Arts & Entertainment
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Drake Gets Political on New Tour with Migos

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“All of us are living in a country where we have to deal with people telling us we don’t understand, how divided we are, and how bad shit is getting and how we gotta deal with this fucking idiot that’s in office. They’ll sit there and tell us this country is falling apart because of us,” Drake said at his August 31 show. “But tonight we got 16,000 people from all different backgrounds inside one building and all we’re doing is chilling and having a good time. This is how the country should be.”

See that’s the thing about music. No matter where you’re from, what language you speak, what you are or who you are, you are able to understand.

Arts & Entertainment
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DNCE and Cupcakke to Perform at This Year’s Homecoming Concert

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The Cornell Concert Commission (CCC) announced that DNCE and Cupcakke will be performing at this year’s homecoming concert in Barton Hall on Sept. 22. DNCE, who is led by former Jonas Brother Joe Jonas, has been nominated for several AMAs and MTV awards. They initially rose to fame in late 2015 with the release of their breakout single “Cake by the Ocean” and have since joined artists like Selena Gomez on tour. Their only full-length album release is the self-titled DNCE from 2016.

Arts & Entertainment
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Interview with Pigeons Playing Ping Pong on the Band’s Unique Personality

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Pigeons Playing Ping Pong is a funk and psychedelic band from Baltimore, Maryland that will be performing at The Haunt in Ithaca tonight at 8:00p.m. The band is best known for its explosive performing style and the eccentric, fun personalities of its band members. Luckily, we were able to chat with vocalist/guitarist “Scrambled” Greg Ormont about the band’s beginnings, his approach to performing and tonight’s concert in advance of the show.  

The Sun: Now that you’ve grown to a very successful nationally touring band, what would you say would be your end goal? GO: Well really since we started it all, its been the same mentality. It is never enough.

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Students Show Talent in Electric Buffalo Showcase

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On August 25th, I found myself walking up to the porch of 604 East Buffalo Street for the 2018 Electric Buffalo Records Orientation Showcase. The house was quirky, with a humble charm that invited curiosity about the sound echoing from within it. With every creaking step on the wood porch came some overwhelming instrumentation. People meandered in and out of the rooms. Some danced on porch, and others watched the musicians rehearse

“Electric Buffalo Records is ready for takeoff this year and it starts here,” declared Adam Kanwal ’21, who is a Sun staff writer, co-president of the record label regarding the event. The night was EBR’s chance to ostend the talent that has sprouted from their ambitious, student-led record label.

Arts & Entertainment
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TEST SPIN | Mitski — Be the Cowboy

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It’s been two years since Mitski graced us with Puberty 2, a deep, thoughtful and powerful album that was so mesmerizing words will never do it justice. The Japanese-American artist has grown increasingly louder over the years, and now with her newest album, Be the Cowboy, she is louder than ever, making listeners feel emotions they didn’t know they were capable of. In the past, Mitski has consistently kept a rather slow, mostly acoustic and melancholic sound (save for the few bursts of lyrical and emotional impacts, i.e. the chorus in “Your Best American Girl”). In addition to keeping a consistent sound, Mitski keeps her lyrical style the same: emotional, deeply sad and lonesome lyrics that very often hit home and have listeners in tears just one song into her albums.

Mitski has never been scared to bare it all and be vulnerable, because it’s human. Women are too often told that being powerful and independent means that we have to meet certain superhuman expectations, such as immunity to negative emotions and heartbreak, as well as coldheartedness, all while being sexy.

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TEST SPIN | ASTROWORLD

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“The biggest knock against Travis [Scott] early in his career (and today) was his tendency to be an expert cipher, but rarely innovator. Besides his help behind the boards on 2013’s landmark Yeezus, Scott seldom introduced music that didn’t sound indebted to his own influences,” writes Charles Holmes in a recent Rolling Stone article preceding the release of ASTROWORLD. Reading this, as a Scott fan, initially irked me. However, as I kept reading, I realized Holmes was entirely correct in his analysis of Scott’s career. Scott undoubtedly has the best live performance currently in music.

Arts & Entertainment
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TEST SPIN | Drake – Scorpion

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Scorpion, Drake’s 5th studio album and 9th overall project, comes at a crucial time in his career. With three studio albums that core fans live and die by, his 4th album, Views, made an attempt to capture his ever-ballooning fanbase — balancing pop hits, club bangers, crooning ballads and a handful of regular raps. The project was widely viewed as his worst album by critics while simultaneously becoming his highest selling album accumulating 4.14 million sales in 2016 and cementing him as the biggest artist in the world. The music world waited in suspense for Scorpion, pondering what he would do: would it be an album for the core fans? Would it be a pop album?

Arts & Entertainment
Sir Sly frontman Landon Jacobs performs at Governors Ball Music Festival.

Sun Staff Takeaways from Gov Ball 2018

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RANDALL’S ISLAND PARK, NY — Five minutes before Pusha T appeared on stage at the eighth annual Governors Ball on Randall’s Island, a teenager no older than 17 turned to me and remarked matter-of-factly, “This guy wasn’t relevant until a week ago.”

As someone who grew up first on the sounds of Clipse and the Neptunes and later on Kanye West’s GOOD Music collective, the idea that the Daytona rapper was ever “irrelevant” just didn’t make sense to me. Under-recognized or underrated? Perhaps, but Push has been one of the most important rappers in the industry for the past two decades, even if his bars about drug dealing never stormed the charts. And yet, just one week into relevancy, Pusha T’s mere presence was enough to inspire thousands of concertgoers to break out into several spontaneous “Fuck Drake” chants before and throughout the set. In just one week, he had gone from being your favorite rapper’s favorite rapper to slayer of the decade’s most dominant man in music, the “Hotline Bling” king Aubrey Drake Graham.

Arts & Entertainment
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Top 10 Albums By Gov Ball 2018 Artists

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This year, I am proud to say that The Sun will be covering Gov Ball 2018. Check out our list of favorite albums by this year’s performers:

 

1. Khalid — American Teen

Khalid’s debut album American Teen is vibrant and portrays the beauty of youth and hope. On the album, Khalid speaks from the heart about his life. He discusses love and relationships, experimenting with drugs, parents, parties and establishing himself in an uncertain society (all common daily thoughts and experiences of the American teen).

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Interview With Art Garfunkel on His Approach to Performances, Paul Simon and More

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Art Garfunkel, a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, is performing at the Ithaca State Theatre tonight at 8:00p.m. Through his solo work and collaborations with Paul Simon in the famous folk rock duo Simon and Garfunkel, he has earned eight Grammys over the course of his career. Garfunkel is also an author, recently publishing What Is It All But Luminous, a book of poems, memoirs and stories. In advance of his concert, I had the pleasure of talking to Garfunkel about his love for performing, his relationship with Paul Simon and the list of artists he has on his iPod. The Sun: What made you decide to come to Ithaca on this tour? AG: I’m really interested in making a mark with campus kids.