictable Easy Tiger and
Cardinology. Nevertheless, a good Ryan Adams album is a
great album, and this writer is optimistic that we haven't seen his
decline yet.
(11/19/09 6:00am)
When looking for music that brings to mind images of plaid
flannel shirts, Samuel Beam-style facial hair and worn-down
corduroy pants, look no further than Ola Podrida. With every solemn
melody and subtle lyric, the group evokes such images. It's likely,
however, that when visualized, these images don't seem all that
unique. That's because they're not.
(11/16/09 6:00am)
As the two big T's—turkey and tests—approach, a sense of chaos
starts to creep into our lives. We come to the realization that (1)
the semester ends in four weeks, (2) most of us haven't read the
readings/gone to class/remember where the class is and (3) we just
WANT A FREAKING BREAK, THAT IS ALL WE ASK, OH MY GOSH COME ON
ALREADY!!!!
(11/16/09 6:00am)
For most of the 2009 football season, the specter of 2008 has
been looming.
(11/08/09 6:00am)
In recent months the nation has become deeply involved in the
subject of health-care reform. According to a recent CNN poll, 83
percent of Americans favor health-care reform. The way to do it,
however, has been a hot topic for months now and the top domestic
policy item on President Obama's agenda. The battle to reform
health care is now coming to an apex in Washington. After passing
in the House, all eyes turn to the Senate to see if this $1.2
trillion bill will pass. If you turn on CNN, Fox or MSNBC these
days you can hardly avoid it. Yet even with so much news coverage,
many people still know little about it. The Senate is getting ready
to vote on a bill that will affect one fifth of our nation's
economy, and, in typical Washington fashion, they have managed to
convince Americans that if this is not done right away, the world
will end at 2 p.m. on Friday.
(10/30/09 6:00am)
The frigid morning air roused my shivering body into a wakeful
state. My mind wasn't quite there, and I felt like I'd just
suffered a pretty decent amount of head trauma. It was dark, too
dark for what time it must have been... Where the hell was I? The
smell of manure and rotting hay filled my nostrils, and I vomited
the little food that was left in my stomach all over the cement
floor. My mouth was dry—really dry—what I would have given for a
glass of water. Where was I, and what day was it? What had happened
last night? Many questions awaited my unprepared head.
(10/29/09 6:00am)
When is a costume ""too soon?"" We've all joked, cried and
projectile vomited about the crucial question. But, as with the war
in Iraq, there can be no standardized timetable to redeploy
costumes from distasteful to hilarious.
