The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/carly-rae-jepsen/)
How do I drag my body home from campus on a weekday afternoon? With the help of “Sunshine,” off of Work of Art by Asake. A gentle release from academic anxiety: “Sun’s gon’ shine on everything you do.”
The great CRJ may be the only person in history who can give you a one-year anniversary gift made entirely of last year’s leftovers and leave you feeling blessed beyond belief. Released on August 26 almost exactly one year after the release of its first part, E•MO•TION: Side B is actually a short and sweet compilation of the songs that didn’t make the cut for the former album. It drips with simple pop and cascades into a kind of positive despair at the difficulty of relationships which culminates in the standout “Store” which — oh, oh, we need to have a chat about “Store.”
I remember not wanting to like her music when she came out with her earlier albums; they felt vapid, they had empty lyrics and a spaced-out ’90s background that felt like some selection of music chosen from a deflated volleyball. I mean, “Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy/Sunshine in my eyes can make me cry/Sunshine on the water that is so lovely/Sunshine almost always makes me high” is not groundbreaking lyricism; neither is “You talk so sweet and it’s dribbling like honey/It’s just one taste/I see what your tryin’ to do, oh oh, yeah yeah/It’s hot, stakes are getting higher.” But at some point I decided that there’s something in there, some strange Krabby Patty secret recipe that hits you with that dopamine and makes you crave the replay button. To be fair, the Krabby Patties weren’t cooking too well in her first Album, Tug of War.
The night of May 30, 2013, I sat in my kitchen holding a dirty quarter. The postmark deadline to claim my spot as a transfer student at Brown was the next day. If the coin landed on heads, I’d transfer; tails, I’d stay at Cornell — a place where I had been deeply unhappy the year before. I don’t remember what the coin actually landed on. While it was in the air I found myself hoping ever so slightly for tails, and I took it as a sign I should give Cornell another shot.
1.) To Pimp A Butterfly — Kendrick Lamar
Kendrick Lamar’s follow-up to 2012’s good kid, m.A.A.d. city was perhaps the most anticipated album of the year. It seemed impossible that Lamar could equal the accomplishment of his perfect debut. Instead, he blew it away in scope, ambition and depth. Across 16 tracks and nearly 80 minutes, Lamar burrows into complex issues, using his dexterous voice to produce an astounding variety of tones and emotions, from anger to false bravado to introspection to drunken sobbing. The music itself is a history lesson in modern African-American music, blending jazz, funk, soul and classic hip-hop into one omnivorous, fluid sound.