AUX Magazine Issue 4

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WASHU’S MUSIC MAGAZINE

“BANGERS ONLY”

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VOLUME 4

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ILLUSTRATION BY LUCAS DRUMMOND

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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Dear Reader, It seems ironic and appropriate that the fourth issue of this magazine is coming out during my fourth and final year of my undergraduate experience.

After a year of SU recognition and months of scrambling, I feel like we as a staff finally have the ground beneath our feet. We have a stellar set of committed contributors, talented artists, and meticulous copy-editors. We have the best art director in the biz and a treasurer who knows his stuff. We are set.

Although being a young publication can come with a gentle yet omnipresent sense of unease, it is satisfying and encouraging for us to be able to see the progress we’ve made throughout our past issues. I am thankful and proud of each and every one of the people who made this issue possible. I am most thankful for the group of first-years who, amid a plethora of extracurriculars, chose to dedicate their time to AUX. You are all so smart, special, and amazing! You give me—and the other old farts running this—hope for the future of this magazine.

Enjoy, Reede

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A BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO

APPRECIATION

BY JESSIE SMITH WHEN YOU ASK A FRIEND WHAT their favorite type of music is, typically they’ll name a genre, like rap or country. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this—but I find it a little sad. When people only have one type of music that they seem to listen to or even like, it limits the enjoyment they can get out of music because music has so much variety. One of my generation’s lesser appreciated genres of music is jazz, evidenced by both its lack of radio play and lack of mainstream

popularity; the fact that I played in several jazz groups in high school was largely considered a joke by my friends. I think people don’t listen to jazz because they think it is somehow inaccessible or “too intellectual” for them, but this is simply not true. When most people think about jazz, they think about elevator music or that one album their weird uncle keeps posting about on Facebook, but jazz is so much more than its mainstream reputation.

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In a 2008 NPR interview, jazz writer and producer Eugene Holly Jr. describes jazz as America’s “most multicultural art form…it really mirrors what diversity this country has to offer.” His assessment encapsulates the reason why jazz is truly for everyone. In the same interview, David Schroeder, Director of Jazz Studies at New York University Steinhardt School explains how the invention of jazz in the early 20th century in New Orleans was heavily influenced by the cultural makeup of the city. Made up by “Caribbean…ex-slave…Italians and Germans,” jazz “continues to grow and morph and be involved with many types of cultures.” But why does it matter that jazz music, both today and at its inception, represents so many different styles and cultures?

The diversity in the genre of jazz music allows it to appeal to a vast audience, both for people who feel as though their cultural background is represented in the music and for people who appreciate other cultures’ art. In a place as intentionally diverse as Washington University, everybody should be listening to jazz.

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Jazz is not only about the diverse cultures it represents or its broad range of musical styles: jazz is about the character of the music itself. While describing how jazz can be specifically pleasing from a music theory perspective is a perfectly valid way to explain the value of jazz, I’m not going to venture down that road. If I’m arguing that jazz is for everyone, I cannot shape my argument around something only music students understand; additionally, my list will not include any jazz “standards,” or classic American jazz songs like “Take Five” that everyone and their mother knows. While those songs have plenty of merit, I want to suggest songs that non-jazz listeners may have not heard before and might bring a new perspective into their idea of what jazz is. So, without further ado, here is my list of the top five jazz songs and albums that everyone, regardless of music taste, cultural background, or theory knowledge can listen to and hopefully love.

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I’m going to start this list in a pretty unexpected place: South Africa. My high school group played almost exclusively South African jazz in our first year, and this is where I discovered Abdullah Ibrahim. The first jazz song non-jazz enthusiasts should listen to is his “Soweto Is Where It’s At,” an upbeat, catchy, formulaic jazz piece that never fails to put me in a good mood. The group Dollar Brand has a great 17-minute recording of the tune on Youtube that you can play as the “classy” background music at your dinner party, listen to while studying, or bop to on the way to class.

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Second, I suggest you listen to any of the songs on Monty Alexander’s Harlem-Kingston Express (Live at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola NYC) album. The album is a great way to get into jazz. It’s got jazzy songs, not-so jazzy songs, songs everybody would recognize, and lots of amazing solo moments. More than anything, the album shows a lot of heart, bringing the music to life. My favorite tracks on the album are “Compassion,” “Sweet Georgia Brown,” and “Day-O.”

ILLUSTRATION BY JIN XIA

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If there’s a single song on this list anyone who appreciates expert musical performance should listen to, it’s “Lingus” by Snarky Puppy.

While you can find this song on Apple Music, I recommend watching the music video on YouTube.

In the video, you see the group record the song live and get to watch one of the tightest bands you’ll ever see execute the song to absolute perfection, not missing a single note or beat and staying perfectly in time with the changing tempo. Furthermore, the song features an incredible piano solo to rival A-Ha’s “Take on Me.” Whether or not you have any idea what I’m geeking out about on the musical side of this song, I guarantee you’ll appreciate how well executed the song is and enjoy the tune, too.

Next, for the movie enthusiasts among us, look no further than The Wolf of Wall Street. One of my favorite jazz tunes is on the soundtrack. The song, “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy” by Cannonball Adderley, is a great jazz song to listen to because of how natural the song feels.

The song nearly mimics a classic blues progression but never feels repetitive because the solos on that soundtrack are awesome.

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Next, for the movie enthusiasts among us, look no further than The Wolf of Wall Street. One of my favorite jazz tunes is on the soundtrack. The song, “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy” by Cannonball Adderley, is a great jazz song to listen to because of how natural the song feels. The song nearly mimics a classic blues progression but never feels repetitive because the solos on that soundtrack are awesome.

I HOPE THAT SOMEONE ENJOYS at least some of my suggestions on this list. Acknowledging that there is a whole canon of incredible jazz music I haven’t touched on in this list will hopefully serve as an inspiration to some to look into the myriad of other jazz music available. Even if you have no interest at all in jazz music, I implore you to listen to at least one of the songs I mentioned above, because you might find something new you really enjoy. If you listen to all of the songs and don’t like any of them, don’t write off jazz forever. I promise there’s something jazzy out there for everyone.

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BY JAYLA BUTLER

Political Messages in Today’s Music

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NO MATTER WHAT YOUR personal beliefs are, we can all agree on one thing: our country is incredibly divided. Politics are inter t wined in nearly every avenue of our daily lives.

Music is no exception. These days, joining a social movement doesn’t have to come exclusively from the front lines. From Childish Gambino’s “This is America” and Katy Perry’s “Chained to the Rhythm” to “The Storm,” Eminem’s diss track to President Trump, it’s not unusual these days to hear our favorite pop stars take a stance on a number of social and political issues.

People often say that these artists and many more who take on political messages in their music should keep politics out of it and “stay in their lane.” In 2016, Beyonce faced backlash for a politically-charged Super Bowl halftime performance, complete with homages to Malcolm X and the Black Panther Party.

Popular artists adding sociallydriven messages to their music isn’t a new phenomenon.

In past decades, artists from the likes of Bob Dylan, Marvin Gaye, Nina Simone, Green Day, N.W.A, Bruce Springsteen, and countless more have used music as a form of protest, depicting issues such as civil rights, racial profiling, the Vietnam War, and living in a post-9/11 world.

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If music is truly a form of self-expression, it inherently will be political for it to remain honest, and we shouldn’t shy away from that.

Some argue that celebrities should be doing more to help people than make music. While it’s true that most of them have the means to do more than the average person and maybe a lot of them could be doing more to help certain causes, we shouldn’t underestimate the power of music as an agent for change.

Nowadays, a song can be the voice of a movement. Kendrick Lamar’s 2015 song “Alright” unofficially became an anthem of the Black Lives Matter movement, with many chanting the song’s hook at protests and rallies.

Lamar spoke further of the song’s success in a 2017 interview with Variety.

“You might not have heard it on the radio all day, but you’re seeing it in the streets, you’re seeing it on the news, and you’re seeing it in communities, and people felt it,” he said.

Music has the power to deliver a message, and in our day and age, music is more accessible than ever before. Even if we can’t change the world with one song, it’s still a better way to start the conversation than with yet another song about sex and partying.

Music moves us to feel emotion,

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The future (of rock) is female.

THE INCREASING PROMINENCE OF WOMEN IN INDIE ROCK

BY GARRETT CUNNINGHAM & MICHAEL FOGARTY ROCK MUSIC HAS A LONGstanding (and well-deserved) reputation as a boys club, and the indie scene has historically been no exception. The biggest names during the 90’s and 00’s heyday of indie rock were allmale or primarily male-fronted—LCD Soundsystem, Arcade Fire, Animal Collective, Sufjan Stevens, Fleet Foxes, The National, The Strokes, and many more. But today, a new wave of female indie rockers are sharing a perspective that the genre has lacked since its founding.

Now, some of the most innovative and popular indie music is coming from all-female or

female-fronted bands. While artists such as Björk have been on the scene for a decade or more, there has been an explosion of new female talent in the indie scene in the past few years. Established artists have broken through to new, bigger audiences with their more recent work, while younger artists have made a splash with their debut albums.

Acts fronted by women have seen their success reflected in giant letters at the top of festival lineups and have booked shows at bigger venues. Courtney Barnett, for example, played a show at the Pageant this summer, while Car Seat Headrest, who

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have been dubbed the “saviors of indie rock,” recently played at the smaller Delmar Hall.

Female artists have been extremely prolific across a wide variety of sub-genres as well. Whether it’s Julien Baker and Phoebe Bridgers creating singer-songwriter folk, St. Vincent and Mitski setting the trend for art-rock, Girlpool redefining indie punk, or Frankie Cosmos leading the way for lo-fi indie rock, it’s clear that alternative music is no longer limited to white, male ‘punks.’

We profile a few of our favorite rockers below:

PHOTOGRAPH BY MARIE LIN

JAPANESE BREAKFAST BEFORE REACHING INDIE stardom on her own, Michelle Zauner was both lead singer and rhythmic guitarist for Philadelphia band Little Big League. The band released two albums beginning in 2013 before Zauner was forced to tentatively part ways with the band to care for her

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mother at home in Eugene, Oregon. Her mother battled cancer until her passing later that year.

While home, Zauner wrote music that would later become the first two albums of her solo project, Japanese Breakfast. In 2016, the band released its debut album, Psychopomp, to extremely positive reviews. In this record, Zauner discusses her attempts to reconnect with her Korean heritage in the absence of her mother. The album opens with “In Heaven,” a track that introduces the band’s trademark rich, sonic texture. Led by the sound of a piano in an empty concert hall, sounds of a choir, orchestral strings, twinkling bells, groovy bass, and a distorted electric guitar coexist alongside Zauner’s light, yet forceful vocals.

At the end of the first half of the album, listeners are met with lighthearted singalongs and agonizing heartbreak. “Everybody Wants to Love You,” the album’s breakout single, is a two-minute pop-rock gem that propelled the album to the top of year-end “best of” lists, pairing blues-inspired guitar riffs and catchy lyrics. Immediately following is “Psychopomp,” an interlude that opens with a moody, intriguing synthesizer and ends with an agonizing voicemail left by her mother: “It’s okay sweetheart. Don’t cry. I love you.”

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In 2017, Japanese Breakfast released its sophomore album Soft Sounds From Another Planet to critical acclaim. The album’s many hits combine Zauner’s unique mixture of rock, electronic, and multi-instrumental elements which achieve a modern shoegaze sound. Like her previous work, the record explores themes of death and relationships gone awry. In “Boyish,” her most beautiful track to date, Zauner’s voice hovers above a flourishing, Bach-like harpsichord and a spacious blend of strings and choir, all while underpinned by an authoritative bass, a bittersweet guitar solo, and earnest lyrics.

Other tracks such as “Till Death” highlight Zauner’s vocal prowess in her ability to sustain notes very high in her range, which shines through equally in her energetic live performances. On the stage, she is known for her dynamic range, taking the audience on a genre-bending ride through acoustic, solo ballads and true rock jams. On tour for most of 2018, the band often finished their set with a cover of The Cranberries’ rock hit “Dreams,” which is now a top track on its Spotify artist page.

After producing two groundbreaking albums in less than two years, it’s clear that Zauner’s Japanese Breakfast is just beginning, as her work will be highly anticipated and followed for years to come.

PHOTOGRAPH BY ELIZABETH WEINBERG

COURTNEY BARNETT AUSTRALIAN SINGER-SONGWRITER and lefty guitar-playing badass Courtney Barnett has become one of the leading artists in indie rock. Barnett emerged from the Melbourne DIY scene and has built a reputation as a clever songwriter with a talent for finding profundities in everyday life, as well as witty puns. On “Avant Gardener,” she describes having a allergic reaction while gardening in her yard: “I’m breathing but I’m wheezing Feel like I’m emphysemin’ My throat feels like a funnel Filled with weetabix and kerosene and Oh no, next thing i know They call up triple o I’d rather die than owe the hospital Till I get old” The song also highlights another of Barnett’s talents: her ability to weave in unlikely

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words into an impressively fluid stream-of-consciousness narrative. Not every songwriter can use the word “pseudoephedrine” in a song as naturally as she does.

Barnett’s most distinctive feature as an artist, in conjunction with her songwriting, is her voice. It is almost, but not quite, deadpan and monotone, seemingly only a half-step away from normal speech. At the same time, it’s surprisingly musical, if a little raspy, the perfect complement to her witty but slightly off-kilter songwriting.

After a series of EPs garnered critical interest and acclaim, Barnett’s 2015 debut album Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit was a breakout success. Her follow-up full length album Tell Me How You Really Feel came out earlier this year. In between, she released a collaborative album with Kurt Vile, Lotta Sea Life.

In addition to her own prolific music career, Barnett also runs her own independent record label, Milk!, located in her hometown of Melbourne, Australia.

She represents the classic selfmade, built from the ground up, bootstraps ethos of indie rock, and is now helping a newer generation of artists distribute their work and build a larger audience.

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PHOTOGRAPH BY GLENFORD NUÑEZ

SNAIL MAIL BORN IN 1999, LINDSEY Jordan’s solo project Snail Mail is simultaneously the future of indie rock and a manifestation of her predecessors. A teenager from suburban Baltimore, Jordan began touring with her band following the release of its EP, Habit, in 2016. The six-track foray was notably unpolished but demonstrated her high potential for growth. Two years later, her band’s refined sound is found in its debut album Lush (2018), and is chock-full of fascinating musical paradox.

Jordan is unafraid to combine the seemingly unalike unapologetic, raw rock aesthetics from indie’s earliest days with a clean guitar sound. The result is a harmonically rich texture that is unabashedly indie, yet harmonically complex. The album’s fourth track, “Heat Wave,” begins with a restrained description of a lost high school lover she calls “green eyes” over a simply strummed guitar. Her youthful, slightly raspy voice is endearingly untrained and unmasked, floating

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over and under notes for a performance that is imperfect but fitting of her sound and her stories.

As she painfully dives into hazy memories of that relationship, she launches into the best rock breakdown on the album -- and one of the best I have heard in recent time. Her wailing guitar functions as a extension of her voice, inviting the listener into an emotionally confused and dizzying flight that is rooted in the band’s rhythmic precision. It’s one of the album’s many songs that combines teenage angst with an emotional maturity of post-relationship forgiveness that reaches far beyond her age -- another paradox that is a hallmark of her music.

The closing track, “Anytime,” downheartedly ends the album with a few flickers of hope. Atop a sustained, hollow synthesizer and a distinct lack of drums, Jordan painstakingly plays her guitar with straightforward chords while showcasing unobvious, gripping vocal harmonies.

Even though her former love has clearly left her adrift, she recognizes that she can only hope for their wellbeing, in yet another exhibition of her unmistakable awareness. The song’s final verse brings the album full-circle, echoing a melodic motif from the first track of the album that leaves the listener with a calmed and contemplative excitement.

PHOTOGRAPH BY PAUL HUDSON

ALVVAYS ALVVAYS IS A DREAM-POP AND shoegaze influenced indie-pop band from Toronto. Frontwoman Molly Rankin is the primary songwriter and the band’s lead singer. In 2014, the band released their self-titled debut Alvvays. Strong tracks like “Archie, Marry Me” and “Party Police” showcased the band’s potential. Rankin’s engrossing narrative style songwriting and the band’s signature jangly melodies are the clear highlights, but the back half is a little weaker, and the songs’ lack of musical diversity becomes more apparent.

The band really came into its own, exploring a fuller range of sounds and song structures, on its sophomore album Antisocialites, which came out in 2017. In my mind, Alvvays’ true talent lies in taking its influences and packaging them up into a catchy pop structure. On Antisocialites, Rankin fully embraces the power of her voice, which can be seen in the chorus

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of the lead single, “In Undertow,” when she confidently proclaims:

“No turning There’s no turning There’s no turning back after what was said No turning There’s no turning There’s no turning back after what’s been said” On Antisocialites, Rankin lets her voice shine where it was muted beneath the guitars on Alvvays.

In the song “Lollipop (Ode to Jim),” Rankin pays musical and lyrical homage to Jim Reid of The Jesus and Mary Chain, whose album Psycho-

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candy was hugely influential on the shoegaze scene, which in turn inspired Alvvays’ dreamy, feedback heavy guitar sounds.

The strength of Antisocialites is the inverse of what the band struggled with on its debut; an impressive command of a wide varieties of sounds, from the dynamic range displayed on “In Undertow,” to the sublime “Dreams Tonight” and the unabashed power-pop of “Lollipop (Ode to Jim).” Rankin has taken the sonic language of dream pop and shoegaze and has filtered it through her personal experiences into a beautifully varied, but sonically consistent, narrative pop.

ILLUSTRATION BY LUCAS DRUMMOND

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“COLLEGE WAS THE BEST TIME IN my life. Never have I had so much freedom to do what I wanted whenever I wanted to. I lived by all my friends, classes were not that hard, I learned a lot, and I enjoyed myself.”

MUSIC IN COLLEGE

BY KATE CARLSON THIS IS WHAT I WAS THOUGHT college was going to be like: fun and games, a time to explore myself and the area I was living in with friends. I thought I would meet some of the most amazing people ever and they would lead me to unbelievable opportunities. While this is not wrong, it is only fifty percent true. The other half of the truth is that I have met some incredible people as well as some that I’d rather not cross paths with again. The fun and games are often forced ice breakers during class that lead us all to say we identify as mint chocolate chip ice cream because we’re cool and sweet but have edges. Exploring St. Louis

can only happen during certain months of the year, because the others are too hot or too cold.

Parents look back on college with rose-tinted glasses which results in their children feeling as though they aren’t being successful if they don’t have the same mind-blowing experience.

This topic is well covered by psychologists, historians, sociologists, and the like. It is not a new phenomenon, and will surely continue to happen. I knew this going into college, and yet I still ended up comparing my first year of college with what I assumed my parents’ college experiences must have been.

Are the fields as sprawling as

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what my dad got to experience?

Are the trees greener here? Are the buildings prettier and more accessible than what my mom had? If I walk around listening to the Eagles and Steely Dan, will I be filled with the same awe they apparently experienced?

My search for an answer to these endless, meaningless questions has led me on an adventure down music history lane.

My Spotify Daily Mix 1 is filled with the likes of Don McLean, Van Morrison, and Fleetwood Mac. While none of these songs have airdropped the answers to my questions, it has allowed me to rediscover a genre of music that I otherwise wouldn’t have remembered that I enjoy. Music allows the listener to have a transitive experience, to remember the time we jammed out to that James Taylor song in the car with Mom or how Dad used his steering wheel to play the drum background in “Peg.” St. Louis is far from my home and having these familiar tunes and warming visuals helped with the first-year-of-college woes.

Music is also a universal language — everyone has a music of their childhood. Everyone has a Hilary Duff or High School Musical Soundtrack that they haven’t listened to in years and can still remember every word.

The artist or album may change,

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but everybody has a soundtrack for their life. Some of the most interesting conversations I’ve had have been related to music:

“How do you not know the song 9 to 5 by Dolly Parton? It’s so famous and came from the movie 9 to 5 that she starred in and directed with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin and those ladies are genius and the movie is weird and….”

“Well, we only listened to Dolly Parton Christmas music.”

“THERE’S A CHRISTMAS ALBUM?!”

These kinds of conversations are the heart of what college has been for me thus far: a time of remembering where I’m from and what I’ve been lucky enough to experience, and learning how that fits in with the people around me in a new state in a fake world where everyone is young and energetic and smart.

Is Rap American Anymore?

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BY ANDA GAVRILESCU

RAP, OR, MORE GENERALLY, hip hop, was born and raised in the United States. Primarily created by minority communities outside of New York City, rap has become one of the most popular music genres in the past few decades. Each decade has introduced a new form: the 1980s brought new school hip hop, the 1990s added West Coast rappers and mixing with other genres like soul and metal, the 2000s popularized crunk and Kanye, and the 2010s brought trap.1 Yet one hit this year opened up a world of rap that many Americans barely knew existed: Latin hip hop.

Cardi B’s “I Like It,” featuring Latin trap artists Bad Bunny and J Balvin, sampled the 1960s “boogaloo” — also known as Latin R&B — song, “I Like It Like That” by Pete Rodriguez.2 The song blends English and

Spanish; Cardi B’s verse is sung/ rapped in English, J Balvin’s in Spanish, and Bad Bunny mixes the two. The song reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 twelve weeks after debuting.

Despite having a long list of top-ten hits on Latin charts, the success of “I Like It” marked the first time that either Bad Bunny or J Balvin ever had a song in the number one spot on the US Billboard Hot 100.3 While the past few years have seen a rise in Spanish music on the top American music charts (no one can ever forget “Despacito”), this song is among the first that brought attention to the intersection of rap and Spanish music. Many Americans, including me, were unaware of how large the Latin rap scene is. But if you do some research, it makes sense. Latinx people were actually some of

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the founding members of rap, as Latinx immigrants began to join other minorities in low-income communities in the 1970s, specifically the Bronx. From there, rap spread to Central and South America, as rap’s main purpose— to bring to light the struggles of minorities—resonated with many people in impoverished areas, especially Puerto Rico and Cuba.4 Songs like “La Raza” by Kid Frost popularized the Latin rap, and the genre soon evolved into subgenres such as reggaetón and cumbia rap, leading to hits like “Gasolina” by Daddy Yankee and “Culo” by Pitbull.5 Yet, none of these three songs reached higher than #32 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart.6 So that begs the question: what changed?

First of all, the rapid increase in technology has revolutionized not only how fast people are consuming music, but how easy it is to discover new genres—I don’t think I would listen to half the music I do now without the ease of modern technology. But even more, I think the increasingly diverse backgrounds of this generation of Americans really is reflected in the rise in Latin rap’s popularity. All of those immigrants who helped

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make rap into what it is now had kids and now those kids are all grown up. Take Cardi B, who is half Dominican and half Trinidadian. The first-gens grew up listening to a mix of two different types of music: American music and music from their parents’ mother countries.

Since artists tend to be inspired by music they grew up with, many contemporary Latinx artists are combining American rap with Latin music. Fellow Latinx listeners love it because it reminds them of their childhood.

In other words, the definition of being an “American” is so broad nowadays, and American music, especially rap, embraces that ambiguity. And I love it.

MY FAVORITE LATIN RAP SONGS AT THE MOMENT: Soy Peor Remix—Bad Bunny, J Balvin, Ozuna, Arcangel Mala Mujer—C. Tangana Bum Bum Tam Tam—MC Fioti, J Balvin, Stefflon Don, Future, Juan Magá

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HOW TO SPOT A TALENTED

ELECTRONIC MUSIC PRODUCER

BY PEYTON MEYER WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO MAKE music? Today, it could mean many things. In some genres, groups come together and suggest melodies and chord progression while other band members use their instruments to complement those chords. For electronic music producers, on the other hand, creating a song means being knowledgeable not only in music theory but also well learned in a digital audio workstation, or a DAW. Logic Pro X, Fruit Loops Studio, and Ableton Live are examples of

popular DAWs. In a DAW, creators can select different instruments and either use an external keyboard or the built-in keyboard on a laptop to play chords and drums. From here, the creator can make a song. But this brings us to the question: what is a song? In a DAW, three instruments can make a song. In some pop songs, there are 300 instruments in the DAW. Depending on the genre of music and expertise of the producer, the number of instruments in a song vary.

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A “good” song is one that is original and pleasant to the ear—it forces the listener into a feeling an emotion. In hip hop, there is a basic format for a producer to follow: a catchy loop, hi hats, kicks, 808’s and snares. Then, a rapper raps over the song and voila, you have a finished rap song. Despite the simplicity of making a rap beat for a rapper, it is actually easy to tell if a rap song was produced by a “good” producer.

There are producers that know how to use a DAW and have musical ears. These producers are the ones behind a Drake song, for example. On the other hand, there are producers who know how to use a DAW but lack a “good” musical ear. Creations from these producers are expected to be basic—lacking in originality.

Anyone can learn how to use a DAW, but not everyone has a musical ear. I see a “good” producer as someone who grew up listening to their parents sing to them—that is, kids with parents who knew how to sing. With a general understanding in singing, a kid will hear music and voices throughout his or her life and grasp the deeper meaning of music. With this music knowledge, a kid can download a DAW and start playing around

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with the various functions. Usually using other artists as inspiration, the user will eventually find his or her sound. Finding your sound is the most important aspect of music production.

Once a producer has found his or her sound, they can confidently take risks in a DAW—create sounds and rhythms that are unique and catchy. The most exciting part about making music is the explosion of creativity that comes after learning how to use a DAW. Once the producer has become an expert at a DAW and understood the music that he or she wants to share, ‘good’ songs are produced. So, in this case, a ‘good’ producer means a confident producer—someone who is able to effectively translate their thoughts into musical melodies without letting any outside influence change the sound.

PHOTOGRAPH VIA FLUME’S INSTAGRAM

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Flume, an Australian electronic music producer, found his sound at the age of 16, younger than most producers. At the time, Flume was one of the first users of a particular DAW and over time, he was able to release songs that blew up across the world. How did he become popular so quickly? Because he started his musical journey with the intention of creating songs with sounds that no one had ever heard, or for that matter, experienced. While to some Flume’s music sounds like loud synthesizers and sporadic drums, to a well-trained ear, Flume’s works are masterpieces. Each of his songs are unique and often mimicked by other artists, both big and small.

Flume is widely recognized and acclaimed for starting a specific genre of electronic music: future bass. While future bass is a small category of music heard to today, Flume essentially created a new branch to the music tree, which allowed for young producers to see how being unique with music production can accumulate fans from all over the world.

One thing to look for when as-

sessing an artist is to look at how his or her music has evolved over the years. In Flume’s case, his music has progressed in a telling way; each new song he releases is more different, more complicated and far more unique than anything he has ever produced before. This progression is synonymous with a confident producer: a producer who is always looking to improve his or her production by taking musical risks.

To non-Flume-fans, Flume’s music may sound off-beat, but to a Flume fan, that quirky sound demonstrates Flume’s expertise.

Few current producers can create popular songs that are slightly off beat. In fact, most Flume songs sound off from time to time, but that is because he was inspired by the creations of Flying Lotus, another electronic music producer who implements many off-beat rhythms in his music. Flume’s evolution has proved to the entire electronic music community that being confident in the music that sounds right to you means being a talented electronic music producer.

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Q: Is the audience a part of the show?

BY THOM ELLISON SMALL SHOWS ARE WEIRD. When I go to shows with fewer than about 40 people, it’s hard to ignore the presence of the audience because the show seems so personal. It’s a different social interaction from going to a big show, which feels almost like I’m just hanging out with people and there happens to be someone playing music. But despite the intimacy of smaller shows, I stand there, not talking to people, watching someone put on a performance. Silences seem more silent and intense because I’m so aware of the other people at the show, and when someone is talking over the music, it’s hard to ignore because it’s so intrusive.

But as the audience gets bigger, maybe hundreds of people, it gets easier to ignore the crowd.

There’s always someone talking, so I can pretty much tune out the background noise of people talking. There are enough people in their own groups that I can’t keep track of everyone, so I can disappear in the crowd without any expectation of the show being a personal social interaction.

There are also really big shows, with upwards of a thousand people in the crowd. Here, the crowd becomes an entity of its own. People sing along and the crowd gains a voice. Audience members respond physically to the music and the crowd ac-

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quires the ability to move, like when performers have people move their arms back and forth with the beat. Sometimes festivals give out props to the crowd, like glow sticks, to unify the appearance of the crowd. It’s impossible to ignore the crowd, but not in the personal way of a small show. You notice the crowd in big shows, not the individuals.

Two of my favorite concert memories are the unique moments when these expectations were defied. In my sophomore year, I went to a show at Foam with roughly 25 people, many of whom I already knew because they were in KWUR with me. I was ready to have a typical small show experience where I couldn’t ignore everyone else.

But when the touring artist Squirrel Flower played her solo acoustic set, the other people just melted away. A lot of us were just sitting on the floor as she sat on a stool above us playing slow, beautiful songs about corn and loneliness. It was like being a kid during storytime in elementary school: the music washed away my awareness of how strange

it was to be sitting in a group of my friends but not acknowledging their presence at all. It stands out to me as a unique show because it was as immersive as a big show but with the personality and intimacy of a small one.

The other wasn’t entirely positive, but it was definitely memorable. Nostrum Grocers, the rap group of Milo and Elucid, were playing a mid-sized venue in Brooklyn with somewhere around 200 people there. They were playing their new album and doing a lot of audience interaction, and about halfway through their set, someone started shouting out requests for them to do a song called “Landscaping,” from an earlier album than the one they were playing.

Shouting a request is pretty normal, but this guy was very persistent and VERY loud. The first few times, they ignored him. I expected that this dude would stop shouting out the request because he was calling so much attention to himself. But he just.

Kept. Going. It was weird and people started laughing almost nervously every time he shout-

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ed. After maybe 15 requests, Milo acknowledged him and told him they’d probably play it later.

The shouter celebrated with a “Woo!” and they played a song that wasn’t “Landscaping.” The shouter shouted his request again and someone shouted at him to “shut the fuck up.” At this point, I think everyone in the audience felt some kind of weird tension.

At shows like this, you don’t expect to notice individuals in the crowd, but this guy had essentially become a part of the performance. It was a violation of the expected proceedings of the show and it was uncomfortable.

But Elucid had what I thought was the perfect response. He pointed out that the shouter was just enjoying the show in his own way and said that the other guy was out of order trying to control him: “Feels like the cops just showed up, and we don’t need no cops at this show, man.” He was able to acknowledge that the shouter had called attention to himself but chided the other guy for getting so upset with it. We cheered, and the show continued.

The shouter, in a very bold move,

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kept requesting “Landscaping,” but nobody seemed to mind anymore. Nostrum Grocers finished their set and made like they were going to leave the stage, then, at long last, they launched into “Landscaping.” Everybody cheered. It was perfect: they had removed a distracting conflict from the audience and turned it into a part of the performance. It even had a moral, which I’ll steal for myself as the moral of this article: treat your fellow audience members right and don’t turn the audience into the main show.

ILLUSTRATION BY JIN XIA

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Pup Stars AN IMPARTIAL LIST

BY WILL JAMISON @thewilljamison

(s

willjamisonart.com

BICHONCÉ’S TOP HITS

CELINE DASCHUND’S TOP HITS 1

My Heart Will Go On

2

The Power of Love

3

Because You Loved Me

1

Formation

2

Pretty Hurts

3

Single Ladies

ns)

he sta

pset t

n’t u o I do

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CHER-PEI’S TOP HITS 1

Dov’e L’amore

2

If I Could Turn Back Time

3

Fernando

MALTESE CYRUS’ TOP HITS 1

The Climb

2

Wrecking Ball

3

Party in the U.S.A.

RUPUG’S TOP HITS 1

Sissy That Walk

2

Kitty Girl

3

Supermodel

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BY EVE VAN HORN

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HOW one

PERSON’S

MUSIC changed MY LIFE PHOTOGRAPH BY DAVID REDFERN

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EVERY PERSON SEEMS TO HAVE that one thing they’re just really, really passionate about—a thing that they usually know a lot about and could discuss in such a way that could captivate an audience for hours. This thing could be anything from a sport to a hobby to simply a topic that is significant to the person.

In middle and high school, I struggled to find my “thing.” I had tried and quit just about every sport one could think of, and I didn’t seem to possess any interesting talents. The only distinguishable quality I had at the time was that I listened to music—a lot of it. My dad prides himself in being a classic rock connoisseur, so he regularly exposed me to artists like Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Pink Floyd.

However, one of the artists that really stuck out to me was Jimi Hendrix. My dad didn’t really play his songs often, but when he did, it became clear to me that I received his songs differently than I received songs from other artists. I don’t know exactly how to express how I felt when I lis-

tened to a Jimi Hendrix song for the first time. I would compare the experience to the brain’s reaction to eating the first potato chip in a bag: after the first song, I immediately wanted more.

Soon enough, my fourteenyear-old self routinely took to binge-listening to Jimi Hendrix’s music on Pandora. I found that I wasn’t just hearing his songs, though—I was really listening to what he had to say. I would hang on to every word as if Jimi himself was speaking directly to me.

Out of all of his songs, “If 6 Was 9” off of his Axis: Bold as Love album resonated with me the most. In this song, he declares, “I’m the one that’s going to have to die when it’s time for me to die, so let me live my life the way I want to,” and man, that really stuck with me. It may not sound like much to you, but that set of lyrics helped me realize that I wasn’t meant to have a practical, cookie-cutter talent or passion— and that was perfectly okay!

Now let’s fast-forward to senior year of high school. College application season was in full swing, and I spent most of my

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spare time writing a plethora of essays. Out of the many prompts that I received, though, only one excited and terrified me simultaneously: If you could have a conversation with any historical figure, living or not, who would it be and why? I knew the answer immediately. I thought that my answer was too strange for a college essay. I assumed that the readers were looking for a “textbook” answer that rambled on about a noble figure that everyone learned about in every single high school class. In fact, I still assumed that as I was writing it. Going back to the lyrics of “If 6 Was 9,” though, I decided to “fly my freak flag high” and write about someone that I was truly passionate about and someone that truly changed my life for the better.

With seemingly almost every word from Room Full of Mirrors

by Charles R. Cross ingrained in my mind, I went for it. If I could have a conversation with any historical figure, you’re damn right it would be Jimi Hendrix.

To spare you the boring details, I’ll just tell you that this is now my second piece about Jimi Hen-

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drix that WashU has seen thus far. Even though it may seem like I don’t have much to prove it besides intuition, I truly believe that Jimi Hendrix’s music is the reason that I’m here at this school and the reason that I’m writing for an awesome music magazine like AUX. Throughout my high school years, his music was there for me when real people weren’t, and I don’t think I’ll ever forget that. Whether you think that this account seems truthful or think that I sound like a cultish fan, I will proudly tell you to your face that I’m forever indebted to Jimi Hendrix and his music.

Even if Jimi Hendrix’s music isn’t quite your style, I hope that maybe this article will lead you to an artist’s music that will change your life (if you haven’t found it already). In the meantime though, come find me and ask me about Jimi Hendrix if you have an hour to spare. I’d be happy to tell you how much one artist’s songs shaped me into the person I am today.

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Hip-Hop Sampling:

The Culture’s Frankenstein?

BY RAFAEL OCASIO WHAT WOULD HIP-HOP BE without sampling? The relatively new music genre of hip-hop was born out of the brave attempts of early spin masters and MCs who sought to infuse contemporary popular music with their underground rhymes and create something completely new. Now, over forty years after its inception, hip-hop holds the crown for most popular music genre in the US. However, this progression into the national spotlight has not been a straight shot. As hiphop developed into a complete genre, it faced backlash from allegations of romanticizing gang violence and drug abuse allegations that are still made today.

Ironically, another issue that comes up while discussing hiphop is its sampling methods– the very same artistic technique that gave birth to the genre.

If you live in the US, you’ve probably heard “Lucid Dreams,” a catchy radio-made track by on-the-rise artist Juice WRLD. Although many teenagers may admire the song’s track as a unique hip-hop beat that stands out from the rest, virtually any other listener above the age of 25 will immediately recognize the nostalgic guitar riff at the beginning of the track. “Lucid Dreams” actually samples one of the most popular songs of the early 90s: “Shape of My Heart”

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by Sting. Although this fact may be common knowledge to many listeners, there is an alarming number of people who give Juice WRLD full credit for the song, regardless of its notable intertextuality. It is not a matter of discrediting the rapper and his producers for their sample selection and creative originality in combining two seemingly incongruent music genres– it is recognizing that there is a problem in how a whole generation is incorrectly attributing Sting’s original sound to Juice WRLD’s radio-saturating hit.

Regardless of its popularity, “Lucid Dreams” is the exception to typical sampling. Traditionally, producers tend to blend edited snippets of other tracks, as Murda Beatz did in Drake’s “Nice For What.” The female vocals in the song are an edited sample from Lauryn Hill’s “Ex-Factor” off of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, the Hill’s debut solo album. Despite her popularity both as a member of The Fugees and as a solo artist, most people would not recognize her vocals as easily as

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they identified Sting in “Lucid Dreams.” By editing the sample and integrating it into the song as a whole, Drake and Murda Beatz are in a way creating a new mix and not appropriating Hill’s original sound. Although this common sampling technique prevents musical appropriation, a new problem occurs: Hill’s original vocals are not recognized as the song’s musical foundation. Evidently, sampling is never a win-win scenario, and it ultimately leads to one question: is it better for artists to explicitly sample other music and risk false creative acknowledgment or to mix them enough to make another artist’s sound their own?

Despite the decades full of lawsuits and discussions regarding the artistic ethics of sampling in hip-hop, certain producers and rappers have stayed faithful to their sound-editing passions.

In fact, this controversial mixing technique has even boosted artists to global levels, the most notable example being Kanye West, a.k.a. the “Sample God.” Although his musical career

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started with underground rap production, his edgy and unique sampling led him to work with contemporary superstars like Jay Z. And later on, when he began rapping, he stuck with his style and continued to use dozens of samples from all genres.

Now, as one of the biggest celebrities in the world, he is still renowned for his exceptionally creative sound mixing. Nonetheless, fame always comes along with controversy– and apart from all the political and social messes Kanye has been stirring up this past year– much of the controversy surrounding Kanye stems from his music sampling.

For every project Kanye drops, there are at least two or three allegations of illegally sampling sounds from less popular artists, ranging from his work in Teyana Taylor’s “K.T.S.E.” and his own singles, such as “I Love It.” Nonetheless, West and many other rap moguls can usually successfully navigate around such accusations and still become award-winning artists with millions of fans around the world.

In the end, completely transparent and creative attribution is impossible and usually ends up falling in the hands of listeners. Do listeners enjoy dissecting songs and learning about its intertextual density? Or do they simply enjoy the song by listening to it? Regardless of the circumstances, sampling is not a perfect science but will nevertheless continue to be the motor that keeps hip-hop as popular as it is controversial.

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PHOTOGRAPH BY JIN XIA

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SEPAR THE FROM ART 38

An Artist’s Perspective on

PHOTOGRAPH BY JACK MCKAIN

ILLUSTRATIONS BY MADELEINE UNDERWOOD

RATING ART M THE TIST 39

BY LACY WILDER

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Xxxtentacion. R. Kelly. Louis C.K. Bill Cosby. John Lennon.

Chris Brown. In light of the #MeToo movement, and as more and more sexual assault allegations are brought against celebrities, consumers of art are starting conversations about whether an artist’s actions should affect a consumer’s experience of the artist’s work.

TRIGGER WARNING: THIS ARTICLE DESCRIBES INSTANCES OF RAPE AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE THAT MAY BE TRIGGERING FOR SOME READERS.

WHILE SOME PEOPLE BELIEVE that consumers can continue to enjoy an artist’s work even if they have abused or sexually assaulted someone, others believe that supporting artists who have done such things perpetuates these issues in society. This argument has brought about the concept of “separating the art from the artist,” or supporting someone’s work even if you don’t support their actions as a person. The controversy arises from the question of whether art or behavior is a better expression of the artist and what responsibility consumers have for responding to artist’s behavior.

As an artist, I believe that my art is the ultimate expression of myself. The ideas I express in my song lyrics connect to

my very real emotions, beliefs, and experiences. When I create my art, I must connect to the most deeply vulnerable aspects of myself in order to produce something I feel is worthwhile.

In most cases, the more personal a song is, the better received it is by people who listen to my music. If I, as an artist, were to separate myself from my art, the very reason for which I create art would cease to exist. If anything, I must do the exact opposite--bring myself closer to my art. If I am not separating my art from myself, I do not expect my listeners to do so either. My art, like my behavior, is a direct expression of who I am. If I express a personal value through my art, I want to express that value in the ways I go about my day to day life. Personal beliefs

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and morals translate into behavior even more easily than they translate into art. By separating the art from the artist, you are removing the sense of “self” from the very concept of self expression.

“I always see more value in art when I feel like it’s genuine,” says Nyla Smith, an indie-pop singer and student at the University of Miami Frost School of Music. “People don’t realize how influential artists and their personas are to society. In a lot of cases, they’re more immediately influential than political figures.

For instance, when Kanye West tweeted about slavery being a choice. Encountering someone with a huge platform who is already validated by society for their music can validate those thoughts in people and in society. If someone like Kanye West says something like that, whether it’s a ploy or not, whether it’s genuine or not, it’s offensive to me because it’s a misuse of the platform that you get to have with art. Being able to make art is already a privilege in itself.

“There are millions of artists out there making really good

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music, and not all of them are famous. And a lot of times, the things that play into being famous aren’t necessarily always talent. You can always find the music of an artist somewhere else in a different person. If an artist decided not to treat their power with respect, I can find another artist with just as good music and put my attention towards them. I think that as a society, in making art, it’s important to support people who are doing it for the right reasons. I think it’s important not to separate the artist from the art because in society, that doesn’t happen. The influence of the artist and the art are usually parallel and it can be dangerous to support someone for their art and not for themselves.”

From a purely economic standpoint, artists and the organizations connected to those artists directly profit off of consumers experiencing their art. Artists rely on their fans for their income, and any consumer’s choice to consume art, even on a free streaming service such as Spotify or YouTube, financially supports the artist in some

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way. In fact, the reason why I and many other artists have been discouraged from pursuing careers in the arts is because artists are dependent on people consuming their art rather than on an hourly or annual salary. Yet for artists, unlike in other careers, there is no Human Resources department to hold us accountable for how our behavior affects our jobs. So the task falls, however unfairly,

to those who consume our art.

The only way for someone to be “fired� from being famous is for consumers to stop investing in their art. Therefore, in order to further the process of breaking down social barriers such as rape culture, domestic abuse, toxic masculinity, racism, cultural appropriation, homophobia, and countless other issues, consumers must do away with the concept of separating the art from the artist.

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Of course, making such a large scale social change would require millions of consumers to make the small sacrifice of not supporting artists whose work they enjoy because of problematic actions the artist has committed. It is not unreasonable to ask consumers to stop consuming a miniscule fraction of the vast array of art that exists for the purpose of breaking enormous social barriers. For example, if thousands of consumers can boycott single-use plastic straws in order to slow pollution or Chick-fil-A for donating millions of dollars to anti-LGBTQ+ organizations, can boycotting entertainers have the same effect? Is boycotting a person the same as boycotting a business or institution? What responsibility do fans have to control the artists they listen to? Are fans aware of the role their complicity plays in allowing artists to behave in certain ways? If you are choosing to hold an artist accountable for their art, why should you not hold them accountable for their actions?

Consumers’ decision to separate the artist from the art is symptomatic of a much larger problem. By continuing to listen to Chris Brown’s music after finding out that he physically abused Rihanna or continuing to watch Louis C.K.’s comedy

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specials after he himself confirmed the accusations of five different women who accused him of sexual misconduct, you are essentially deciding that you do not care about the abuse or do not care about the sexual misconduct. What could possibly be so good about their art that it overrides the trauma they have inflicted upon other people?

What could possibly be so good about their art that it overrides their integral role in perpetuating rape culture and toxic masculinity? The logic behind separating the art from the artist is the same logic that led Judge Aaron Persky to sentence Brock Turner to a mere six months in jail for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman because he didn’t want to “ruin” the career of such a talented student and swimmer. It is the idea that male talent makes up for the trauma they inflict on marginalized communities. This logic is not brought about by a shortage of talent in the world, but by a widespread unwillingness to hold men accountable for their actions. There is no doubt in my mind that the victims of these celebrities’ actions were also incredibly talented and that they in no way deserved what happened to them. At what point has an artist done something so horrible that we finally decide it

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is worth “ruining their career?”

Why don’t rape and domestic abuse warrant someone losing their career?

Ultimately, the question of separating the artist from the art is a matter of determining the relative responsibility of the artist and consumer. To what extent do fans feel as though the media they consume reflects who they are? Are you uncomfortable listening to Xxxtentacion’s music knowing that he beat a pregnant woman and almost killed a cellmate in a juvenile detention center because he thought he was gay? There’s a good reason you’re uncomfortable. If we as artists choose to behave in ways that would make the beauty of our art appear hypocritical, do we transfer that hypocrisy onto consumers if they choose to disregard our behavior? If a fan continues to consume our art despite our behavior, does that create a pattern of artists feeling as though they can get away with anything? At what point are consumers supposed to draw the line between natural human flaws and blatantly immoral be-

havior? If we decide not to listen to R. Kelly because he allegedly sexually abused minors, should we also stop listening to John Mayer for allegedly cheating on Katy Perry? Would we as artists rather be respected as artists or as people? Why must we put ourselves into situations that would force our fans to sacrifice their respect for us as people or their love for our art? We should love our art more than that. We should love ourselves more than that. We should care about humanity more than that.

Perhaps it is easier for both consumers and artists to separate the artist from the art.

Perhaps the act of simply finding new music to listen to or new movies to watch is far too much to ask of consumers. Perhaps the concept of consumer responsibility is too idealistic to expect, but idealism is shown to be an excellent catalyst for social change. After all, in the words of a man who beat his first wife and emotionally abused his son, “you may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you will join us, and the world will live as one.”

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CHECK OUT THE ARTISTS BEHIND THE WORDS LACY WILDER I See Black Light EP on Apple Music, Spotify, Google Play, and Amazon Music NYLA SMITH https://soundcloud.com/nylala

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Opening Acts:

A Study in Contrasts PHOTOGRAPH BY MADELEINE UNDERWOOD

BY HENRY GREENSTEIN IN OCTOBER 2009, I WENT TO one of my first concerts ever at Pasadena’s legendary Rose Bowl, and what a show it was.

The Black Eyed Peas were at the height of their powers, as the trio (quartet? quintet?) of hits from their questionably titled summer album The E.N.D. (The Energy Never Dies) continued to smash Billboard records. And throughout their set, the (supposed) hip-hop motley crew had the audience in thrall, largely because they really were ceaselessly energetic. The short, tight set flew by, except for when they paused to (really and truly) dramatically bring out estranged Guns ’N’ Roses guitarist for a Fergie-led cover of “Sweet Child O’ Mine.” This choice was so thoroughly bizarre that it made me enjoy the show even more.

By the time they finished “I Gotta Feeling,” I was totally satisfied with the experience and also completely exhausted.

I guess I should also mention, in the interest of full disclosure (and because it’s the point of this article), that U2 was there to play after The Black Eyed Peas. Maybe I just didn’t have a sufficient knowledge of their 2009 concert repertoire, which was heavy on unusual choices like a remix of the legendary “I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight,” featuring Larry Mullen Jr. running around the stage with a conga, but I was profoundly bored throughout. My 11-year-old self was not especially impressed by their much-ballyhooed “360º” setup, and twenty songs later, when the ethereal, extremely drawn-out guitar intro of

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“Where the Streets Have No Name” (one of my favorite songs by the band, even then) concluded the first of multiple encores, I was set to go.

The extremely obvious lesson here is that the opening act can profoundly, and maybe subconsciously, shape a concert-going experience. The issue with the Black Eyed Peas and U2 wasn’t the (admittedly drastic) contrast in genre between the two bands.

It was that the venerable Dublin rockers weren’t able to match the energy of the opening band and thus found themselves at an inherent disadvantage. Actually, I’m of the opinion that a few degrees of stylistic difference can be ideal for an opening act. One of my favorite examples of an effective opening act is Jupiter Winter, who brought to the table a more guitar-centric strain of power pop than their hosts Jukebox the Ghost. The soaring vocals of Jupiter Winter’s highly talented frontwoman Lelia Broussard successfully jarred most of the crowd members from their pre-concert stupor.

(Unfortunately, they failed to

secure the new fans they could have picked up from that evening by only having one song available for listening online and neglecting to follow through on a promised summer EP, but I digress. Their performance that January night at the Echo was exceptional on its own.) Similarly, Oh Land was an excellent choice to open for OMD on the latter group’s reunion tour. The selection of a modern electronic group to precede an 80s pioneer of the genre served to showcase for the audience the style’s evolution in the intervening decades.

It would be remiss of me not to mention, however, that large differences between the opening act and main band can sometimes result in technical issues that don’t reflect well on the former. I’ve witnessed two of my favorite modern garage rock artists, Benjamin Booker and Band of Skulls, be completely hamstrung by poor opening-act mixing. Booker’s powerful, gravelly voice was completely lost under an overwhelming guitar track, and in the case of

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the latter group, Matt Hayward’s violent style of drumming inadvertently sabotaged James Marsden’s powerful guitar licks.

At least in the first case, the issue can be attributed to poor preparation from a group of sound techs assigned primarily to mic up Portugal. The Man, a group dependent on the peerless falsetto of vocalist John Gourley.

The venue didn’t put in sufficient effort to make Booker, with his contrasting style, sound good — which he really, really is — and as such, his group’s performance suffered greatly. For Band of Skulls, the drum-forward mixing, even though it sounded pretty poor, was actually almost effective as a direct contrast to the group following them, the occasionally atmospheric and synth-heavy Muse. This disparity was especially useful given that Muse was touring in support of their (critically maligned) foray into electronic instrumentation and even some dubstep, The 2nd Law. Opening bands are great.

Seeing a band in concert can indelibly alter how you listen

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to the rest of their music — and whether you do listen to it at all. If your first exposure to a musical group is hearing them live, you can form a bond with the artist that far surpasses your connection to one that you first hear on Spotify’s Discover Weekly while staring blankly at statistics homework. If the opening act is different enough to be compelling without totally overshadowing the group everyone came to see, and if it receives the necessary support from the venue to put its best foot forward, it can transform a lackluster concert experience into a night to remember.

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CONTRIBUTORS

FOUNDER AND EIC Reede Goldberg ART DIRECTOR Madeleine Underwood TREASURER Gabriel Beer MANAGING EDITORS Morgan Anker Jack Elliott-Higgins Thomas Ellison COPY EDITORS Morgan Anker Jayla Butler Jack Elliott-Higgins Ashley Lin Bonnie Simonoff Jessie Smith Melodey Soong

WRITERS Jayla Butler Kate Carlson Garrett Cunningham Thomas Ellison Michael Fogarty Anda Gavrilescu Henry Greenstein Peyton Meyer Rafael Ocasio Jessie Smith Elizabeth Van Horn Lacy Wilder ARTISTS Lucas Drummond Will Jamison Jin Xia

ANDA GAVRILESCU “IS RAP AMERICAN ANYMORE?” 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hip_hop_music#Age_of_streaming 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Like_It_Like_That_(Pete_Rodriguez_song) 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Like_It_(Cardi_B,_Bad_Bunny_and_J_Balvin_song) 4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hip_hop_music#Age_of_streaming 5. https://us.napster.com/genre/latin/latin-rap-hip-hop 6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culo_(song) ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasolina#Sales JESSIE SMITH “A BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO JAZZ APPRECIATION” https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92192189 JAYLA BUTLER “SHUT UP AND SING” https://variety.com/2017/music/features/kendrick-lamar-career-damn-to-pimp-a-butterfly-1202619725/

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ILLUSTRATION BY JIN XIA

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