Issue 57: Back to the Odd Future

THE ENDLESS EVOLUTION OF

Donald Glover

northeastern northeastern students students on music on music

The Revival of Pop Music | 43

BACK TO THE ODD FUTURE

| From Geeks The Future A History of Awakening Afrofuturism in Music | 20 | 18 Is Funky: | 25 TheGroupie WomenFreaks of Jazzto| Tumblr 12 A Musical18Monopoly Folk Rock’s Bodily

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o N No52 57

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Tastemakers Music Magazine 232 Curry Student Center 360 Huntington Ave. Boston, MA 02115 tastemakersmag@gmail.com Š 2019 tastemakers music magazine all rights reserved

E-Board President Kristie Wong Editor-in-Chief Nikolas Greenwald Art Directors Ryan Fleischer Stephanie Miano Promotions Director Emily Harris

Staff Features Editor Grant Foskett Reviews Editors Emma Turney Maya Dengel Interviews Editor Max Rubenstein Photo Directors Lauren Scornavacca Rayven Tate Rayn Tavares Social Media Directors Hannah Lowicki Sofia Maricevic

The Team Staff Writers Aditya Chetia Aidan Fox Alex Wetzel Allison Bako Amanda Sturm Andrew Quercio Asher Rappaport Bryan Grady Christian Triunfo Chuck Stein Desmond LaFave Elena Sandell Elliot Kerwin Erin Merkel Ethan Matthews

Fisher Hunnewell Hue-Ninh Nguyen Jayden Khatib Joanna Moore Jordan Ament Kaitlin Kerr Lacie Foreht Matthew Schuler Michael Hrinda Miles Kirsch Mona Yu Nell Snow Olivia Hally Pratik Redyy Rachel Cerato Rachel Ellis Sabrina Zhang Sean Stewar Taylor Piepenbrink Terrance Dumoulin Theodore Kypreos Willa Shiomos Art & Design Nicholas Alonzo Gayathri Raj Srilekha Nuli Angela Lin Angelina Han Jenny Chen Anna Rowley Kaya Dlouchy Shannon Ehmsen Sara Hartleben Gabrielle Bruck Kat Minor Roman Distefano Alexander Agahnia Promotions Hannah Lowicki Sofia Maricevic Angela Lin Paloma Weidmer Ryan Tomicic Emily Huang Mohsen Alqunaie Joseph Handel Grant Foskett Emily Griffin Spencer Haber Hannah Crotty Katie Isbell Alyssa Giles

Nicholas Alonzo Emily Cataldo Carly Monson Nandini Shah Jenny Chen Jack Kerwin Emily Greenberg Grant Foskett Mathew Rose Photography Nina Spellman Brandon Yap Alex Mauriello Kimmy Curry Reine Lederer Angela Lin Evan Daniels Sam Cronin Morgan Mapstone Saakhi Singh Nathaniel Brown Julia Aguam Frances Lee Gabrielle Whittle Aly Kula Kristen Chen Amanda Stark Sydney Lerner Maggie Navracruz Alex Pesek Annina Hare Hannah Lee Casey Martin Natalie McGowan Hang Nguyen Catherine Argyrople Rayven Tate Brian Bae Lauren Scornavacca Hang Nguyen Konstantin Rezchikov Doga Tasdemir Matt Streibich Bobby Singh Nicholas Alonzo Kaline Langley Risa Tapanes Anthony Mao Emily Gringorten Christian Gomez Rayn Tavares

Meet the Staff

About Ryan Fleischer Position Art Director Major Business and Design Graduating Winter 2019 Favorite Venue The Hollow (Albany, NY); The House of Blues Tastemaker Since Fall 2017

Rayn Tavares Position Photo Director Major Mechanical Engineering Graduating 2021 Favorite Venue Royale Tastemaker Since Spring 2018

Ethan Matthews Position Staff Writer Major Architecture Graduating 2024 Favorite Venue The Southern Cafe and Music Hall (Charlottesville, VA) Tastemaker Since Fall 2019

Listening to

Matt and Kim Grand Lizzo “Juice” Generationals “When They Fight, They Fight”

Mariya Takeuchi “Plastic Love”

Quote

“The Sufjan Stevens discography is low-key mood for long runs.”

“Lemme get on the aux.”

Marvin Gaye Trouble Man New Edition “Can You Stand The Rain”

Magic City Hippies Modern Animal

“That song kinda slaps.”

Hippo Campus “Pin - Demo” Glass Animals “The Other Side of Paradise”

Katie Isbell Position Promotions Major Journalism Graduating Spring 2020 Favorite Venue Paradise Rock Club Tastemaker Since Spring 2017

Broadside “Empty” Jonas Brothers “Happiness Begins” The Click Five “Good Day”

“Let me show you a picture of my dog.”

Bastille, Rockland Trust Bank Pavillion

Photo by Lauren Scornavacca (Industrial Engineering)

Table of Contents Cover Story

Editorials

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Back to the Odd Future Tastemakers’ Max Rubenstein walks through 16 of the most impactful albums to come from the minds of the artists of Odd Future.

Reviews

15

Album Reviews

43

Show Reviews

Danny Brown, JPEGMAFIA, Charli XCX

Wilco - Maya Dengel paints a picture of the band’s recent show at the Wang Theatre.

Interviews

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A Musical Monopoly The music of AKB48 is catchy and fun, so why do listeners and critics alike love to hate on the “Soulless” hits?

The Most Important Producer of the Decade Arca’s production influence has been a pinnacle in music for years, and you’ve probably never heard of her.

22

The Soundtracks of Euphoria and Booksmart The music that binds Gen Z’s first two cinematic anthems.

24

The Influence of Tyler

34

The Anonymous A-Listers

A Chat with Hobo Johnson From Tiny-Desk to House of Blues, the man behind “Peach Scone” opens up.

Features

12 25

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06 Calendar 36 Local Photos

Folk Rock’s Bodily Awakening

Swedish Metal and the Stompbox When it comes to Sweden, you might first think IKEA or Avicii, but the Scandinavian state also boasts a long history of death metal mastery.

Etcetera

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Tastemakers Presents: A Battle of the Bands Six Northeastern University musical acts graced the stage of Afterhours. Their interviews grace the stage of these pages.

The “Jazz Age” coincided almost directly with the Suffrage Movement of the 1920’s, yet the women who helped shape a genre have remain overlooked.

For a recent crop of folk rock musicians, the personal is still political as they write music directly informed directly by the bodies we inhabit.

A deep-dive into the impact of Tyler the Creator.

Get to know the ghost-writers behind the mega-hits we’ve all been been singing.

The Women of Jazz

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In Defense Of Kanye. Again. Chuck Stein defends one of the more regrettable songs from 2007’s “Graduation.”

Tastemakers Disects In 2009, the Mountain Goats found inspiration in scripture to craft a new story.

Calendar November Su

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Tool TD Garden

Louis The Child House of Blues

Sasha Sloan Royale

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Kim Petras Royale

Kim Petras Royale

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Toro y Moi House of Blues

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Lil Tecca Royale

Hobo Johnson House of Blues

Hozier Boch Wang Center

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SKEGSS Brighton Music Hall

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FKA Twigs House of Blues

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BROCKHAMPTON Agganis Arena

Rockommends

BROCKHAMPTON November 24 @ Agganis Arena

Jonas Brothers November 24th @ TD Garden

BROCKHAMPTON is returning to Agganis Arena this November with special guests slowthai and 100 gecs. All three performers released fantastic albums in 2019, and, with their live energies through the roof, the vibes will be unmatched.

They’re back and (almost) better than ever! The Jonas Brothers are all grown up and will be bringing their latest album Happiness Begins to Boston’s TD Garden. You’ll be sure to hear new hits like “Sucker” along with some 2000’s classics. If we’re lucky maybe we will be honored with the soundtrack from likely the greatest Disney Channel Original movie of all time, Camp Rock. Either way this is sure to be the nostalgic trip you don’t want to miss!

Max Rubenstein (Marketing)

Emma Turney (Communications)

December Su

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Summer Walker House of Blues

Cashmere Cat Paradise Rock Club

Lucy Dacus Royale

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Ween House of Blues

Cher TD Garden

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A$AP Ferg House of Blues

Jingle Ball TD Garden

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21 Daughters Paradise Rock Club

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SKEGSS November 17 @ Brighton Music Hall

Mariah Carey December 13 @ Boch Wang Center

Why spend money on turning up the thermostat this winter when you can sweat your**** a**” off at a punk concert? Australian trio, SKEGSS, hits Brighton Music Hall November 17th with their surf/garage rock that will make you forget about how dreary Boston winters really are.

The singular diva is gracing the Boston metro area this December and you’d be remiss to miss out. *Dog whistle sounds*

Maya Dengel (Media and Screen Studies and Communications)

Nikolas Greenwald (Chemical Engineering)

Cover Story

BACK TO THE BACK TO THE BACK TO THE BACK TO THE ODD FUTURE Bastard Tyler opens his debut mixtape with the following: “Yo, fuck 2DopeBoyz and fuck Nah Right and any other fuck-***-ass blog that can’t put an 18-year-old *** making his own fucking beats, covers, videos, and all that shit. Fuck you post-Drake-ass cliché-jerking, LA-slauson rapping fuck-***ass Hypebeast ***, now back to the album.” I feel like that speaks for itself.

Recommended Tracks: French!, AssMilk, VCR/Wheels, Inglorious

Goblin While Tyler’s first album is definitely a mixed bag, early-career defining tracks like “Yonkers” and “She” carry the project through 18 angsty skater boy anthems. Accompanied by a loose therapy session narrative that is carried over from his previous project, tracks like “Goblin” and the OF posse-cut “Window” set up characters that Tyler develops further into his discography. Aside from the chiller and more melodic moments like “Her,” bangers like the call and response ridden “Sandwitches” and the mosh-inducing mantra “kill people, burn shit, fuck school” from “Radicals” make up most of the album and create a great soundtrack for spray-painting something edgy on the side a FedEx truck.

Recommended Tracks: Yonkers, She, Tron Cat, Sandwitches

Regarded as Tyler’s first great project, Wolf cemented Tyler as an artist capable of more than just edgy one-liners through expanding upon his lyricism and production. A concept album, Wolf tells the story of Tyler’s characters at Camp Flog Gnaw, as described in tracks like “WOLF,” “Bimmer,” and the closer, “Lone.”

Story isn’t everything, though, as evident from the wide selection of some of Tyler’s best bangers; the whiny screaming of “Tamale” juxtaposes Tyler’s monotone delivery perfectly, and the horns and 808 keys on “Domo23” make you want to punch a concrete wall. Tyler’s maturity reaches a new high with “Answer’s” phone call to his out-of-the-picture father and “IFHY’s” Neptunesworship ballad featuring Pharrell himself. There isn’t much to hate about Wolf, and it’s a must listen in Odd Future’s discography.

Recommended Tracks: Domo23, Answer, 48, IFHY, Tamale

Wolf

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Cherry Bomb An almost complete 180 from his previous work, Cherry Bomb is Tyler, the Creator’s Yeezus. Abrasive yet soothing, angry yet yearnful, Cherry Bomb shows Tyler at his most experimental with no two tracks sounding the same. While tracks like “RUN” sound like they could be B-Sides from Goblin, the following track, “FIND YOUR WINGS” is a smooth Jazz track heavily featuring jazz-funk pioneer Roy Ayers, The Internet front-woman Syd, and Kali Uchis. “2 SEATER” and “OKAGA, CA” serve as a perfect prelude to his follow-up Flower Boy, and give listeners a peek into the future of his discography. “FUCKING YOUNG / PERFECT” and the Lil Wayne and Kanye West featured “SMUCKERS” are handsdown two of Tyler’s best tracks and should not be missed. If nothing else, Cherry Bomb bridges Tyler’s early work to his current sound with a hearty offering of sample-fueled neo-soul and poorly-mixed bangers.

Recommended Tracks: BLOW MY LOAD, 2SEATER, FUCKING YOUNG/ PERFECT, SMUCKERS, KEEP DA O’S

Flower Boy Flower Boy is the album that thrusted Tyler into the mainstream, transforming him from the homophobic edge-lord who’s banned from multiple countries to the queer style icon universally loved by the general public. From a single listen of tracks like “Where This Flower Blooms,” “See You Again,” and “Boredom,” it is immediately clear that the Tyler of Odd Future’s past is nowhere to be found.

While the A$AP Rocky-assisted “Who Dat Boy” is an incredible banger, Tyler shines the most when he is front and center on tracks like the guitar-ridden ballad “Garden Shed” and the introspective “November.” “911 / Mr. Lonely” is the perfect dance-around-your-room song; Frank Ocean’s laid-back delivery fits perfectly on the luscious piano licks Tyler lays down on the cut’s first half. Flower Boy represents a true turning point for Tyler, and while veteran fans may not be sold on the new direction, there is no denying that his rebirth has been remarkable.

Recommended Tracks: Where This Flower Blooms, See You Again, Who Dat Boy, 911 / Mr. Lonely, Glitter

Music Inspired by Illumination & Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch You can skip this one. If you had told 2010 OF fans that Tyler would be making clean Christmas music for the studio that made Minions, I think they would take their Supreme box-logo hood and ski-mask off out of disbelief.

Recommended Track: Lights On

IGOR is Tyler’s most cohesive project to date (don’t @ me). Telling the story of a relationship from inception to breakup, IGOR returns Tyler to the storytelling roots of Goblin and Wolf with the newfound maturity gained from his post-Flower Boy life. Written, Produced, and Arranged fully by Tyler himself, the album is slathered with beautiful chord progressions and off-the-wall sampling. Tracks like “EARFQUAKE,” a song originally written for Justin Bieber, shows Tyler going full-pop with an incredible Playboi Carti feature to boot. “A BOY IS A GUN*’s” sampling of the Ponderosa Twins track “Bound” (the core sample of the Kanye West track “Bound 2” which Tyler originally produced), is masterful; the “don’t shoot me down” lyric that is repeated throughout the song helps create one of Tyler’s most complex and layered tracks yet.

Bangers like “NEW MAGIC WAND” and “WHAT’S GOOD” satisfy the itch while still making sense thematically, and the energy he brings is truly unmatched.

Only Tyler, the Creator could make a queer lo-fi neo soul album go number 1, solidifying it as one of the best projects of 2019.

Recommended Track: EARFQUAKE, NEW MAGIC WAND, A BOY IS A GUN*, PUPPET, ARE WE STILL FRIENDS?

Igor

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Cover Story

Earl On Earl, his breakout mixtape, Sweatshirt comes through with 10 “my parents just got divorced and I tried weed once” tracks that put the “Kill Them All” in OFWGKTA. Written and recorded when he was 15-years-old, Earl’s sleepy flow is here in full force as he riffs ignorantly for 30 minutes over the synth induced Madlib-worship production of Tyler, the Creator and Left Brain. Highlights include the Eminem-esque relationship story “Luper” and “Stapleton,” a track that sounds like Earl’s Tyler imitation in the best way possible.

Recommended Tracks: Earl, Kill, Luper, Pigions

Earl comes into his own on Doris, solidifying himself as the best rapper in Odd Future both lyrically and sonically. Over 15 muffled and minimal beats, Earl weaves his slurred flow perfectly for the first time since his return from his year-long stint at a boarding school in Samoa. Featuring Odd Future alumni like Tyler, Domo Genesis, Frank Ocean, Casey Veggies, and the like, Earl makes up for his absence on The OF Tape Vol. 2. Tracks like “Sunday” and “Hive” feature amazing and lengthy features, but some of Doris’ best moments are when Earl takes the spotlight on cuts like “Chum”and “Hoarse.”

Recommended Tracks: Burgundy, Sunday, Hive, Chum, Guild

Doris

I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside At just under 30 minutes it would be easy to discount I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside, but its heaviness makes a full listen feel like two hours. Almost completely self-produced, I Don’t Go Outside expands on Doris’ themes with tighter flows and improved storytelling. At this point, the only semblance of OF Earl is his flow, with his jaded and depressed lyrics contrasting Earl and Radical’s giddy wordplay. Listening to I Don’t Go Outside feels like sitting outside your friend’s room while they’re sobbing and you don’t really know what to do so you just kind of sit there for 29 minutes. Highly recommend.

Recommended Tracks: Mantra, Grief, AM // Radio, Wool

Coming only a month after I Don’t Go Outside, Solace is a 10-minute EP released by Earl through his YouTube channel. One of Earl’s moodiest works, Solace is full of instrumental passages and verses about drugs, relationships, and loss. Check it out.

Recommended Tracks: It’s one 10 minute track just listen all the way through

Solace

Some Rap Songs

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Not only unlike all previous entries to Earl’s discography but also pretty much every mainstream album in 2018, Some Rap Songs emerges from a dark place and comes out swinging. Made after the passing of his father, Some Rap Songs channels Earl’s depression and is rough in all the right places, with beats made exclusively out of chopped samples allowing his flow to yet again take center stage. While no song ever reaches the three-minute mark, every moment feels complete and intentional. Earl spends 24 minutes looking back in his most introspective effort to date. Some Rap Songs is one of the most minimal and intentional entries into the Odd Future Discography and should not be missed.

Recommended Tracks: Red Water, Nowhere2go, The Mint, Azucar, Playing Possum

Nostalgia Ultra Recommended Tracks: strawberry swing, novacane, songs for women, swim good

Channel Orange With the overnight success of Nostalgia Ultra, Frank Ocean was quick to get started on his studio debut. With Channel Orange, Ocean ditched the samplebased production in favor of an incredibly varied production palate of funk, pop, soul, and psychedelic music. No two songs are alike letting Frank spread his wings; where “Thinkin Bout You” was a radio hit for its catchy hook and repetition, “Pyramids” is a 9-minute soundscape filled with synth passages and layered vocals. “Super Rich Kids” allots the sole Odd Future collaboration with a fantastic guest verse from Earl Sweatshirt, but the Channel Orange truly shines through solo tracks like “Crack Rock” and “Forrest Gump.”

Recommended Tracks: Thinkin Bout You, Super Rich Kids, Lost, Pyramids, Pink Matter

One of the most overlooked projects in Odd Future’s discography, Frank Ocean’s 45-minute visual album is a masterclass in ambient and experimental pop music.

Released only a day before his massively successful and independently released album Blonde, Endless can be looked at as a mere chess piece in Ocean’s game to get out of his long-troubled contract with Def Jam Records. Nothing Ocean does on Endless should be missed, though; this project shows an almost complete departure from the mostly radio-friendly trajectory Channel Orange put Frank on in favor of a selection of song ideas weaved together to create a cohesive ambient soundscape. With the visuals depicting several Franks building an endless spiral staircase as the album plays in full, it is easy to become entranced in his laid-back rapping and beautiful falsetto. Aside from a limited physical release, Endless is hard to digest in individual songs which is probably for the best; each song works off the last and builds upon it, just as Frank does with each stair.

Recommended Tracks: U-N-I-T-Y, Commes Des Garçons, Wither, Slide on Me, Rushes To

What is there to say that hasn’t already been said about Blonde? Frank Ocean’s genre-bending third album is, simply put, one of the best albums of the 2010’s. Blonde feels like you’re sitting by a campfire with all of your best friends reminiscing about the past before parting ways. Where the subdued and autotuned-heavy opener “Nikes” lets us know where Frank has been emotionally during his absence, the following song, “Ivy,” shows Frank at his most nostalgic since Nostalgia Ultra. The organ-backed “Solo” and it’s André 3000 reprisal are instrumentally skeletal, “Pretty Sweet” packs the backing with a string freakout.

The muffled “Good Guy” interlude sounds like a friend showing you a song they’ve been working on in their dorm room, creating an incredibly personal and intimate mood in an otherwise grand track list, and “Self Control” and “Godspeed” highlight Frank’s vastly improved vocals since his mainstream splash on Channel Orange. If you haven’t given Blonde a listen, do yourself a favor and queue it now.

Recommended Tracks: Ivy, Pink + White, Solo, Self Control, Nights, Close To You White Ferrari

Designer: Kaya Dlouchy (Undeclared)

Frank Ocean’s first official mixtape, Nostalgia Ultra, is not only one of the best in Odd Future’s discography, but one of the best R&B tapes ever. Through the 14 tracks, Ocean tackles nostalgia head-on through remixed versions of tracks like Coldplay’s “Strawberry Swing” (strawberry swing), The Eagles’ “Hotel California” (“american wedding”), and MGMT’s “Electric Feel (“nature feels”). Nostalgia Ultra put Frank on the map, with figureheads like Kanye West and JAY-Z as well as Beyoncé inviting him to work on their projects, Watch the Throne and 4 respectfully.

Endless

Blonde

• Max Rubenstein (Marketing)

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The Unsung Heroes of Feature

Jazz came on the scene in America starting in the late 1800s and early 1900s but really started gaining steam during the 1920s which was appropriately named “The Jazz Age”. When we think of jazz from the past, we think of the greats who have paved the way and set the tone for jazz artists of the future. It’s easy to list off the talented men who had such a large impact on the genre who brought us strong vocals like Louis Armstong and Duke Ellington to beautiful instrumentals such as John Coltrane and Miles Davis. However, when it comes to women jazz artists, most of the time we hear of vocalists like Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington, and Billie Holiday. The Jazz Age coincided with the women’s suffrage movement, so we saw talented women like them gaining notoriety and press during that time, however the genre was still dominated men. Due to this, we have a few women artists that are listed alongside their male counterparts and praising these frontrunners of jazz comes naturally since the impacts that they’ve had on the genre are so apparent. This has made it so easy to overlook some of the women artists who have helped shape the genre just as much, but from behind the scenes.

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One of the most iconic instruments in jazz is the piano, and this is where one of the biggest contributions women have made to jazz can be heard. Mary Lou Williams was an extremely talented artist who helped shaped the genre in more ways than one. She taught herself how to play piano at the age of 3 and essentially started her career by the time she was 6 by going out and playing local shows to help support her family. Williams gained popularity very quickly and soon she was playing piano for Louis Armstrong in the early days of his career. By 19 she had moved to Tulsa with her husband at the time and played in Andy Kirk’s ensemble Twelve Clouds of Joy. It was during this time that she started arranging pieces for the group as well as starting to record her own pieces during her downtime. Mary Lou was a force to be reckoned with as she quietly built her repertoire and gained more recognition. After spending some time Oklahoma, she parted ways with her group and returned to her hometown of Pittsburgh. Upon arriving, she formed a six-person ensemble with the likes of Art Blakey and her soon to be husband Harold “Shorty” Baker. As she started becoming more well-known, she worked her way up the ladder in the

jazz world and she eventually began to travel with Duke Ellington and his orchestra. While traveling with the group she arranged a number of songs for him; a few of them being the iconic rendition of “Blue Skies” titled “Trumpets No End”. After touring with Ellington for a year, she moved back to New York and started her own radio show. Mary Lou had a renowned spiritual “Mary Lou’s Mass” which was her taking on adding soul to the more traditional gospel music. Everyone loved her spirituals so much that in April of 1975, she was asked to perform in at mass in New York at the St.Patrick’s Cathedral where a jazz artist had never played before. It was during this time she took on the role of a teacher and a mentor for many artists who were going to be at the forefront of the scene in just a matter of time including Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis. As if the list of her achievements wasn’t already long enough, she created her own music label, making her one of the first women to do so. Williams impact can be seen throughout many aspects of jazz. Starting in 1996, a jazz festival in her name began to highlight women in the genre in Washington, D.C. While piano is one of the easier sounds to single out in jazz pieces, the combination of various brass instruments play a large roll in jazz as well and trumpet player Valaida Snow made quite the contribution to the jazz world. At the age of 5, she could sing, dance, and play the violin, and by the age of 15 she could play many different instruments from the cello to mandolin and almost anything in between. Despite

Designer: Angela Lin (Business Administration and Design)

her range and depth of talent, Snow gravitated towards the trumpet and she stuck with it. She was gifted with the instrument and started touring around the United States to perform while she was only 17. She gained the moniker “Little Louis” from Louis Armstrong himself, who deemed her the “second best trumpet player” second only to himself. This talent took her far and wide as it earned her many performances in places such as China and Europe and even an advertisement deal in Sweden. Valaida was most popular in Europe and this is where she recorded the song she’s most known for “High Hat, Trumpet, and Rhythm”. After her tour abroad, she returned to the States briefly to appear on Ethel Water’s show and play with Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake at the Apollo Theater. While Snow’s career was much shorter than that of Mary Lou Williams, her impact on the genre and fans alike was massive as she traveled all over the world to share her talents and helped cultivate a global appreciation for jazz.

Jazz has been an established genre for about a century now and without a doubt it will be around for centuries more. The genre has withstood the turn of many musical eras and has adapted to ever evolving demands of music. From classical jazz to the more avantgarde pieces, the artists creating content within this space have all learned from those that have come before them. We often forget to mention and recognize the women in jazz who have brought invaluable additions to the genre and have allowed the genre to develop into what it is now. The legacy these women have left is long lasting and we can see this in many different forms.

• Rayven Tate (Mechanical Engineering)

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IN DEFENSE OF

dr unk and hot

Etcetera

GIRLS

Designer: Gabby Bruck (Business and Design) Fall 2019

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Even as an artist blessed with consistent critical acclaim — particularly regarding his older work — Kanye West has a particular track under his belt which fans and haters alike almost universally lambaste as utter trash — “Drunk and Hot Girls” from Graduation.

While this thesis as a case for the song being ‘bad’ is misconceived, the pretense on which it is formed has merit. Yes, the song is quite trashy. You don’t have to look much further than the title to deduce this information. Which begs the question, if West himself bestowed the song with such a trashy title, would he not then be conscious of its trashiness? Which begs the answer, yes. Yes he would.

“Drunk and Hot Girls” is a tongue-in-cheek anthem to the dichotomy of hooking up with strangers from the club being both immensely satisfying and a catalyst for existential crises. It perfectly achieves its intended function as a musically intriguing party song with relatable, surface-level lyrics and comical one-liners (of the “Stop talking ‘bout your boyfriend since he is not me” and “ ‘Ahra-ra-da-da,’ that’s how the fuck you sound” ilk). “But no!” the aforementioned union of fans and haters exclaim at my assessment.

“There’s nothing musically intriguing about this monotonous slog of corny repetitive melodies over glossy synthesizers!” But that’s where they’re wrong. “Drunk and Hot Girls” is in fact one of the quintessential demonstrations of West’s masterful sampling prowess, in which he models a pop melody out of the very antithesis of pop and club music, a melancholic dirge from legendary krautrock outfit, Can. Not only does he present this stark contrast in musical makeup and poetic depth between sampled song and composed song (à la “Strange Fruit” / “Blood on the Leaves” or “21st Century Schizoid Man” / “Power”), but Kanye even has Can’s vocalist finish several of his lines with the trashy motif “drunk and hot girls” — taking advantage of the sampled vocals’ incomprehensibility by bending them to his will.

Another testimony to the musical strength of this composition is the bridge. Approached by an altered vocal arrangement between Kanye and Can, the instrumental then starts to drift down a bottomless hole to Wonderland amongst swelling pianos and an ominous background choir, while Mos Def attempts to serenade the skeptical listener into thinking this song should be taken 100% seriously. His poetic turn in lyricism details love and the human condition, but thematically ties it back to Kanye’s thesis towards the end. He sings about how the human heart can’t facilitate rational decisions in the moment, when the lights and music and blood alcohol level and attractive women all assemble a concoction of temptation from which primitive instincts typically succumb to lust. As Mos Def holds his final note, the spiraling instrumentation seamlessly transitions back into Kanye’s established lyrical and musical pattern, but this time accompanied by an intense string section delivering enriched harmonies and Egyptian-sounding melodic fills to up the tension.

A simultaneous ode to regret and lust, “Drunk and Hot Girls” features Kanye’s retrospective and introspective analysis of how a great night out turns sour. The core lyrical claim is that “We go through too much bullshit just to mess with these drunk and hot girls” — but is it worth it? Why do we seek quick satisfaction time and time again despite the proven cost? Mos Def refers to this tendency as a “dangerous necessity,” explaining how it feels so right in the moment, until Kanye points out that now she’s throwing up in your car. The song doesn’t attempt to evaluate this philosophical conundrum, because it knows its place — simple fun. We may never have a solution to this vicious cycle of human sexuality, but in the meantime we can at least listen to a lighthearted musical take on the matter reinforced by truly captivating production — all while trying not to blame the masses for unwarranted generalization of art — in the form of “Drunk and Hot Girls.”

• Chuck Stein (Computer Science and Music Technology)

Album Reviews Danny Brown uknowhatimsayin¿

Released October 4, 2019 Label Warp Records Genre Hip Hop/Rap Tasty Tracks “Dirty Laundry,” “Savage Nomad,” “Combat”

10 9 8 7 6

Designer: Ryan Fleischer (Marketing and Design)

If there’s one common theme running through Danny Brown’s discography, it’s instability. Through albums like XXX and Atrocity Exhibition, the Detroit rapper, born Daniel Sewell, became the modern embodiment of the hedonistic, drug fueled rock star toeing the line between genius and insanity. However, as the rap game’s resident wild card nears 40, he’s taken on a new perspective. As someone who has witnessed the evolution of Hip Hop firsthand, and suffered through the pitfalls of drug abuse, depression, and fame, Brown has adopted a role as one of rap’s elder statesmen. He sees an opportunity to wield his experience as a means of education. To cement himself in this position, he teamed up with rap legend Q-Tip for his recent album, uknowhatimsayin¿, a project which aims to offer a roadmap for the next generation of rappers as the genre nears its fifth decade.

In contrast to Brown’s previous albums, uknowhatimsayin¿ is not exceedingly conceptual. Where Atrocity Exhibition and XXX were soul-bearing epics, this record is what he describes as a “standup comedy album.” Brown is more focused on honing his craft than exposing the dark corners of his psyche. This sentiment yields a project with a more casual feel, but one that contains some of the best music of his career. Lyrically, Brown is firing on all cylinders, offering witty storytelling and hilarious punchlines that are sharper than ever. On “Dirty Laundry”, Danny comically recounts a selection of increasingly unflattering sexual escapades, while on “Combat” he offers gems like “Henny got me wetter than whale piss/I die for this shit like Elvis.” While uknowhatimsayin¿ moves away from the guttural introspection of past work, it is still a personal album. The majority of Brown’s verses center around honest depictions of his past experiences, which he uses as an avenue to offer perspective to those bound by the same circumstances he has navigated.

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The album’s production is clearly inspired by the music of Danny’s youth, but Q-Tip’s classic touch is balanced by heavy contributions from long time collaborator Paul White to ensure that Brown’s signature off the wall energy bleeds through. JPEGMAFIA also comes through with a twisted boom-bap beat on the Run the Jewels aided “3 Tearz”, as well as a stellar Pharrell-esque hook on “Negro Spiritual”. The features on this album, also including contributions from Blood Orange and Obongjayar, are limited, but consistently enhance the album experience without stealing the spotlight from Brown. uknowhatimsayin¿ is not an album that demands to be taken seriously, but the casual simplicity is the main source of its appeal.

Danny Brown is clearly comfortable in the role he’s carved out for himself, and this comfort level translates into a clarity of mind that is palpable in each verse. Although the project’s lack of distinct direction makes for a slightly less visceral listen than some of his previous

work, Brown’s mastery is on full display as his career enters its next chapter.

Fisher Hunnewell (Business Management)

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JPEGMAFIA All My Heroes Are Cornballs

Released September 13 Label EQT Recordings Genre Experimental Hip-Hop Tasty Tracks “Jesus Forgive Me, I Am A Thot,” “PTSD,” “All My Heroes Are Cornballs,” “Thot Tactics,” “Post Verified Lifestyle.”

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Fresh off the most original album rollout in recent memory, JPEGMAFIA, a.k.a. Peggy, a.k.a. Buttermilk Jesus, a.k.a.

Barrington Hendricks, has finally dropped his “disappointment.” All My Heroes Are Cornballs releases following Hendricks’ YouTube series in which he plays selections from the new album for his various musical peers, claiming they are “disappointed.” Each artist, from Kenny Beats to Jeff Tweedy, gives an ironic disparaging review before their genuine reactions. These satirical criticisms couple with Peggy’s own social media posts to gear up fans for a let down. Maybe this is a publicity stunt, or artistic self-doubt, or more likely a simple display of Peggy’s unique sense of humor — also plastered all over Cornballs’ track names such as “Beta Male Strategies” and “Grimy Waifu” — but it could certainly serve as a warning for fans anticipating a stylistic sequel to 2018’s Veteran.

Cornballs is decidedly more vibrant than JPEGMAFIA’s previous album, playing like a smattering of bright paint onto his already established sonic canvas of darker shades from Veteran’s gritty, aggressive beats. A testimony to Hendricks’ artistic chops, he evolves his sound to something new and original — and it lands — instead of trying to continue the already-unique sound profile that earned him critical acclaim on Cornballs’ predecessor. Lead single “Jesus Forgive Me, I Am A Thot” hinted at this new direction,

featuring an ebb and flow from ballad-like washed out keys and auto-tuned serenading to wonky percussion, static, and screaming crowd sound effects. When the two contrasting tones aren’t transitioning seamlessly, they are interleaving into one cohesive sound.

It is rare for a listening experience to feel so simultaneously pleasant and anxietyproducing, creating a tug-of-war between beauty and chaos which speaks to the album as a whole.

Case in point, “JPEGMAFIA TYPE BEAT” immediately rockets into a jumble of panicked speech and noise before finding a steady beat, albeit one that sounds like a helicopter crashing. However, this hectic feeling of debris flying over running pedestrians eventually slows down and becomes washed out in moody pads, transitioning into the melancholic guitar plucking and flute crooning of “Grimy Waifu.” Cornballs’ effortless shifts in mood prevent the experience from getting stale and fuel curiosity for what lies in store.

Impressively, many mellower moments are also standouts, even though JPEGMAFIA is better known for aggressive hip-hop. On “PTSD,” for example, his clean flow glides over a smooth, sentimental melody textured with glitchy clicks and rich guitar chords, which take over for a split second before being cut short.

This tactic of briefly teasing certain sounds or effects is central to Hendricks’ production repertoire. Another recurring technique is sampling speech to either chop it up into the instrumentation or leave it unedited as a background layer. The most memorable speech sample is his friend fumbling a Wendy’s order over arhythmic synth plucks and a chorus of echoing bright keys, at the end of the abstract title track. This song is certainly a highlight compositionally and vocally, with Peggy crying out: “Damn, guess who had a big year? / No whips, no chains, just a few tears,” over a weird, catchy melody and diverse percussion track. His first verse is sung and second is rapped, with the former taking the cake as his best singing on the album thanks to its smooth delivery and captivating style switch-ups.

Over the years, Peggy’s music has become less about straightforward rap verses and more about delightfully freakish, earcandy production. However, when he does rap, Hendricks flows incredibly well with the beat, developing a synergy that only he as his own producer could pull off.

Lyrical themes include how he’s been propelled from the underground to the limelight thanks to Veteran’s success, referring to the fact that he is now [Twitter] “verified” on

“Jesus Forgive Me” and “Post Verified Lifestyle.”

On the latter gem, he spits: “I’m bungie jumpin’ to my destiny / Post verified, ‘cause these niggas really think a handle could handle me” over a droning chord progression performed by a chorus of synthetic-sounding vocal samples. This line highlights JPEGMAFIA’s well-crafted word play, as well as another key theme of life in the internet age.

JPEGMAFIA is at an interesting point in his career, and nobody realizes that better than himself, evidenced by his awe at even sitting down and talking to James Blake in the “DISAPPOINTED” video series, — let alone revelling in one of his producer-heroes’ praise. He may still be getting used to this “Post Verified Lifestyle,” but is in no way letting newfound popularity compromise his creativity for wider accessibility — especially when it comes to pushing genre boundaries to challenge the listener in a rewarding way.

While pretending to be disappointed, James Blake explains: “rapping, singing, chords, production… not everyone can do all those things well.” On the contrary, because he has full creative control over his twisted artistic vision, Peggy crafts a magnificently original album in which you never know what eccentricity will tickle your ears next.

Chuck Stein (Computer Science and Music Composition & Technology)

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Charli XCX Charli

Released September 13 Label Asylum/Atlantic Genre Electropop/Bubblegum Bass Tasty Tracks “Next Level Charli,” “Thoughts,” “Gone”

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It’s almost become an inside joke among music journalists that every year we get a new “Charli XCX is the future of pop” article.

Charli has long been tasked with “saving pop” without necessarily wanting to bend to its whims. Her persona has always been a healthy dose of Britney worship framed against an experimental heart and confined by a label not recognizing her full potential. Charli was set to be perfect opportunity for Charli to display that duality of traditional pop sound and outsider attitude on a larger stage, and she does for the most part. However, Charli is still far less experimental than the music Charli was making back in 2016 with SOPHIE. Maybe she really was the future of pop back when she was moving from “I Love It” and “Boom Clap” to the Pitchfork reader crowd, but now that we’re in the future, she’s hardly the most forward-thinking pop star out there. But that’s okay. Charli is still a fun pop album that looks forward rather than back while not trying too hard to be something it’s not.

One of the major talking points around this album will undoubtedly be it’s production, handled mostly by PC Music founder A.G. Cook, but the truly stand out moments come from other production collaborators. Dylan Brady of 100 gecs is responsible for the harsh noise outro to “Click” that has had some less adventurous listeners slightly concerned.

Recent PC signees Planet 1999 handle the glossy “February 2017.” Sadly that guest production also dips into the negative on the likes of “Blame It On Your Love,” a Stargateproduced radio-ready shrug reworked from Pop 2’s euphoric fan-favorite “Track 10.”

Accompanied by a shoe-horned Lizzo feature, the song is easily the album’s worst and is made even more disappointing when you realize that there’s a fantastic Dylan Brady remix that would have fit so much better with Charli’s aesthetic.

Unfortunately “Blame It On Your Love” isn’t the only time a track feels a bit out of

place in context. Released last October, “1999” makes no sense in Charli’s context. It seems pretty obvious the track was included due to its unexpected chart success in the UK, making it Charli’s first hit in over four years, but in the tracklist, “1999” feels almost uncomfortably playful in tone and transitions awkwardly and abruptly into “Click.”

There’s also some pretty clear parallels between songs on Pop 2 and Charli. “Click,” with it’s repetitive, sticky hook, fantastic Kim Petras feature, and slightly awkward rap verse is exactly the formula of “Unlock It,” down to being the exact same length to the second.

“Shake It” and “I Got It” share the same parallel, both huge bangers, again with short, repetitive hooks, and features from Brooke Candy, CupcaKKe, and Pablo Vittar. Those similarities aren’t inherently bad, but are pretty important to note given the “future of pop” tag still being thrown around. It’s clear Charli is fine still doing the same thing she was doing in 2017, and her music should probably stop being analyzed otherwise.

So despite not being the future of pop, Charli actually shows a ton of artistic growth, and that’s because for the first time, it truly feels like the highlight of a Charli XCX project is Charli herself. For the last few years, Charli has been outshone on her own tracks by her crazy SOPHIE production or wild features from the likes of Mykki Blanco. Now listening to Charli, the moments that really stand out come from Charli herself and make the self-title appropriate. Take “Next Level Charli,” where she sings about turning up the volume while speeding down the highway in a Prius.

It’s the kind of songwriting honesty and relatability that has drawn many to Charli and will easily make “Next Level Charli” join the ranks of “Vroom Vroom” and “Roll With Me” as fan-favorite songs about driving fast. That same vulnerability is tangible on “Thoughts” and “Official” where she writes about patching a hole of loneliness with drugs and fake-friends

and wanting to take a relationship to the next level respectively. The songwriting is so uniquely Charli, just like the soaring hook of “White Mercedes” or the autotuned melodies of “Gone.” That ability to stand out on an album so stacked with features is the saving grace of Charli and maintains Charli as today’s most interesting mainstream pop star.

Grant Foskett (Computer Science)

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PROPERTY OF AKB48

PROPERTY OF AKB48

PROPERTY OF AKB48

Editorial

; n e z o d e h t y b s g n o S PROPERTY OF AKB48

AKB48’S

MUSIC MONOPOLY

PROPERTY OF AKB48

When I was in middle school, I torrented

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the entirety of AKB48’s discography onto my laptop. It took several hours, but I waited patiently. The moment it finished downloading, I added each messily named, coverless song into my music library, and proceeded to blast it in my room. It was fun, it was catchy, but it felt oddly lonely to be listening by myself. When I tried introducing their music to my friends, it never ended well: “they don’t even write their own songs.”

Their replies were succinct, and they were right. AKB48 didn’t write their own songs. They were just mouthpieces for a team of songwriters, singing the lyrics handed to them on a sheet. But what was this supposed to mean to me? Was I expected to stop listening to them because their music was inherently flawed, because the singers themselves didn’t pen every lyric, every note?

This particular remark isn’t entirely uncommon either. All of us have heard some form of it lobbied at boy bands, girl groups, or mainstream pop stars. It’s a popular sentiment that’s echoed again and again by every generation. The bottom line is made exceedingly clear though, praiseworthy music exists as art.

PROPERTY OF AKB48

specifically constructed to be easily sung by anyone, something that is incredibly relevant when you take into account the enforced graduation system. Older members are regularly encouraged to leave the group and “graduate.” There is a constant flow of new members into the group, and singles released years earlier can be performed with relative ease by those who never even sang on the original record. However, this doesn’t even call into question the way in which these songs are outsourced either. The group’s most popular singles can be re-released by their many sister groups, such as the Indonesian sub-group, JKT48 or their Thai sub-group, BNK48.

“How do we recognize music strictly on artistic merit when every aspect of it is tied to a profitable industry?”

Take for example the song Heavy Rotation. As one of the group’s most popular singles, it has been performed by each generation of AKB48 since its release in 2011, featuring not only in their daily shows, but their TV show appearances. In addition, the single itself has also been performed by each of their eleven sister groups, all of which have their own consecutive generations of members, and respective daily performances.

By now, Heavy Rotation has been performed thousands of times and by hundreds of different people, accruing mass profit along the way, and this is just one song out of the many popular singles in their entire discography.

AKB48’s music production goes far beyond capitalizing on mere material sales, though. Their music develops itself as a monetary asset on all levels. The songs aren’t just being sold to music listeners who like the catchy hooks and bubbly pop beats. They’re

also being distributed and repackaged for an unforeseeable number of performers. In every way, shape, and form, the music being created by AKB48 has stylized itself into a product to be monetized.

In opposition to the ideas of absolute originality and genuinity, AKB48 has developed a brand of music that strips the idea of individuality out of its very core. Their songs are meant to be performed by large groups, they’re meant to be passed along to other people to sing and stake their claim on. There isn’t a single individual who owns the right to perform the songs of AKB48 and somehow, it’s exactly what the group wants.

Heavy Rotation can be performed to the end of time because the song embraces its status as a product, and nothing more.

All too often, we steadily embrace the idea of “good” music as something that must be innately original, attributable to one voice. This magazine can be seen as an ode to this concept. There’s no doubt the rest of this publication is filled with analysis and review of musical content, gleaning artistic merit from lyrics and melodies. But when music leaves these ideas behind, when music embraces the commercial, what can be said of the songs then?

Choosing to divorce music completely from its status as a commodity abandons a core piece of music production. While exceptions certainly exist, it’d be hard to find artists who have never considered the profitability of their work in some manner or another. In fact, it could even be argued that artists are hyper-conscious of monetizable musical trends and the economic prospects of their work, considering that music is their livelihood. AKB48 is certainly presented as an extreme case, but there is something valuable in the way they capitalize on the buying and selling power of their music.

When AKB48 markets their music unabashedly as a commodity, and only a commodity, are we expected to turn our noses up? Or do we listen intently, because the fact that their songs are so universally monetizable is a fascinating feat? In a way, profitability is just as hard to achieve as critical acclaim. So yes, there are 24 girls singing on stage. Yes, the line-up is different from yesterday’s show. But that doesn’t matter. There’s still an audience cheering them on, and their songs are still on my phone. Call it soulless, call it jarring, but I can’t help but listen.

• Mona Yu (Computer Science and Criminal Justice)

Designer: Shannon Ehmsen (Studio Art)

This chord strikes true in today’s music culture. There’s an incredible emphasis placed on artistic merit, creativity, and genuinity. Critics and listeners alike consistently praise music labeled as original, written by the singers themselves. What goes unsaid is the idea that any music not rooted in transparency is vastly inferior. We love to hate the “soulless” hits, the artificial tunes penned by songwriters in their recording studios and passed onto marketable singers to turn a profit.

It’s easy to accept this mindset, but there’s a discernable gap that emerges. How do we recognize music strictly on artistic merit when every aspect of it is tied to a profitable industry? Just as strongly as music can be identified as a form of art, it can be identified as a product to be bought and sold.

The number of listens on a Spotify track list, the units sold the first week, are these figures supposed to be disregarded?

With this in mind, let’s refocus on AKB48, a group whose music is the embodiment of everything commercial. As a Japanese girl group that debuted in 2005, the band was intended from the beginning to amass profit. Beginning with 24 members, continuous auditions led to the group doubling in size by its third year. This meant that AKB48 could perform, hold meet and greets, and appear on television all at once.

The sheer size of the group also helped the group churn out their musical releases, and to this date, AKB48 has over 56 singles, not including the releases made by their subunits. Of those 56 singles, over thirty of them have reached the number one spot on the Oricon charts in Japan, each single selling over a million physical copies their first week.

This flood of music, performances, and albums have established them as an economic powerhouse in the Japanese music industry.

The group is now the second highest selling musical act in Japan, selling over 50 million physical records domestically.

But what can be said of their music content-wise? With catchy singable pop combined with colorful aesthetics, AKB48’s music is standard pop fare. Recent releases however, have shown constant genre switching, with certain singles developing into full ballads, and others taking on twists of electronic house. In the end, what remains consistent is the ease in which the songs can be sung.

With the group mostly made up of untrained amateurs, AKB48 songs never exceed certain octaves and tend to remain steadily in one pitch. The songs are

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It’s impossible to wrap up the music of the last decade in any specific terms, but what’s been clear is a few very innovative and prolific producers have dominated the sound. For popular music, that’s someone like Jack Antonoff or Metro Boomin, but when you step back from the mainstream just a bit, no one has been more influential to music than Arca. Also known as Alejandra Ghersi, Arca is probably not a name you have heard about extensively before, but if you follow music, it’s almost a guarantee you have heard her production or its ripples. From Kanye West to Frank Ocean, FKA Twigs to Björk, Arca has had a huge influence on the dominant genres of the decade (hip hop, pop, R&B), and her production has become the pinnacle of experimental undertones in popular music.

It’s hard to describe Arca’s production style concisely. At the beginning of the decade, there just wasn’t anything else like it. Sure the influence of producers like Flying Lotus and Jam City is clear, but Arca really did have a completely new sound. In a string of EPs in 2012, Baron Libre, Stretch 1, and Stretch 2, she progressively refined her revolutionary mix of more traditional hip hop production with wonky and deconstructed club themes that would go on to become her signature sound in the earlier parts of the 2010s. It was characterized by unique vocal processing that swung back and forth between echoey bass and chipmunked squeals as well as her creative vocal sampling.

The instrumentals were spacious, composed of atmospheric, alien synths accented by frantic post-industrial percussion and made expert use of silence to further disorient listeners and deny the satisfaction of a steady groove or tonic.

Arca’s first production credit was a big one. In 2013, she was asked to send some music to Kanye and responded with “the strangest stuff [she] had.” Whatever that was, it obviously excited Kanye, because Arca then became one of three production

consultants for the upcoming Yeezus. Yeezus is undoubtedly one of the most abrasive and unconventional mainstream albums of the decade, most of which it owes to Arca for producing some of it’s darkest moments. Her unique, glitchy and industrial production is all over “I’m In It” and “Send It Up.” The horns and distorted yells on “Blood On The Leaves” are also distinctly Arca. Looking back to tracks like “Self Defense” from the Stretch 2 EP, it’s pretty obvious just how much Arca influenced the direction of Yeezus. That ability to completely reinvigorate an established artist’s sound is really what makes Arca so incredible as a producer.

The other skill that makes Arca such a great producer is her versatility and ability to design sounds that fit specifically with the artist she is producing for. That doesn’t mean that she concedes entirely to an artist’s sound, though. In fact, an Arca song is almost immediately recognizable if you know what you’re looking for. One constant is the spacious, larger-than-life, grand tone to her songs. This is easily seen on her own tracks like 2017’s “Reverie,” but also on the

nt producer

decade?

Arca’s collaborations don’t stop there though. She has also worked with the likes of Frank Ocean, Kelela, Blood Orange, and more and ripples of her influence can be seen throughout popular music.

In that way, it might be more accurate to call Arca your favorite musician’s favorite musician. Her production is nothing less than revolutionary and has been one of the driving factors in bringing a more experimental sound to a wider audience this decade. While other producers might have more recognition to their name, Arca really is the one who dominated the sound of the 2010s.

• Grant Foskett (Computer Science)

Designer: Roman Distefano (Interaction Design)

likes of FKA Twigs’ “Hours” or Kanye West’s “Hold My Liquor.” Another interesting choice that helps contribute to that large sound is a noticeable lack of traditional percussion. You’re really not going to hear a snare or kick in an Arca song, which makes sense when considering “Black Skinhead” with its iconic drum-fill is one of the few songs on Yeezus Arca didn’t have input on.

Those attributes of her production all came together as Arca started working with breakout star FKA Twigs later in 2013. She produced the entirety of Twigs’ EP2 and contributed to the follow up LP1 in 2014 to overwhelming critical acclaim. “Water Me” from EP2 was also the first time that the world was introduced to a sound that would go on to dominate Arca’s later work. The delayed and distorted background vocals, spacious mixing, unconventional and uneven percussion, alien synth tones, and especially the opening vocal processing have become the signature Arca sound over time, as opposed to the glitchy industrial and more traditional hip hop sounds that started her career. That change led to the easy transition for Arca into working with her most common collaborator, Björk.

Arca and Björk connected after Björk was made aware of Arca’s 2013 mixtape &&&&&. Interestingly, when they started working together, Björk was not even aware of Arca’s work with Kanye West or FKA Twigs, but was still so impressed that they ended up making almost all of 2015’s Vulnicura together. There, “History of Touches” with its dissonant synths, or the pounding bass and irregular rhythms in “Blake Lake” are obvious Arca productions, but the numerous string passages show a notable growth in her skills that would go on to greatly influence tracks like “Desafío” from her 2017 album Arca. And based on a few unofficial singles as well as collaborations in recent months, it seems Arca is headed more in the direction of Art Pop than the Hip Hop she started with, but only getting more experimental.

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Designer: Jenny Chen (Business Administration and Design)

Designer: Jenny Chen (Business Adminstration/Design) Editorial Fall 2019

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There will forever be countless attempts on screen at knowing any one generation, to look at its patterns of darkness and light and reflect them back. In the past year, Generation Z was graced with two, each their own portraits of the joys and perils of burgeoning teenagehood.

Actor-turned-director Olivia Wilde’s “Booksmart” is a Hillary-victory era buddy comedy of raunchy mishaps and twee victories that occur as its heroines attempt to reshape their reputations just shy of graduation. Sam Levinson’s television series “Euphoria”, meanwhile, is a relentlessly provocative portrait of drug and depression-addled youth, lavishing in its own obscene extravagance as characters struggle to find meaning in one another.

Yet, what shapes both works most essentially and memorably is not their stories or images, but the music that holds them together.

The “Booksmart” and “Euphoria” soundtracks succeed in distilling the aesthetic and political essences of their pieces into eclectic, fittingly cinematic mixtapes. These playlists also work well in defining the subsets of youth their works represent -- if “Booksmart” features a highlight reel from NPR’s All Songs Considered, “Euphoria” presents a heady take on Spotify’s Pollen playlist. What’s more is that the collections may actually have a pulse on what young people listen to; “Euphoria”’s soundtrack currently has above 200,000 followers on Spotify, and “Booksmart”’s, 36,000, a considerable number for an independent film. Maintaining a styled pulse through shifting genres, the soundtracks capture the mercurial nature in which we consume music today.

Even so, a mere curation of affecting sounds doesn’t necessarily translate effectively when associated with the works’ images. The weakest quality of both pieces is the how the filmmakers repeatedly lean on music as a device to energize sequences that are otherwise lacking. Scenes are often shot in a manner similar to that of a music video, every action highly stylized, characters frequently walking and dancing in slow motion. Take for instance “Euphoria”’s Barbie Ferreira striding through the mall to Billie Eilish, or “Booksmart”’s protagonists speeding to Run The Jewels. Though amusing initially, it quickly becomes apparent how the filmmakers are fabricating atmosphere solely out of these tracks, rather than doing work elsewhere to create a compelling tone. This is particularly relevant as it pertains to character dialogue and development, a source which could have easily furthered both pieces. In the season finale of “Euphoria”, protagonist Rue and her mother fight mercilessly for many minutes, but suspiciously, there is little audible dialogue, as music covers their bickering, showing

only the outline of dispute. Parallely, in “Booksmart,” when the girls finally reach a dismounting disagreement once they reach their party destination, the soundtrack blares over their conversation as we watch the gestures of argument occur. It’s as if Levinson and Wilde don’t particularly care what their characters have to say, instead opting for the idea and stylistic beats of conflict, using their characters as mere aesthetic means to further tone. For Wilde, this tone is the quality of saccharine unity, a utopian version of high school where social structure is relatively insignificant and everyone is suspiciously wholehearted. For Levinson, a brittle nihilism, where friction is constant and everlasting, unrelenting in its depressive influence.

Still, there are moments in “Booksmart” and “Euphoria” where the soundtracks enhance the work, particularly when the narrative of a track complements that of a character. More often than not, this occurs when song and on-screen plot have a direct correlation to queerness, both existing as expressions of simultaneous alienation and bliss. In “Euphoria”’s sixth episode, character Jules floats through a Halloween house party, donning angel wings and a flowing white dress, not dissimilar to the look of Claire Danes in Baz Luhrmann’s version of “Romeo and Juliet.” As she wanders onto the dancefloor, Bronski Beat’s “Smalltown Boy” begins playing, shimmering and pulsating as she moves with drunken elation. Her present recklessness is largely an expression of anger; she’s recently been blackmailed by villian Nate, partially due to his own resentment towards his attraction to her transness. But her state is also one of muddled bliss, having just kissed best friend Rue underwater, their growing romance and Jules’ relationship to identity becoming further convoluted. Though explicitly about homophobia during the 1980s, “Smalltown Boy” also expresses this emotional contradiction of queerness, of existing with very particular versions of pain and pleasure.

Early in “Booksmart,” protagonists Amy and Molly sit at a lunch table gossiping, only for Amy to become distracted with gazing at her crush, Ryan, from afar. While Ryan glows through Amy’s gaze under delicate rays of light, Discovery’s “Can You Discover?” scores the visuals, a song of cyclic, blossoming synths and Technicolor longing.

Discovery, a side project between former Vampire Weekend member Rostam Batmanglij and Ra Ra Riot’s Wes Miles, released one album in 2009, punctuated by its bubblegum buoyancy. The album still feels bracingly modern, bright with glistening urgency, contextualized directly by gay desire. Though Rostam didn’t publicly come out for another year, the tracks are rather immediate in queerness, highlighting the frustrations of isolation and the effervescence of complete infatuation. “Can You Discover?” itself is an expression of such infatuation, aligning equally with Amy’s on screen preoccupation.

The delight and challenge of “Booksmart” and “Euphoria”’s soundtracks is that they are so ubiquitous in the worlds of the pieces that they are essentially characters of their own, composites serving to create emotional and stylistic depth. At times, this translates to something of an overbearing presence, a lazy substitute for genuine atmosphere and authentic character work. Occasionally, however, the contextual subject matter of the chosen song helps elevate the material, evoking the particular sentiment on screen for the audience as well. If anything, “Booksmart” and “Euphoria”’s soundtracks indicate a movement towards a more present use of music in media, a reflection of how the playlists in our own lives can be similarly plot driven, scoring our most climactic and visceral moments perpetually.

• Willa Shiomos (Computer Science and Design)

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TYLER the influence of

Editorial Designer: Nick Alonzo (Architecture) Fall 2019

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While staying true to his original appeal in his subversion of traditional industry doublespeak and a passion for making things that look dope, Tyler is opening up previously gated domains such as streetwear culture and Adult Swim for new communities to enter; for example, by releasing a trio of light pastel Converse dotted in florals and making it as exciting as any Jordan or Yeezy drop, or in the personal soul-searching his new TV show The Jellies is built around. The rapid sell-out of his recent Golf le Fleur shoes is evidence that by finally embracing himself honestly instead of defining himself by who doesn’t know him, Tyler’s become one of the most exciting figures in rap’s long-necessary identity outreach.

In its seventh year, Tyler, the Creator’s Camp Flog Gnaw continues to celebrate creativity and self-expression, and the diverse audience it attracts proves its success. From the start, Tyler has always been forthright in creating a brand that is uniquely his - his visions, his opinions, and especially with the recent release of Igor, his production.

As a result, his content is incredibly earnest and stylistically concentrated throughout his artistic shifts from album to album.

Overall, Tyler’s music has created a culture of inclusion and off-center attitude that has silently permeated the walls of mainstream youth culture. He’s everyone’s curator, bringing Supreme back, selecting rising artists to showcase at his music festival/ carnival, setting aesthetic trends in clothing and videography. Here are a few more places you can find Tyler.

For some artists, the similarity is claimed to be coincidental, others haven’t addressed the connection, and some are Tyler’s buddies. However, in all these cases, Tyler did it first and most loudly. The most obvious similarities are aesthetic, and they are starting to gain more and more ground.

In Billie Eilish’s video for “you should see me in a crown”, she closely parallels Tyler’s “Yonkers” (2011) in visuals by wistfully using a tarantula as an accessory. While she lets it crawl in her mouth, Tyler bites into a roach.

A couple years later, Tyler releases “IFHY” where he leans into his attraction for 60s fashion and portrays a doll version of himself.

At the same time, a popular Belgian artist named Stromae was working on an incredibly similar video for his hit “Papaoutai”, which turned out to be a slightly more polished version of Tyler’s concept. A few years after that, Melanie Martinez introduces her Cry Baby world, full of art inspired by Mark Ryden’s pop surrealism. Ryden designed the album art for Tyler’s Wolf.

At the very least this still speaks volumes to Tyler’s avant-garde style. Artists are only jumping on his trends years later, and his success has surpassed his peers thanks to the fact that he really doesn’t care what we

think anyways – and we like that. Tyler has been catching a lot of attention lately, but it’s still worth noting just how long he’s been committed to his independent art. Tyler’s evolved style is coming out to push the bounds of the music industry, and seeing his name on a track is a seal of fresh ideas guaranteed.

You can see Tyler’s style in the form of Golf Wang on Grailed side by-side more “traditional” streetwear, in Asap Rocky’s new “Babushka Boi” video, and most recently in collaboration with SE Bikes. He does what he wants, and that’s why we watch him. It keeps his influence pure and unbeatable because nothing controls it but Tyler himself. And as Tyler’s success grows, we can see more and more of his influence in his peers’ music. If we don’t watch, we may miss his reign, and it may take us another few years to realize that the sprinkled donut on the back of someone’s shirt in high school algebra is – surprise – Tyler.

• Hue-Ninh Nguyen (Finance)

Folk Folk Rock’s Rock’s Bodily Bodily Awakening Awakening The challenge of deliberately political art is always the line between the direct and the obvious, the question of where nuance can be forgone in the name of catharsis. It’s a tricky act to balance, and within a particularly tense era, even harder, as artists of a certain level of consciousness seem indebted to political urgency. Yet, a recent crop of folk rock musicians appear to have found a remedy to graceless overtness: the particularities of realized experience. In other words, the personal is still political, and for those of marginalized identities, often the personal is not an isolated incident. Directly intertwined with identity is the body, playing an essential role in how selfhood is construed and presented. Therefore, what’s emerged as of late is a defined canon of folk rock informed directly by the bodies we inhabit, and whether under patriarchal context, they can ever really be our own.

Stella Donnelly represents the most intentionally political of these fresh-faced folk rockers; her relevance partially derived out of the rather topical single, “Boys Will Be Boys”. Released in 2017, coincidentally close to the timing of the #MeToo movement, the track serves as a letter to a friend who is a survivor of sexual assault. Donnelly translates that trauma of this specific scenario into an echo of current womanhood, an anthem of frustration with the pervasive, unchanging nature of rape culture. Even more, it serves as a simple, vulnerable introduction to an artist with brutal honesty and active intention.

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Donnelly’s newer work also represents a pointed and particular narrative, seamlessly weaving the irony and devastation of womanhood with blistering confession and confrontation. It’s a fitting theme for an album that quite literally references the trouble of reprehensible men in its title, Beware of the Dogs.

Out of the gate, Donnelly’s bark is just as strong as her bite; on opening track “Old Man,” she sneers with equal parts anger and amusement about a skeevy plutocrat: “your personality traits don’t count if you put your dick in someone’s face.” Her clever contrast of peppy instrumentation and graphic, blunt lyrics make the blow feel all the more staggering. When she sings with the snap of a jingle, “are you scared of me old man, or are you scared of what I’ll do you grabbed me with an open hand, the world is grabbing back at you,” it bounces with a knowing kitschiness; one can’t help but picture Dolly Parton in 9 to 5 laughing at her sleazy boss held captive in his own home.

But Donnelly isn’t just targeting sexual abuse: she deftly covers the bodily assault of politicians and capitalists with the same rage and earnestness. “Watching Telly” is inspired by a visit to Dublin during the referendum on abortion, though it becomes more tied to the capitalistic theft of women’s larger agency as the song progresses (“they tape dollar signs to our bodies and tell us not to show our skin”). Title track “Beware of the Dogs” targets deceitful politicians, specifically their environmental harm on the body. “U Owe Me” calls out an old boss, referring to him “jerking off to the CCTV” while she “pours plastics pints of flat VB.” The chorus is a simple repetition of its title, barely wavering in intensity and irritation. This structure mirrors the cyclic nature of deadend jobs and their routine of wavering non-purpose. In the song,

neoliberalism is positioned as yet another attack on the body, turning it into machinery of exploitative, mind-numbing efficiency and optimization.

Still, Donnelly knows when to come back to her own body, even when everyone else seems to be destroying it. On “Mosquito,” she references fantasizing about a crush via vibrator with alluring crassness. What seems like a simple detail becomes a proposal of the album’s obsession with the body: its regulation, its abuse, and its personal existence. The closing lines of the album underscore this theme perfectly; “I’m locked out of my body and all its usual common sense, I’ll be here in the end, playing with myself again.”

Donnelly reminds us that the body is brash and volatile and never reaches certain resolution, even within our fantasies.

Fellow Aussie Julia Jacklin is similarly preoccupied by the confines of her body on her second LP Crushing, though alternatively she frames this through the arc of a failed relationship. It’s a positively arresting album, burning through questions and confessions with searing rumination. Consider opening track “Body,” a blistering epic of lost love and agency.

Jacklin recalls with sobering detail a dead romance’s final misadventure, an arrest after her partner burns a cigarette in an airplane bathroom. The song hinges on an image of Jacklin in her ex’s possession, a nude photograph of her lying on his bed. With sobering apathy, she worries of him hurting her with it, but can only settle on devastating indifference: “Well I guess it’s just my life, and it’s just my body.” It’s this phrase that is repeated through the outro with haunting irony, that her body is a weapon that’s not even her own, but despite her anxiety and impotence, this may not really matter.

Crushing chronologically tracks Jacklin’s shifting notions of autonomy with delicate, emerging, self-assurance. “Head Alone” sees Jacklin contextualizing her body’s confinement and commodification. “I don’t want to be touched all the time, I raised my body up to be mine,” she declares with quiet conviction. Subsequently, “Pressure to Party” ultimates Jacklin’s steady reclamation, as she gathers courage to resurface from her breakup (“Out on the dancefloor with my body back”). It’s these three tracks that feel most tethered to Crushing’s narrative: the question of what your form represents when your body is no longer defined by someone else. Though not an overtly declarative album, it seems a political statement enough for Jacklin to decide she will try to make her body her own, even if she can never truly know it.

Meg Duffy’s solo project Hand Habits is less concerned with the societal condition of the body than Donnelly and Jacklin, but rather affected by the spaces it inhabits and its relation to them.

Their aptly named LP placeholder questions the transient nature of lovers and ideas for one never in a single place too long, the rebirth of identity with every new environment. It’s a classic theme for the touring musician, but Hand Habits’ album shimmers with comforting Americana, hazy and sprawling in its roiling guitar and soft vocals. On “what’s the use” Duffy sings, “I was afraid when I lost my identity inside of you, I guess we were the same.”

Lovers morph into one, their styles and individuality becoming indistinguishable from another. However, personhood is always connected to the same body, its identity changing rapidly around a constant form.

In many ways, lack of identity is an identity in itself, this being a recurring thesis on placeholder. “I was just a placeholder, a place you will return,” Duffy proposes on the album’s title track. People frequently morph others into their own creation, projecting their ideals until they find someone else to repeat the process on. “can’t calm down” sees Duffy stuck between who they want to be and what their body allows. Back in their hometown, reminiscing of childhood pasts Duffy sighs, “I don’t want to be that,” then questions “What if I can’t calm down, and I don’t have that in my bloodline?” Duffy often on the record is betrayed by their own anxieties and desires, unable to alter their own capacities. placeholder is controlled by such abilities, of how far towards or away from particular existences our body will let us be.

There is a pure universal obscurity of existing within a body you have no escape from, a truth all three musicians in one way or another are preoccupied by. For Stella Donnelly, this a particularly political reality, a nuisance of womanly existence, where men continue to regulate and abuse the body. Julia Jacklin feels this with the conclusion of her relationship, in pondering the ownership of her body and the repercussions of intimacy. Meg Duffy of Hand Habits meanwhile, feels little connection to places themselves, but rather where their body exists and the people it exists with.

In essence, identity is unbreakably tied to the bodies we inhabit, bodies which live in evolving states of tender chaos. Luckily, these three artists have an unwavering ability to emerge from this chaos with distinct, splintering focus.

Willa Shiomos (Computer Science and Design)

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SWEDISH D E AT H MET HM-2

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TA L From an American viewpoint, Scandinavia comes off as a quirky utopia of sorts, where taxes are high, your needs are taken care of, everyone barely works, and bicycles are the only mode of transportation. Sweden especially is viewed as a charming spot, giving us Ikea, Abba, and the Nobel Prize (plus Nobel’s other invention, dynamite). While it was the birthplace of the soundtrack of “Mama Mia”, nowadays most common listeners would assume that the main music coming out of the country is EDM, like other countries in northern and central Europe. To a certain extent, that’s true, with major artists such as Avicii or Swedish House Mafia emerging from the Nordic state. But there’s another strain of music that first came from Sweden, one which harkens back to the country’s old origins as a land of pillage and plunder, rather than precut furniture. That genre, with its chugging guitars, low growls, and at times surprisingly rich melodies, is Swedish death metal.

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What’s key to remember is that this is not the same genre of metal that emerged from Sweden’s oil rich next-door neighbor Norway.

That country was far more known for its black metal scene, defined by corpse-like face paint on musicians, pagan/satanic themes, and absolutely brutal walls of sound. What’s even more important to know about that era however is the sheer amount of genuinely concerning behavior that took place, ranging from multiple notable suicides among artists, several church burnings, and a few murders between bands. There was a strong streak of militant anti-Christian nationalism in Norway’s black metal scene, as well as frequent threats against the “soft” Swedish death metal bands. While emerging from a similar geographical location, there’s a noticeable spiritual split between the two genres. Early Norwegian black metal took heavy metal and made it more legitimately evil, with actual Satanists, nihilism, and violence. The Swedes took a different approach, similar to thrash metal bands like Metallica and Megadeath, of using punk rock as a starting point and turning up the aggression and speed, though, with one key element added: a tiny, buzzy box.

Music technology often fails to see financial success during one era, only to later be picked up by musicians and producers and utilized in a manner mostly unintended. While plenty of effects units are popular and then end up being used in significant ways, the more interesting story is always a failure that goes on to become a legend in a certain music scene. One of the most distinct examples is the story of the Boss HM-2 Heavy Metal, a Japanese distortion pedal first produced in 1983. Created to emulate the sound of a driven Marshall amp, the pedal was intended to fit within the mold of the metal of the early 80s. However, the pedal had “character” in several distinct ways, including awful hiss, knobs that seemingly didn’t change anything for much of their range, and a sound not dissimilar to punting a nest of caffeinated wasps.

Fairly unpopular throughout its run and discontinued after 8 years (a somewhat short time for a major manufacturer like Boss), most American and British metal artists just stuck with their powerful Marshall or Mesa stacks, rather than using the buzzy pedal. But some creative Swedes got their hands on the HM-2, using it as a tool to deliberately create some of the loudest, nastiest metal tones possible, with one of the most prominent early examples being the band Entomed’s 1990 album Left Hand Path. It was discovered that using the pedal with every knob (rather stereotypically) maxed out into even a fairly clean amp could create rhythm guitar tones that sounded almost like a tuned chainsaw, emphasizing the bass and treble harmonics in way that made power cords absolutely tear through the mix. Thanks in part to evangelizing by Sunlight Studios producer Tomas Skogsburg, who produced Left Hand Path, several other bands from the label started to use the pedal, which then created a ripple effect throughout Sweden’s metal scene. Essentially, a pedal designed for the hard rockers of the early eighties ended up being used to create some of the most brutal metal of the next decade, generating a sonic identity for an entire country’s metal scene.

However, Swedish metal was not and is not a monolithic entity, with a very noticeable divide during the mid-90s, a conflict between east and west. On one hand, there were the bands coming out of Stockholm, in eastern Sweden, propelled by groups such as those at Sunlight Studios, including Entomed, Carange, Disember, and Unleashed. This type of metal was the more direct, brutal, and fuzzed out form of death metal, with an HM-2 pushing every amp to its limit.

In the west, there was Gothenburg, and a style far more dependent on intricate melody work, with HM-2s being used in a more nuanced way, such as a boost into another distortion like a Boss Metal Zone (often

considered a much worse distortion pedal without such assistance).

While still extremely heavy (lyrics were still frequently screamed), the composition at times seems to draw from American thrash metal or British power metal. Bands out of the Gothenburg scene included At The Gates, In Flames, and Dark Tranquility, whose sounds still maintained that rough HM-2 character but definitely have a more modern sound.

However, death metal is not the country’s lone heavy export.

Sweden also has notable Viking metal and power metal scenes, with much of the emphasis of these genres obviously being leaning back into their Nordic roots to sing about battle, conquest, and Valhalla. The Swedish band Bathory is often cited as an early influence in Viking metal, which draws from black metal while substituting satanism for pagan themes. This has led to reactionary developments in the genre, such as some links to anti-Semitism and anti-Christianity appearing with certain bands, as well as other white supremacist sentiments.

Meanwhile, there are also more conventional power metal bands like HammerFall and Sabaton, known for massive, stadium metal style jams about war and conflict, sounding like if Iron Maiden’s “The Trooper” was made into an entire genre.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention one of the country’s most popular current metallic exports, Ghost, a band which serves as a fusion of sorts between the Abba-esque quirk of Sweden and the dark, satanic undercurrents that were prevalent in the metal of it and its next door neighbor. With a sound closer to old-school heavy metal, combined with the danceability and fun of pop rock, the band sings songs about great plagues and “doing it” with Lucifer himself, while beiang led by the ghoulishly charming “Cardinal Copia”. The masks of the band members and changing religious characters of frontman Tobias Forge suggest the theatricality and menace of Norwegian black metal bands but reframed in an ironic and defiantly playful form of evil. Unlike the death metal that defined the Swedish scene in the 90s, Ghost has achieved a degree of mainstream success, gaining 3 Grammy nominations and winning one of them.

Enjoying Swedish metal can at times be a challenging endeavor.

If you’re not already a fan of metal in general, trying to wade into the waters of mid-90s death metal would be quite a shock. Additionally, there are reasonable questions about the thematic intentions of some bands, though the vast majority approach their music simply seeking out the darkest themes and heaviest riffs purely for subversive enjoyment. All that said however, Sweden has absolutely produced some of the best metal artists of all time, especially in terms of groups that innovated the genre with new intensity and combinations with other styles of music. So, the next time it’s cold outside, and you’re feeling that seasonal affective depression kick in, think back to those northern rockers, and fire up that Swedish chainsaw sound in order to get yourself in gear.

Bryan Grady (Political Science)

tastemakers presents: a conversation with

Hobo Johnson In anticipation of his November 11th show at House of Blues with support from Mom Jeans., Interviews Editor Max Rubenstein spoke to Hobo Johnson about his breakout NPR Tiny Desk audition, shitposting, and his upcoming Christmas album.

Tastemakers Magazine (TMM): To me, the appeal of your music is its authenticity. When I listen to a Hobo Johnson song I feel like I can see the lyrics in your notebook through your inflection. The stutters in songs like “Peach Scone” really add to the listening experience and I was wondering what the recording process is like.

Hobo Johnson (HJ): I do it all really loosely. I record, and a lot of times write, just sitting in my garage or in my bedroom. Especially “Peach Scone” and “You and the Cockroach,” I kind of just sat there and rambled and made it up as I went; you can kind of hear when I’m doing that. Other songs, I tend to write poems and focus on the narrative part of it. The recording process is typically just me chilling in my house. The new album was a little different… I went to the studio for some songs, but most of it is me in my house by myself.

TMM: For sure. I feel like your live performances really breathe new life into your music, though. “Mover Awayer” is definitely my favorite cut off the new album but listening to the live version you uploaded to YouTube lets me reexperience one of my favorite songs for the first

time. For people who haven’t seen you live, why should they come out to a Hobo Johnson show?

HJ: I think that, like you said, our music is really personable, and people feel what I’m talking about, but the live show adds a whole other element to that. You can really see the levels added from our “Peach Scone” video and our other live videos. I think going to one of our shows really puts it all in the right context where you can see the real emotion of what’s going on.

TMM: Definitely. “February 15th” is kind of like your “i” from Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly; Kendrick put out “i” as a mediocre studiorecorded single, but the version on the album is live and it leaves way more of an impact on the listener. “February 15th” is one of the most emotionally potent tracks off of “The Fall of Hobo Johnson;” why did you choose to keep it live on the album?

HJ: I feel like it is way better live. I tried to record it in the studio, but it was so sterile and fucking bad. Sometimes when I record songs 31

they’re just god-awful, they just sound bad for some reason, and a lot of it is just being in the right headspace and mindset to feel the song, especially “February 15th.” That’s the only way that I could record it. I can’t go into the studio with headphones on in some dimly lit room, I need to be in front of people to really get the emotion out of it.

Interview

TMM: I agree. When you uploaded the studio version of “Peach Scone” on Spotify and people were able to listen to the differences between that and the Tiny Desk version from your audition, you could really see the intricacies in your inflection and the way that you speak that make it feel so much more personal. When you’re screaming your lyrics, I really feel it; you can’t really sing along to a Hobo Johnson song because it’s just you, authentically.

HJ: Thanks, man. So much of it is just having someone in the room and be able to gauge their reactions. It makes it so different.

TMM: I heard about you like most people heard about you, through the NPR Tiny Desk contest where you performed “Peach Scone.” What was it like to go from living in your car and independently releasing your first album, “Hobo Johnsons 94 Corolla,” to now getting 16 million views on YouTube?

HJ: Dude, completely mind-blowing and still really had to grasp.

Yesterday I was thinking about it a lot, just thinking back to that time where I was so depressed and living in my car and how difficult it was. I’m trying to let it all sink in, but it’s all just amazing. I’m trying to get better at being 100% grateful and gracious for everything that is going on. Playing in front of people every night and trying not to get complacent and just appreciate it all.

TMM: I think it really comes through. The appeal of Hobo Johnson doesn’t stop at the music, you watch an interview or a YouTube video and you can really tell that it’s all you. Your song “I Want a Dog” is a fantastic peek into that hopeful-worry you bring to your music. You signed this major record deal and your touring the world, but how has your life changed since making it?

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HJ: That’s a really complex question for me and I’ve been thinking about it a lot recently. We get a lot of criticism and I’m a really sensitive person. Before all of this I was way more sensitive and it made life really difficult because I would just get overwhelmed by everything, but if I were as rude to everyone who gives me shit as they were to me, it just gives me a really bad look. I don’t want to be looked at as that salty artist that isn’t thankful for what they have. It forces me to be less sensitive and grow tougher skin, but I feel like if I grow tougher skin, it’ll impact the sensitive and honest music I am trying to make. I’m growing, but I’m trying to feel everything at the same time. It’s a weird give and take.

TMM: You really put yourself out there with your music. It’s not like you’re just rapping about your chains and girls, you’re rapping about your feelings and you’re sharing yourself with people. You’re putting yourself out there and then Pitchfork gives you a 3, but at that same time Anthony Fantano gives you a yellow flannel.

HJ: I’m a huge Anthony Fantano fan, he’s one of my idols. I had three goals when I was a kid just starting out: Nardwaur interview, Anthony Fantano review, and winning a Grammy. It was a great moment to check one of those off; he was the first person who was willing to go

against all of the shitposting. It was just really great to hear someone in the mainstream music critique community listen to me objectively and not jump on the boat that everyone else was for the fun of it. I feel like he sees me for who I am. Just thankful for everything that he said.

TMM: Shifting gears, your music touches on so many genres. I know that you’ve said before that with your new record, you wanted every song to sound a little different. Who would you say are your influences?

HJ: I really like Bright Eyes, Chance the Rapper, The Front Bottoms and AJJ. I listened to a lot of Neutral Milk Hotel when I was making the new album too, but those are the main ones.

TMM: Are you an OG Chance the Rapper fan, or are you an “I love my wife” apologist?

HJ: (Laughs) I am an Acid Rap/10 Day fan. I like the new stuff, but it’s just not the same to me. I do appreciate the musicality of it though.

TMM: What’s next for Hobo Johnson?

HJ: Right now, I’m trying to release a Christmas EP called Hobo Johnson Loves Christmas. Just something short and fun. After that, I’m thinking about releasing an EP in March or April of remixes from the new album and a new song or two called Hobo Johnson Alienates His Fans. I’m trying to make it really weird and just give myself free reign to do whatever I want. I’m also trying to get into other artforms; I have an idea for a play/musical I want to do or a short film, but we’ll see. Whatever makes me excited.

TMM: It’s been great talking with you! See you at your show at House of Blues on November 11th!

• Max Rubenstein (Marketing)

Believe in Your Heart and Confess with Your Lips: Dissecting The Mountain Goats’ “Romans 10:9” In 2009, The Mountain Goats released The Life of the World to Come, an alternative folk-rock album inspired by the Bible. Each song takes the name of a chapter and verse from the text and puts it into a contemporary setting. Songwriter and lead singer John Darnielle does not re-tell the biblical story, rather, he uses the biblical story to craft a new narrative. The titular stories are only the genesis of a new cast of characters, a new setting, and a new time period. Each is twisted into tales of desperation and depression to comment on the ways the Bible falls short in contemporary life.

The track begins with the line, “Wake up sixty minutes after my head hits the pillow I can’t live like this” The narrator is so consumed with anxiety that in a night, they are only able to get one hour of sleep. Accented by exhausted cheeky vocals, the narrator then takes us through their morning routine, continuing with the lines, “And in the shower, I am a sailor standing waiting, ready for the ship to list.”

In sailing, the “angle of list” measures how far off balance a ship is, thus, the narrator is waiting for a storm to hit and be knocked off his path. The acoustic riff almost plays off this “listing” motion with cords that seems to sway the listener back and forth. The lyrics continue to describe the narrator’s hellish life with the line, “Don’t feel like going on but Come on, make a joyful sound.”

After the narrator describes their daily struggle with depression, the music swells with energy as Darnielle leads us into the chorus: “If you will believe in your heart And confess with your lips Surely you will be saved one day”

The depression motif continues in the narrator’s trip to the pharmacy, proclaiming he: “Won’t take the medication But it’s good to have around A kind and loving God Won’t let my small ship run aground” Instead of taking the medication, the narrator believes if he has faith and confesses his sins, God will save him. It is nearly impossible to listen to these lines without hearing a smile play across the narrator’s face. This glimmer of ironic hope in the vocals only serves to accentuate the bleak life our narrator leads.

Designer: Sara Hartleben (Graphic Design)

The seventh track on the album, “Romans 10:9,” is fixated on salvation, revealing how the scripture fails when it comes to terms with depression. The music has a happy, singsong-y, light, and airy tone that serves to undercut the lyrics and contribute to the ironic nature of the song.

The chorus is also a very close adaptation of the verse itself, which states, “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth to the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved” (Romans 10:9).

In both the song and the verse, faith is localized within different body parts. Believing belongs to your heart and confessing belongs to your lips. Yet in the verse, salvation is achievable by simply praying to the Lord. Both the song and the verse “Romans 10:9” is obsessed with salvation. While the verse insists that salvation is achievable to anyone who praises God, the narrator praises God, yet is trapped in a debilitating depression.

The reason I love this song is the way it plays with expectations.

Listening to it for the first time, you hear something cheerful. You hear something full of hope and faith. It takes listening intently to the lyrics to hear the subtly mocking tone. I also love the song’s layers – it is literary genius how Darnielle interprets the Bible verse and invents his own narrative. Even if you’re not familiar with the scripture itself, I highly recommend every track on The Life of the World to Come.

• Kaitlin Kerr (English)

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Get to Know the Editorial

A(nonymous)Listers Designer: Stephanie Miano (Interaction Design)

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Anyone who has ever heard popular music from the past few years knows the A-listers. They dominate the charts, the radio and now even the streaming platforms. However, behind many A-listers there are equally as artistically capable people who are piecing together the hits.

These writers go unnoticed, often on purpose, and sustain themselves by being the brains behind large scale operations and collecting checks under the radar. However, some of these writers have stepped out from behind the curtain and put together artist projects of their own which are equally as creative and consumable as those they work on for others. Unfortunately, without the massive marketing departments backing them up on their solo ventures they don’t reach the same level of recognition as their clients have previously.

Highlighted here are a few outstanding artists and their current work that deserves every bit of attention as the hits they’ve penned.

Jesse Saint John “Truth hurts less when you’re #1!” This was the message spread across an order of cupcakes for industry machine Jesse Saint John after his co-write with Lizzo, “Truth Hurts,” hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100. Other pieces of his writing catalogue include Charli XCX’s “Secret (Shh),” Camila Cabello’s “Something’s Gotta Give” and a majority of Kim Petras’s Turn off the Light Volume 1 project (yes, they’re friends and yes, Kim leaked HIS phone number in “Got Your Number”). His magic touch has created gold in modern pop music and his releases under his own name are no exception. His debut EP, “don’t stop dancing. life gets sad.” captures the essence of his found purpose in songwriting. It details the intricacies of modern emotional experiences through catchy hooks, meaningful-yet-accessible lyrics and playful back and forths with features like Brooke Candy and AUGUST 08. Standout, guitar-lead track “WISER” puts Saint John’s fears of growing old in the foreground while “WALL” is a cocky, harsh statement of capability which declares, “Doesn’t matter what you do, I can’t be as weak as you.” Both the confidence and introspection he displays in his cowrites shine through on his original music and if audiences are smart, they’ll know for themselves soon enough.

Leland Brett Leland McLaughlin, professionally known more simply as “Leland,” has a dream job. He writes music with and for his favorite artists. In fact, his most frequent collaborator, Troye Sivan, even enlisted his help to open for him for select dates on his 2018 Bloom Tour. Other works he’s contributed to include Sabrina Carpenter’s “Why” and Singular projects, Selena Gomez’s “Fetish,” and even a track off of Carrie Underwood’s 2018 album Cry Pretty. Needless to say, Leland has a way with pop music writing that brought him to a few diverse corners of the industry. As far as his own material goes, he doesn’t stray too far off this path and creates soft electronic pop tracks that prove he’s more than just a behind the scenes writer.

While he has yet to release a full project, the Golden Globe nominee has released a collection of singles which have garnered a fair share of critical praise. His newest track is perhaps one of McLaughlin’s strongest, titled “Another Lover,” it has been declared “yet another accomplishment” by Billboard. Other songs include his debut (which also happens to be his most popular), “Mattress,” an energetic, electric pop entry and the punchy post-breakup anthem, “Middle Of A Heartbreak.” As his catalogue of cowrites and original tracks expand, Leland is sure to shape the mainstream and solidify his own place in it.

Tayla Parx In case you’re wondering what Ariana Grande, Panic! At the Disco, Khalid and Normani all have in common, it would be that Tayla Parx took part in writing tracks with/for them that landed them all in the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100 in 2018. Her incredible credits don’t end there, though. Parx also has her name on many tracks off of Janelle Monaé’s groundbreaking Dirty Computer album, a couple Fifth Harmony tracks, and even a couple tracks for pop legends like Mariah Carey and Christina Aguilera. To quote Parx herself, “Know it’s Tayla-made if you heard Tayla made it.” Unlike some artists, Parx didn’t wait too many years before releasing music of her own. Her first solo release, “I Love You,” was dropped in 2016, just a few years after her writing credits started to surface in mainstream pop. A few years later she got her own work its own recognition when she released “Runaway” with familiar collaborator, Khalid. Since then she’s dropped her loaded sophomore album, We Need To Talk, which is full of the pop excellence and features such as DUCKWRTH and Joey BadA$$. From punchy lead single “I Want You” to the somber, wrenching track, “Easy,” she proves that her name is everywhere in the industry for a reason.

It is safe to say that pop music has a future with Tayla Parx, and hopefully she is given her due credit as she continues to deliver.

• Drew Quercio (Music Industry)

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Local Photos

SHAED, The Sinclair

Photo by Frances Lee (Nursing)

Lauv, House of Blues

Lauren Scornavacca (Industrial Engineering)

Bea Miller, The Sinclair

Photo by Gabbie Whittle (Mechanical Engineering)

Elhae, Sonia

Photo by Gabbie Whittle (Mechanical Engineering)

Charlie XCX, House of Blues

Photo by Lauren Scornavacca (Industrial Engineering)

Joywave, Rockland Trust Pavilion

Photo by Lauren Scornavacca (Industrial Engineering)

Charly Bliss, The Sinclair

Photo by Brian Bae (Industrial Engineering)

Bombay Bicycle Club, Royale

Photo by Julia Aguam (Communication Studies)

Maggie Rogers, The Wang Theatre

Photo by Emily Gringorten (Computer Science)

Ashe, Brighton Music Hall

Photo by Lauren Scornavacca (Industrial Engineering)

Bishop Briggs, House of Blues

Photo by Lauren Scornavacca (Industrial Engineering)

Dean Lewis, House of Blues

Photo by Lauren Scornavacca (Industrial Engineering)

Show Review Wilco October 19, 2019 @ The Wang Theatre

This summer I road tripped back from Los Angeles to my hometown of Minneapolis with my father which amounted to a 3 day journey. Shockingly, he didn’t enjoy any of the music I ended up playing, except for the Wilco songs that appeared sporadically on my playlists. Wilco’s rather hefty discography, which spans from the early 90s, encompasses their continuously evolving talents as they’ve transformed over the past few decades. Before the band embarked on their 2.5 hour concert experience at The Wang Theatre, the crowd buzzed in anticipation for the lineup of what songs would be included for the Thursday night performance. Aside from the 10 year old boy that appeared to have been dragged in by his father, I was by far the youngest person in the venue.

The Wang was a rather odd choice for the band, with everyone standing in their seats as the band sprawled the stage intimately playing solos with one another while most of us were about 100 feet from the stage. Despite lead singer Jeff Tweedy and bassist John Stirratt being the only original members in the band, sonically, Wilco sounds exactly the same as they did on their first record in 1995, which is impressive for a band that has extensively toured over the past 25 years. As the band gracefully weaved tracks from their latest album, Ode to Joy, with older classics from Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, it highlighted the absolute talent of Tweedy’s songwriting.

From quiet, emotional pieces like “How to Fight Loneliness” and “Reservations,”

that left the venue silent, to the shouts of audience members chanting “NOTHING! NOTHING! NOTHING” on heavy rock ballads like “Misunderstood”. Although Wilco remained stagnant on the stage, aside from a few pivots as they faced one another to play solos, the sheer excellence of musicianship displayed by each member provided sufficient entertainment for the doting crowd members.

Towards the end of the show during “Box Full of Letters,” half of us thought we went deaf when the left speaker blew.

I truly thought I had lost my hearing and was contemplating if i would forever tell my family that is how i lost hearing in my left ear but I was quickly reassured when the crowd shouted “FIX THE SOUND.” As “Heavy Metal Drummer” began, the sound completely cut out, riling the crowd up until Tweedy figured out what we were all screaming about. “We’ll be patient!” shouted a few members and that we were. Crowd members hushed one another as we listened to an unplugged cover of “New Madrid” by Uncle Tupelo for about 30 seconds before sound returned.

“When life gives you lemons you play new madrid,” Tweedy said. The mix up however caused a bit of confusion in the set list when Tweedy returned to play “Everyone Hides” which we had just heard previously two songs but I wasn’t holding a grudge considering we all got madly confused with the whole sound debacle.

As the concert began to wind down, Tweedy joked, “Let’s pretend we went off stage and you guys cheered” as the

crowd did just that, erupting in shouts and applauds. The band closed out the show with “Hold Me Anyway” and “Misunderstood,” before leaving the stage. However, the proposed encore turned into another encore, with die-hard Wilco fans hungry for more.

As Wilco departed the stage for a final time, fans across the audience left smiling, satisfied to see their 90s heroes continuing to make music.

Maya Dengel (Media Screen Studies and Communications)

We publish show reviews online too! tastemakersmag.com 43

Sitting down with:

JASON EBBS Interview

2LATE, THE FLAM FLAMS, MURRAY WOW, ETHAN PORTER, AND MIDNIGHT CHANNEL This past October, Tastemakers sponsored a battle of the bands featuring Northeastern University musicians. We had the chance to talk with them before the show.

JASON EBBS TMM: Are you the Lizard King?

Designer: Ryan Fleischer (Marketing and Design)

JASON: So if you listen to the song, I expressly say that I’m not. I just kind of wanted to make that clear; I’m not the Lizard King. I can’t do everything.

TMM: Then who is?

JASON: I would say the Lizard King is Jim Morisson of the The Doors.

He would often proclaim “I am the Lizard King. I can do anything.” That was his thing. I was heavily inspired by him and continue to be.

JASON: Talking about Superego, you did pretty much all the instrumentation for that by yourself?

JASON: Yeah I did, with the exception of drums on “Highlight Reel,” I had a friend of mine do that. Besides that I did everything, bass, guitar, sang, drums, synth. Oh and on “Annabelle Seabreeze” I had a few friends do claps with me.

TMM: So are you a virtuoso?

TMM: In terms of your other influences, it seems like you’re a big fan of beach music?

JASON: Honestly, people compare me to The Beach Boys which I think is a lazy comparison because I don’t sound like The Beach Boys, I just wear white pants and sing about the beach. My main influences

Jason Ebbs Photo by Lauren Scornavacca (Industrial Engineering)

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are not beachy at all. I think that comes from my love of the beach itself. Growing up, I was always at the beach. It was my happy place.

JASON: No, I spread myself very well so that I’m not a virtuoso at anything but I can do a little bit when I need to. Guitar is definitely my most proficient. But again, to be a performer, half of it is stage presence and energy. Just having a good time, you don’t need to be Eddie Van Halen, although that would be great.

2LATE TMM: How did you start making music?

2LATE: My parents were super into music and I started playing guitar and wrote songs and stuff. I was really into rock but then I found hip-hop when I was around 9 or 10 so then I just switched lanes immediately.

I started focusing on producing and messing around in garage band and then I was producing for about two years until this March when I decided to actually start recording stuff and now we’re here.

TMM: When you’re writing songs, how do you approach the songwriting process?

2LATE: For my EP, that was the first stuff I ever made so I mostly pre wrote that because I didn’t have a mic [at the time] and was using my a lot of my friend’s stuff. But now, I’ll just play a beat and freestyle words and melodies. I just kind of do whatever feels right and then will pick some of the melodies to keep or some of the words and then I start writing from there.

about her relationship with things like social media and technology.

This album is about me trying out VR technology and moving into the VR world. So I made a VR app to go along with it.

TMM: Whoa what? Are you kidding? There’s so much there! So what came first?

MW: So 2018 I did a co-op on campus that incorporated VR. I started to play a lot of games and thought “Wow this is amazing and nobody’s using it.” I wanted to share it with the people and I also started to get inspired musically by technology. It was a whole new world in the virtual world and I started to see parallels between the games I was making and the music I was making because they were both a virtual experience. It all came together when I decided I wanted to share my music with this VR. There’s a Björk quote I love that says, “You have to walk the line between nature and technology.” I believe that is very representative of what I’ve made.

TMM: That’s so true, especially now with the presence you need to have with technology to get into the music industry at all. So where will this app be available?

TMM: Where did your name come from?

2LATE: When I was recording the EP I wasn’t really planning on doing anything with it. I was just going in to see what I could do and then my engineer was like you should actually release it and I was like fuck it, let’s do it. Definitely drew inspiration from PARTYNEXTDOOR. I really like the idea of concept names because it creates more of a vibe. I also really love the aesthetics of all caps names and I’ve always been into the late night hazey RnB which is where the late part comes from.

MURRAY WOW TMM: Who is Murray WOW, exactly?

MW: Yeah, there’s a bit of history to that. So in 2016 I was an orientation leader and I met my friend Pam. We had a ton of extra time over that summer so we started writing music together and eventually formed a band, NEW WOW, which made this kind of quirky electronic vomit pop, I’d say. We were just throwing ideas at a wall, but it was also meant to be fun, even a bit clubby at times. We did that and performed for a bit, but after a while it just fell off. At that point, I started to produce music for other artists. I met Maya Lucia who is a really inspiring artist here and I really started to dig into who I was as an artist by helping other people. It was through working with other people that I realized I could write songs about my experiences and my life so I started thinking “Hey I’m writing all of these songs and I could give them to other people, but I don’t think they’d have the same meaning to them as they do to me. So I decided to give going solo a shot and kept up with the WOW and here we are!

TMM: That’s so true and I think a big part of it is just rolling with it and coming up with more material. So what parts of you is this project composed of?

MW: So I made an album this summer and it’s very technology themed. It was heavily inspired by the artist Hannah Diamond who is an amazing electronic artist and designer, so she makes beautifully photoshopped images to go out with her music. She also talks a lot

MW: It’ll be a web VR app so you can do it in 360 on Chrome or Google Cardboard. You can also view it in web browsers because I wanted to make it accessible for people. The accompanying visuals were done with this amazing designer, Pixel Mozart. He did the 3D text that we’re using and came up with most of the design ideas. He’s really brilliant.

THE FLAM FLAMS TMM: First and foremost, you guys have a bit of an unusual band name — I was wondering if you could tell me a bit more about it.

Ryan Fleischer (RF): So yeah, it is a bit unusual. Basically, a “flam” is a drum rudiment and early on in our musical days our drummer, Sam, who’s not with us today -- he’s alive just not with us here -- he used to play a lot of flams as a way to add layers to our music so one thing led to another.

TMM: How do you balance your music career with school?

RF: So, I’m the Northeastern student here, I’m graduating in December with a business and design degree, so obviously I put my heart into music but not exactly my schooling.

Zach Parker (ZP): Well I currently go to Berklee for graduate based performance so it’s not too hard for me to balance because it’s all I do.

Desiree Larivee (DL): I graduated from college back in May with my associates in political science so I’m not balancing with school anymore. But, when I was in school I’d always take advantage of the practice rooms even though I wasn’t a music major which made it so much easier to fit into my schedule. Over the summer I worked for the New York Public Interest Research Group doing some environmental advocacy, some consumer rights advocacy, and it was amazing.

Honestly, that’s the direction I’d like to go with my career.

RF: Ya know, if rockstar doesn’t work out.

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DL: Exactly, that’s the backup plan. You know, I should probably write about saving the world and climate change and how we’re all fricked.

TMM: Do you ever clash, or do you all find agreement on things?

LN: It’s kind of diverse but like-

TMM: What’s your favorite song to play live?

Joey Handel (JH): Yeah.

Interview

DL: Honestly, “Beneath the Stars.” That was one of the first songs where we really jammed. I feel like a lot of our songs are very pop-y and summer-y and have this light vibe, but you can really go all out on that one. That’s one of my personal favorites.

Ryan Arshonsky (RA): But it works.

TMM: Because of our school, there’s co-op. Does that really impede you?

ZP: I’d say “End of Time.”

LN: I don’t know, it might I guess? Because you’re not going to be here.

RF: Yeah “End of Time” was the first song that Zack and I wrote together that we still play. It’s just great because the audience participates and they all know the words and they all yell “hey hey hey” and sing the chorus with us. That’s really special.

ETHAN PORTER

JH: Yeah, but last year I was on co-op and I was here, so it was fine. If anything, it was easier. Because when we practice at Northeastern, we usually practice at Ryder, and on the weekdays, you can only reserve that after 5. So like, I get back from work at 5 or 6, and it’s like, oh, Ryder.

TMM: How old were you when you first started writing songs? How has your music evolved since then?

TMM: If you’re on the same co-op cycle too, I’m sure it really helps out.

Switching gears, both “Butterfly Knife” and “Dark Eyes” off of Midnight Channel II are distortion heavy and edgy. Was there specifically inspiration for that? Or was that just a new direction you’re going for?

Ethan Porter (EP): I started writing when I was around 17 or 18. I think everyone does a lot of evolving their first few years after high school and my music morphed during that period into what it is now.

LN: I played guitar on the first album, and like, I’m not that good a guitarist. So then Ryan joined our band and he’s really good, so he can play lead guitar with all the distortion and it sounds good.

TMM: I have noticed that you added a lot more musical layers since you started and there’s been a heavier focus on the production, which is really cool to see that growth.

TMM: That’s high praise!

EP: Yeah, thanks!

RA: What inspired those songs?

TMM: I saw that you are studying both business and music here at Northeastern. How are you planning on incorporating music into your future career?

LN: I don’t know-

EP: If I’m not playing music, I at least want to be helping other artists grow whether that’s through marketing or through production.

Wherever I can apply music would be a good career I think!

TMM: I really enjoyed your song Bring Me Down, especially the build up towards the end of the song. Could you tell me a little bit about the inspiration for this track?

GP: I feel like it got a lot heavier, or faster kinda.

JH: The funny thing about “Butterfly Knife” is that it started out as like this harder, banger kind of thing and then we went in a different direction with it, like if you kind of hear the verse, well not verse…the like softer-ish part. We kind combined the two with the final product, and that was pretty cool, because it was sort of like…I remember you almost seemed dissatisfied with where it was going, and in the direction that was less hard, and we sort of met somewhere in the middle on it, and I think it turned out pretty well.

TMM: Yeah, you made a banger, sort of.

EP: Thank you! I was listening to a lot of Bon Iver and I was just getting into producing at that point and I wanted to try out autotune and a lot of slippery guitars and laidback and farback percussion. It was just kind of an experiment to see what I could do with that sound.

MIDNIGHT CHANNEL TMM: Which artists or bands have influenced you the most?

Liam Numrich (LN): Some Roses, Echo and the Bunnymen, but you guys should name some too, because you make parts of the songs.

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Ryan Arshonsky (RA): The Strokes, that sort of alt-rock, Nothing But Thieves kind of.

LN: Yeah, that’s our best song probably.

GP: I was gonna say, that’s probably all our favorite.

RA: Yeah LN: I think that so many bands have quiet, slow songs with no distortion. I think like, that I kind of want to make something a bit more heavy. All these indie rock bands now are like very clean. If you have a full album of those songs, it gets a bit boring, so you should have a few diverse songs.

• Interviews Conducted by: Grant Foskett, Maya Dengel, Drew Quercio, Kaitlin Kerr, Sofia Maricevic, Mona Yu

LOCAL PHOTO

11/3/2019

Aly Kula(Communications and Graphic Design)_LaurenSanderson_PRC.jpg

Lauren Sanderson Photo by Aly Kula (Communications and Graphic Design)

SPOTIFY PLAYLIST Max Rubenstein recommends a lot of songs

1. “Yonkers” — Tyler, The Creator

throughout this review of the Odd Future 2. “BLOW MY LOAD” — Tyler, The https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1ijeTgCzrmzbvSHOChAlTadN4fNW5DYfb Discography. This playlist pulls together a few of them. Read the article on page 8 and listen to the full playlist on our Spotify.

Find the playlist at https://sptfy.com/4Kcj

Creator 3. “Where This Flower Blooms” — Tyler, The Creator 4. “Burgundy” — Earl Sweatshirt 5. “Mantra” — Earl Sweatshirt 6. “Red Water” — Earl Sweatshirt

FIND YOUNG THUG We’ve hidden Young Thug somewhere in this issue. Find him and maybe something cool will happen...

7. “Thinkin Bout You” — Frank Ocean 8. “Ivy” — Frank Ocean 9. “Pyramids” — Frank Ocean

FOLLOW US Like what you read? Check us out online. tastemakersmag.com @tastemakersmag

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