TheBeat

Music playlists - what gets you through the day. Students share their favorite playlists that helps them study and work efficiently.

Music can sometimes be helpful, but distracting at the same time. It is important to me because it helps me to focus, be calm, and can give great ideas. I usually listen to music when I’m at school to give me a peaceful day and to not think of anything else. There are times I can’t listen because some things may be important that I need to hear.

If you listen to Spanish, music a artist you could listen to would be, Ivan Cornejo, but everyone has a different taste in music so someone may want rock, country, rap or just songs with no lyrics

YouTube and Spotify are most likely where I tune in to listen. - Ana

Why is this music important to you? It is important to me because it helps me get through tough times How does it impact your day? It improves the mood of the day and can even make me more emotional Where do you find your music? Spotify and Youtube

Who, and/or what are your favorite musicians and/ or songs? I’ll do you one better, my top 3 artists and my top 3 songs from each, 1st Kendrick lamar with my top 3 songs being Alright, Money Trees, and m.A.A.d City. 2nd we have The Weeknd with my top three songs being Blinding lights, Sacrifice, and Out Of Time. 3rd and finally we have Denzel Curry with my top 3 songs being Walkin’, GOATED, and X-Wing. - Matthew W.

Music is can be important to me because it helps me think of ideas for the stories I tend to write. It helps motivate me to draw as well, as the music I’m listening too can give me even more motivation to do whatever I’m doing at that moment.

2. Like I’ve said before, it can help motivate and give me ideas for drawings.

3. Lo-fi music is a great example of something that’s “chill”. There’s been a bunch of livestreams that tend to play this very calm, very chill, and very relaxing beat. The music is soft beats and it helps a lot of students focus. It helped me in the past, not as much now because I don’t need music to do my school work anymore.

4. For working out Phonk, but for school and getting your work done the Lo-fi

5. I found all my stuff from Tik-Tok to be perfectly honest. - Mattie V

Songs that help me include pop, electronic, indie pop, alternative rock/pop

Artist include Melanie Martinez, Taylor Swift, Casada, and any song that feature Alan Walker.

This music is important to me because it makes me happy, allow me to daydream just about anything, and calm my nerves

It helps me keep my positive feeling due to the upbeat music

3. Lo-fi or soft classical music because research says music without words helps one focus

I would recommend lofi music. Personally music with words distracts the student from doing anything and might daydream the entire time. If someone wants to be inspired in art or needing story ideas will be whatever their music taste relies on. For physical activity: Metal, pop, and/or electronic I find my music on youtube. - Camila

I don’t listen to music while I at school but when I’m working I usually listen to jazz albums, partially because they don’t include any lyrics (which distract me if I’m working). This is usually music from Pat Metheny Group just because my dad got me into their stuff. I listen to other miscellaneous jazzy/instrumental music but I can’t really remember the names of other groups or people. The few times I actually do listen to something while doing school work it’s usually white noise because it helps me focus better.

It’s not for everyone because it’s kinda experimental and boomer-y, so if you don’t like it you should probably just listen to one of those lo-fi streams, or even just white noise.

I download all of my music because I don’t want to pay for Spotify Premium or iTunes :/ - Elijah B.

The songs that help me focus in school are the songs that have a relaxing or happy vibe to them. My favorite song writer is Mac Miler, but I like a lot of lo-fi streams, because they help me focus on doing my work better. I recommend any lo-fi type steams or anything instrumental to people that are struggling. I find my music from enhancing the playlists I already have, or by going to other publicly shared playlists on Spotify. I find that people have their own interest in music, so find what genre of music you like and expand on that. - Josh K.

Music helps me be in my own space. It helps calm me down or get excited! The right music can change my whole day!

I would recommend Ghost and Pals’ instrumentals, they’re nice and quiet or can be great background noise if you just want something playing!

I mostly find my music from random videos I watch, movies, and just browsing around Tiktok or Youtube.

My top 3 artists are Ghost and Pals, Kikuo, and Michael Abels. My top 3 songs right now are Worldend Normopathy, Pokkan Color, and Telecaster B boy. - Ad B.

by Matthew Wolford

TheWeeknd, real name Abel Tesfaye, Was born on February 16, 1990, in Toronto, Canada. Before he became this Icon in the music industry he had a dark past, like when he was in 11th grade he dropped out of school so he could party more as well as doing some substances which now he is mostly clean of and says he doesn’t do it as much as he did when he was younger. When he first started back in 2009, he was dropping anonymously on youtube where people thought that The Weeknd was a band instead of just him.

Trilogy

So how this is gonna work is when I do my rating for trilogy it’s just gonna be the average of all the parts and I’ll put my favorite song from each part. But anyway when listening through Trilogy you don’t only just get updated versions of the songs you also get a brand new song for each part, This overall makes it the best way to listen to these original songs instead of the regular which sounds much older than the new ones. For House of Balloons the new track is titled Twenty Eight, for Thursday it’s titled Valerie, and for Echoes of Silence it’s titled Till Dawn. Overall not a bad start to a career with songs that are extremely good on this piece of discography.

Rating: 6.75

Top 3 tracks: House of Balloons, The Zone, and D.D.

House of Balloons:

To me the first part of Trilogy is what shows the true potential of The Weeknd when he first started as this was the era where people mistook him as a band. Anyway this piece of Trilogy is overall pretty solid, as It does have some really good songs on it like House of Balloons and The Morning which were two of my favorite songs on this part. Since this is the start of The Weeknd’s discography on spotify it does show its age and it still holds up surprisingly well to now, around 12 years after this part specifically came out, but I’m surprised that I liked this part as much as I did since it is his oldest piece of music I’ve listened to. It’s also surprising how it still sounds relatively similar to his more current music as it has the same feel.. Also It starts some of the themes that come very important later in The Weeknd’s later albums.

Rating: 6/10 Pretty great intro to a now legendary career of The Weeknd as this first part of his discography lets you know the types of songs and the feels he goes for through his sound.

Top 3 track: House of Balloons, The Morning, and Twenty Eight

Thursday

Being the sequel to House of Balloons it has some expectation to be as good as its predecessor or be better than it. Does it live up to that expectation? To me it does because it may start off a bit slower than House of Balloons, but picks up quick! I’d say Thursday is a bit better than it as this has his first ever feature in his discography in Drake, another Canadian superstar. It carries on with some really great tracks and ends on a nice high note.

Rating: 6.5 All in All it’s a bit better than it’s prequel and to me has some stand-out moments while it does have some lows it has more highs, and some moments outclass its predecessor.

Top 3 tracks: Thursday, The Zone, and The Birds pt. 1

Echoes of Silence

The Final part of The Weeknd’s Trilogy does have to end off this series well, which It surely outclasses the rest in just the first 2 tracks as those two bring so much energy to the tracks as this Trilogy truly shows how much he has evolved throughout such a short time. As his sound evolves and starts to sound like what we’ll be hearing in the future by him.

Rating: 7.5/10 This is easily the best part of Trilogy and ends this series on an extremely high note before his first album.

Top 3 tracks: D.D., Montreal, and Till Dawn

Kiss Land

This was The Weeknd’s first studio album as the Trilogy record is a trio of eps which are shorter than albums but are more than one track, so it’s not just a single. Now this might actually be the most underrated piece of his discography by him in my opinion, because I never see anyone bring this up when talking about how great The Weeknd’s discography is. However this is still a good and fun listen while it may not be as good as some of his future albums, it is still relatively good. For example the song Live for featuring fellow Canadian music artist Drake is a really fun and enjoyable song, and is probably my favorite from the record as these two work so well together on this song, not to mention this is from the era where drake was at his peak too, but besides that this album is a decent opener to a legendary catalog of albums and is a needed part of his discography even if it’s not his best.

Rating: 6.5 To me While this album is a great opener and has a nice sound and great vocals as always with the Weeknd and even has a fantastic 3 track run from tracks 6, 7, and 8 Live for, Wanderlust, and Kiss Land

Top 3 tracks: Live for, Wanderlust, and Kiss Land

Beauty Behind The Madness

This was the album that blew The Weeknd to superstardom with his first and second #1 hit Can’t feel my face and The Hills. This brings his album with the most hits as this album currently has the most hits as of right now with those two I mentioned earlier, and also Earned It & In The Night, as it is also a classic song on this album. However if i may say these songs may not even be in the top 3 tracks as the best one of these three songs

The Hills is easily the best to me, but they are all still great. But somehow on this album he talks about illegal substances and they still were extremely popular like for example Can’t Feel My Face is about these illegal substances and it’s extremely popular. Also with it being his most popular album it had some expectations, even though I knew it would be fantastic I needed to hear it myself, and it was a really fun listen with all the hits in between some other really solid and fun to listen to tracks as some of these other tracks surprised me with how good they were as I did expect to not like some tracks which there are only a couple but it doesn’t bring it down that much for me unlike some other songs on albums from different artists. Bringing it back to the track In The Night this track highlights some of the inspirations he got from Michael Jackson where he has some of the same mannerisms on some of the words where it sounds like a 80s/90s Michael Jackson.

Rating: 8/10 To me it’s up there for conversation for his best, still not as good as After Hours for me, but this album with the amount of hits and just good songs on here just provides it to be such a good album, as to be the only downsides of this album come from the tracks are Acquainted, and I don’t really like Ed Sheeran on Dark Times. But those don’t it down enough for me to not have fun with this album.

Top 3 tracks: Losers, In The Night, and The Hills

Starboy

Starboy is The Weeknd’s 3rd studio album and considered a masterpiece by many, To me this album shows how he has reacted to the superstardom he received from his previous album and even begins the album with him talking about his stardom in the title track Starboy which also peeked at the top of the billboard charts marking his 3rd time reaching this achievement and would certainly not be his last time hitting number 1 with a song. Another point to this record making it a really fun listen is how the beats are, as the first couple tracks all have this electro type of beat, seeing as Daft Punk does produce a couple of tracks here but then it becomes a more relaxed beat in the middle of the album, which leads to a lot of great beats included in this album. This album has a couple misses on the tracklist mainly Attention and has an interlude that is alright, but all in all this features fantastic beats, great vocals and some fantastic features which makes this a great listen. Rating: 8/10 Very great album with fantastic tracks throughout the album and features some great artists on certain songs such as Kendrick Lamar on Sidewalks or Future on All I Know. Also in this Album it has some more all time favorites from the Weeknd with both Starboy, and I feel it coming

Top 3 songs: Sidewalks, Starboy, and Rockin’

My Dear Melancholy

While this may not be a full entire album it is still an important part of The Weeknd’s discography as an ep (Extended play) in-between two of his most popular albums. As it’s only 6 tracks in total it is a relatively short but good listen. This short ep opens on its most popular song Call out my name. Now while this may not have as many themes as his actual albums this does great representation of a theme of relationships that have ended but you still want it to work out somehow, as in the opening track he says that he says “You just wasted my time” but yet in the chorus of the track he says “I want you to stay”. This ep has a great sound to it as he talks about relationships that don’t work out which fits well with the title and about Melancholy. To me the only downside to this ep is how short it is, as it is only 21 minutes in run time, that is if you include the A Cappella version of Call out my name.

Rating: 6/10 Only because it’s way too short compared to his best albums and pieces of discography which is the main thing holding it back from being a fantastic album, but with the songs that are on here none of them are truly a bad song, they are all at least good to me, I just need more.

Top 3 Tracks: Call Out My Name, I was never there, and Try me

After Hours

After Hours is the Weeknd’s fourth studio album (Trilogy and My Dear Melancholy aren’t included as studio albums). This album features a character played by the weeknd with no name as he journeys through the sin city of Las Vegas. It plays into the themes of heartbreak, loneliness, recklessness, infidelity, and withdrawal, most of these themes are not unusual for The Weeknd to cover, he even did in previous albums of his. In fact, this album produced one of the most popular songs of all time, Blinding Lights which is currently the most streamed song on spotify and was even in the top 10 songs for 88 weeks. Even though this album was supremely popular with a couple extremely popular songs, It didn’t even get one single nomination in the grammys. Even though it didn’t get nominated it is still widely considered to be his greatest album he’s made (Which personally I agree with as it has some of my personal favorite songs in his entire discography and is so deep in lore).

Rating: 9/10 It’s just a fantastic piece of music and art even as all the music videos and everything brings this album together to make his best pieces of music yet. Especially with the visuals and all the parts to the music videos and how every appearance of this character The Weeknd made for this album is all a part of this just truly brings it all together to make an amazing listen and a fantastic watch as well.

Top 3 songs: Blinding Lights, Save your tears, and Snowchild

Dawn FM

Dawn FM is the sequel to his previous album After Hours and as of right now it is his most recent album, It has a total run time accumulating to fifty-two minutes. It continues some of the themes started by After Hours especially with his music videos giving more lore to the story of the album about him in purgatory after he dies in the lore of After Hours As well as introducing new themes like regret of the past. In several of the songs in Dawn FM it features a DJ host type character for a radio show called Dawn FM who leads us through the purgatory type setting and serves as interludes to songs to progress the album, not to mention this charac- ter is voiced by Jim Carrey with a chilling but oddly soothing voice. It also includes a track titled A tale by Quincy which sees producer Quincy Jones (Famed for his work with Micheal Jackson) talk about his past and why he’s afraid to have too close of a relationship with a woman, which is a common theme in The Weeknd’s music.

Rating: 8/10 It’s almost at the level of After Hours to me, as while I really enjoy how 80s this entire album feels there are some tracks on this album I feel iffy about which is the only true part holding this album back from being as good as his previous album. Jim Carrey is a huge perk to this album though as he performs fantastically as the Host of the Dawn FM show, as well as some absolutely fantastic tracks.

Top 3 songs: Out of time, Sacrifice, and How do I make you love me?