41 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
(10/13/18 1:00pm)
Twenty One Pilots have walked on a tightrope for many years: Their sound is distinct, with Tyler Joseph’s recognizable rap flow and singing voice fusing perfectly to Josh Dun’s kinetic percussion, yet they draw from so many influences that it is hard to peg them down to one genre.
(10/04/18 5:21am)
Alexander Shashko, a lecturer in the Afro-American Studies department at UW-Madison, spoke to students about misogyny and hypermasculinity in hip-hop at a Men Against Sexual Assault meeting Wednesday evening.
(09/24/18 1:00pm)
Noname, real name Fatimah Warner, found a valuable niche in hip-hop as one of the coolest acts around with her quiet, yet potent 2016 mixtape Telefone and a number of features. Two years later, she has a plethora of musings after moving away from her native Chicago, grasping fame with a headlining tour and loving and losing in a relationship. Noname has not added to or detracted much from her very distinct sound, but her latest record Room 25 is chock full of beautiful instrumentals and smooth flows that breeze through 11 tracks across 35 minutes.
(09/18/18 5:20pm)
After a rough ending to 2017, Eminem’s latest move is to fight fire with fire. After the publically and critically panned release of Revival, Eminem is back with the no-holds-barred Kamikaze, released as a surprise at the end of August. Kamikaze simultaneously sees Em stripping down to his roots of aggressive angst but also updating some of his sounds and lyrics to the world around him. While Kamikaze finds Eminem rapping with much more conviction, his lyrics and flows are only marginally better than Revival — and the end product is mediocre.
(08/13/18 12:30pm)
Travis Scott, hip-hop’s most popular AutoTune crooner, returns with ASTROWORLD, and he’s locked and loaded with dark beats and bars. Scott has seen glimmers of genius spread throughout his two studio albums and wide catalogue of guest features on other artists’ work, but both Rodeo and Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight had forgettable low points that dragged their respective albums’ quality down. He hit a recent low this past December with Huncho Jack, Jack Huncho, a collaborative project with Migos’ Quavo, which felt like a creative dud after stretching his wings (literally) across his own albums and guest features.
(05/26/18 8:35pm)
Janelle Monae has always been on the fringe of breaking into the mainstream. She sang with the band Fun. on “We Are Young” — which topped the Billboard 100 for six weeks in 2012 — and she acted in not one, but two Best Picture nominees in 2016.
(05/26/18 2:42am)
On the heels of countless outdoor concerts and festivals, summer is a great time for artists to release new music. While many artists may announce and release albums within a matter of days and other artists may tease new music without a certain release date for months, there are a number of albums we can expect before summer’s end.
(04/15/18 2:00pm)
“Isle of Dogs” has all of the classic Wes Anderson signature traits: an all-star voice cast at the top of their game, an eclectic mix of pre-existing songs with an idiosyncratic score, intensely detailed shots and a story that is equal parts enduring and off-kilter. Some of these features pay off more than others, but for the most part, the film is sweet, funny and immersive beyond compare. Wes Anderson delivers another distinctly packaged bundle of joy as “Isle of Dogs” balances fresh execution of his familiar themes with wondrous animation and enchanting world-building.
(04/11/18 7:37pm)
After weeks of dropping hints on Instagram, The Weeknd released My Dear Melancholy, a stirring collection of emotionally dark R&B to complement the latest winds of winter that blew through Madison. Just as the weather, The Weeknd has gone backward, but unlike the snow on the ground, The Weeknd’s trip back in time is a refreshing return to the past.
(04/06/18 12:00pm)
Spoiler Alert: This article contains major plot details and spoilers for “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.”
(04/01/18 3:00pm)
David Byrne has tried and succeeded in a variety of musical endeavors throughout his long career: Oscar-winning music for “The Last Emperor” and a place in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, just to name a couple. With his latest release, American Utopia, Byrne attempts to depict the world we live in today according to his own press release for the record. Unless he thinks the world is weird, unclear and mostly dull, he hasn’t succeeded in creating a cohesive and fulfilling album. Byrne fires on all fronts for American Utopia, but after every intriguing string arrangement and animal-referencing lyric, he has only created an odd mess.
(03/01/18 1:30pm)
On paper, it was too good to be true: one of hip-hop’s boldest voices ever curating the soundtrack to one of Marvel’s boldest films ever. Could it be possible? Three singles and one monumental film later, Black Panther: The Album holds true. It’s an impressive and surprising collection of songs from musicians, each in their own but different element. Kendrick Lamar has assembled some of hip-hop’s biggest names and rising newcomers to create the definitive movie soundtrack.
(02/08/18 12:30pm)
In the past, Justin Timberlake refused to make music with anything less than 100 percent. For Justified, he delved deep into traditional instrumentation and a capella-esque backing tracks. Then, he went all-in with each reprise and every interlude on FutureSex/LoveSounds. He turned up the neo soul in The 20/20 Experience, which contained so many long, elegantly produced songs that it took two parts to get everything released.
(02/04/18 12:00pm)
On Jan. 29, Daniel Hernandez — known by his stage name, Tekashi 6ix9ine (pronounced “six-nine”) — posted a celebratory video on his Instagram. The post announced his debut mixtape, DAY69, out Feb. 23, as he recapped his achievements in 2017 with his daughter by his side. 6ix9ine was positive in his message, telling artists of all forms to follow their dreams against whatever criticism may follow. However, further investigation of 6ix9ine’s life and music will reveal there is little to be happy about. If what 6ix9ine is speaking is the truth, the release of his full-fledged mixtape will represent a very troublesome step forward for an up-and-coming artist and other rappers of his generation, all of whom are detrimental to both hip-hop and society as a whole.
(01/23/18 2:00pm)
On Jan. 28, the Grammy Awards will celebrate its 60th annual presentation of what they call “Music’s Biggest Night.” This year’s batch of nominees saw a surprising and welcome surge in hip-hop and R&B artists in major categories, but only time will tell which musicians will walk away with awards. Jay-Z leads the pack with eight nominations, followed by Kendrick Lamar’s seven nods, then Bruno Mars’ six. All three are also up for the coveted Album of the Year award. Competition is tight across multiple awards and the Grammys are no stranger to polarizing wins, as both critical darlings and chart-toppers are pitted against one another. Just last year, Adele’s 25 won Album of the Year but she said, “I can’t possibly accept this award...my artist of my life is Beyoncé,” referring to her fellow nominee’s “monumental, soul-baring, and beautiful” Lemonade. In past years, I begrudgingly watched the ceremony, and thought that the Grammys was the music industry’s biggest night rather than music as a whole, but I have never been more surprised and impressed by the nominees, which only makes picking winners that much harder.
(01/14/18 12:00pm)
Dec. 15 marked several major releases as finals week started in Madison. Eminem and N.E.R.D. released their first albums in four and seven years, respectively, and BROCKHAMPTON closed their SATURATION trilogy with SATURATION III, their third album in six months. Then, as finals wrapped up on Dec. 21, we were greeted by Huncho Jack, Jack Huncho, the highly-anticipated collaborative effort from Travis Scott and Quavo under the moniker Huncho Jack. This outpour of music was a fun way to close out 2017, and it supplied ample listening material over break. The four albums were vastly different from each other and, likewise, had varying levels of success.
(12/04/17 2:00pm)
With the first explosive trailer for Marvel’s “Avengers: Infinity War” having finally been released, the world is buzzing with excitement, rumors and predictions about Earth’s Mightiest Heroes assembling to face the long-awaited Thanos and his Infinity Gauntlet. The film’s 2018 release date comes 10 years after the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s first prodigal son, “Iron Man” was released. In “Iron Man,” Captain America’s shield was included in the background of one scene, and Nick Fury appears in another to discuss “the Avengers Initiative”; both were just Easter Eggs at the time, but what became of them has taken the world by storm to become the highest grossing film franchise of all time, a cultural icon for our generation and a reason to consume a lot of popcorn.
(11/20/17 12:00pm)
With reputation, Taylor Swift makes a transformation — one that many huge stars have attempted — into a darker, more serious version of herself. Bruno Mars did it with Unorthodox Jukebox, Michael Jackson scowled on the cover of Bad and Beyonce embraced her sexuality like never before on her self-titled album. Swift, however, had slightly different circumstances; since touring the world for the Album of the Year-winning 1989, Swift has seen her public image falter with each celebrity feud, from Kanye West to Calvin Harris to Katy Perry. The marketing for reputation centers around a confidently cold Taylor Swift basking in everyone that called her a “snake,” but don’t be fooled into thinking that the old Taylor is truly dead. While reputation is certainly her darkest project both sonically and lyrically, it is more so an electronic successor to the love-filled 1989 combined with some daring shots at her enemies. The old Taylor made some good music, and this album is clearly influenced from the hits that made her such a star, while also pushing her musical palette in new directions.
(10/27/17 5:47pm)
Another year in music comes to a close, and so the nominations for “Music’s Biggest Night” are due to be released on Nov. 28. With music being such a large industry, there will undoubtedly be snubs and a couple of surprise appearances. At the same time, the Grammys are infamous for gravitating towards more commercially successful albums, despite those album's lukewarm critical reception. Nevertheless, based on albums by artists familiar to the Grammys, others that received critical adoration and records that sold well, there are a few artists who flew under the mainstream who will find their music on the ballot in a few weeks.
(10/23/17 11:00am)
It’s been almost four years since Annie Clark, better known by her stage name St. Vincent, released her self-titled album. A critical darling, St. Vincent propelled her into national prominence; numerous publications listed it as one of the best albums of the year and gave St. Vincent her highest sales figures yet. With her fifth studio album, MASSEDUCTION, St. Vincent takes another bold step into her electropop psyche.