Arts & Culture

TEST SPINS | Fleetwood Mac: ‘Rumours’

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About a month ago, on Oct. 12, Stevie Nicks was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live, where she performed songs she released as a solo artist, including “The Lighthouse” and “Edge of Seventeen.” The performance was, unsurprisingly, great — the dominant stage presence, the vibrant vocals, the unrelenting eye contact; it was all there. Despite all that, in my eyes, there is no Stevie Nicks performance that will ever measure up to her rendition of “Silver Springs” off the deluxe version of Rumours with the rest of Fleetwood Mac at Warner Bros. Studios in May of 1997. Clips from this performance have been heavily circulating on social media in recent years, with people pointing out her withering stare towards the band’s guitarist and Nicks’ ex Lindsey Buckingham, and I can’t help but think of it whenever I hear any Fleetwood Mac song.

Arts & Culture

Navigating the Waves of Doechii’s ‘Alligator Bites Never Heal’

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I finally sit down at my desk ready to unlock the colorful world of Doechii’s new album Alligator Bites Never Heal. Only recently unearthing the talents of Doechii’s storytelling, I was drawn in with her parables and the fluidity of her beats. When listening through her mixtape you float along the river of her voice, riding the waves of her perspicacity. From one rap to the next, the beat rises and falls, filling the listener with anticipation. Doechii’s raw talent has been recognized by many artists, Kendrick Lamar called her the “hardest out” while referencing her most recent mixtape.

Arts & Culture

Women of Rock – An Ode to Divergence

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Upon rock legend Stevie Nicks’ recent SNL performance, watching her familiar prowess in layers of black chiffon, I became acutely aware of the divergence between her identities — female and rockstar. In the ’60s and ’70s, societal standards largely placed women on a periphery: While making inroads in the workforce, they primarily occupied subordinate positions. To be a musician however, much less a rockstar, required absolute authority to take up space and roar into the microphone, regardless of the microphone feedback that followed. Grooming, dating and eventually dumping young groupies was commonplace for the male rockstar — just look at John Oates, Elvis and Steven Tyler. With a bit of alcohol,  debauchery and womanizing became another privilege of stardom, a given, left untouched until brave women began to speak up decades later.

Arts & Culture

Lyrical Fishing: Haley Heynderickx’ Seed of a Seed

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Like a northerly loon lingering too long in the cooling waters of early November, Haley Heynderickx’s voice calls luminous, haunting. Her soft, empowered vocals layer in gentle strokes over her defining acoustic guitar, emboldened by  swaying strings and horns. Her message is profuse. Aware of itself, Heynderickx’s second studio album Seed of a Seed is simultaneously personal and prescriptive. Released last Friday Nov.

Arts & Culture

The Cure Delivers a New Set of Dark Wonders in ‘Songs of a Lost World’

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In late September, I was shocked to see a post on The Cure’s Instagram account announcing that the band would release a new album. My immediate reaction was a mix of excitement and apprehension. The album would mark the first release by my favorite band in over 16 years. Having had the privilege to see the band perform live last year, I knew lead singer and frontman Robert Smith’s rich voice had survived the effects of aging and a nearly 50-year career. However, the last four albums released by The Cure were inconsistent in quality and sound, and they largely failed to live up to the high standards set by the consecutive releases of Disintegration (1989) and Wish (1992).

Arts & Culture

SOLAR FLARE | Ithacan Isolation

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Right now, we’re staring down that last three-week dragging period between the reprieves of Fall Break and Thanksgiving. With the passing of Halloween and all its requisite festivities, there’s nothing to look forward to for the foreseeable future other than work and gloomy weather. It’s times like these that Ithaca really starts to feel isolated — from family, from friends, from the rest of civilization. Cornell can feel like a bubble sometimes, separated from the rest of the world. So, here’s a playlist for when you want to wallow in that feeling while waiting for happier times (i.e. Thanksgiving break) to arrive.

Arts & Culture

Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged in New York: 30 Years Later

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April 8, 1994. Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain’s death reverberates a ripple of shock around the world. For a man so reserved, Cobain carried himself with what seemed an unshakable sense of himself; he was everything people wanted to see in a musician and, at the same time, nothing like anyone had ever seen. At the time of his death, he frontmanned the most famous band in the world, but fame seemed antithetical to who he was. Kurt Cobain was famous because he was an outcast, and the world revered him because it saw itself in his music.

Arts & Culture

TEST SPINS | The Killers: ‘Hot Fuss’

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I am a suffering Giants fan. I miss the days when I could rely on my team for a win, but it’s become clear that that’s a bygone era. Will I still watch every game in the purest form of masochism? Of course! But I’ve had to learn to win in other ways.

Arts & Culture

Tyler, The Creator’s ‘CHROMAKOPIA’: A Not-So-Black-and-White Journey

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The anticipation I felt this past Sunday evening was nothing short of a kid’s excitement on Christmas Eve. I had my 6 a.m. alarm set, I was adorned in my favorite Tyler, The Creator merch and thoughts of potential features made it difficult to fall asleep. CHROMAKOPIA has consumed me since the sudden release of “St. Chroma.” I immediately fell in love with the song and concept — the military style visuals were haunting and I obsessed over determining if Frank Ocean was really on the song (I’m convinced he is). That being said, it’s Tyler’s creativity that always dominates his projects,so my excitement was sufficiently peaked.

Arts & Culture

“NOID”: Tyler’s Horror Movie

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In a 2014 interview with Larry King, Tyler the Creator said that for the future, “[when] people mention my name, I’m next to Wes Anderson or Quentin Tarantino” — some of the world’s greatest film directors. Tyler made his directing debut with his music video for “Yonkers” in 2011, amassing over 150 million views, and since then he has continued to direct for the past 13 years. Knowing this, it was beyond thrilling watching Tyler drop music videos for his new album, “Chromakopia.” Last Friday, he released the music video for his new song “NOID” based on the fear and paranoia he has experienced that ensued with his rising popularity, crazy fan encounters and stalking paparazzi, and how these feelings have led to distrust and a constant anxiety when around the public. Using horror movie tactics, the emotional themes in “NOID” work not only to comment on the lack of boundaries between celebrities and the world, but also to instill the same anxiety in viewers. 

“NOID” asks us to feel paranoid. The opening scene, in which Tyler walks against an angry and disgusted crowd, delivers the audience a palpable sense of isolation.