A&E

Avi Cantor

Staff Writer

Music is a universal force that unites scores of people that may never know each other through a voice that they may never meet. And that’s part of the beauty of it. The detachment that listeners have from their favorite artists is part of the reason why immersing yourself in the world that the artist’s music creates is so powerful. Because of this detachment, concerts are the closest music fans can get to experience their favorite artists first hand. But how do people feel about the concerts they go to?

Senior Lauren Nicolella is a concert veteran. She has attended a plethora of different concerts ranging from pop sensation Shawn Mendes to punk/psychedelic rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers. However, not all of her favorite artists have lived up to her expectations.

Nicolella saw Alt-Rock/Pop singer Melanie Martinez at the Trocadero Theater on 10th and Arch. According to Nicolella, Martinez’ set was a never-ending string of songs with little time to even acknowledge that the audience was there. Not interacting with the crowd is a “pet peeve” of hers because she views concerts as “a way to connect” with an artist. She continued by saying “you see this person on a screen, you listen to this person in your headphones, and then you finally see them in real life and it’s like a reality check.”

On the contrary, her experience at Q102’s Jingle Ball in 2018 with pop star Dua Lipa was overwhelmingly in-your-face to the point where she “had to sit down” due to how uncomfortable she was watching the show. Lipa’s over the top choreography was “horrendous” and spawned countless memes the day after the concert. However, not all of Nicolella’s concert experiences have been unenjoyable.

Australian pop band 5 Seconds of Summer also performed at Jingle Ball to raving reviews from Nicolella. She explained that their set was an “amazing experience” that served as one of the highlights of her night. 5 Seconds of Summer balances typical poppy vocals with deep cutting lyrics about love and romance which was easy to vibe to for Nicolella and her friends. Fellow SLA senior Brendan Hall has also been to several concerts and has had the good fortune to see some of the best acts in rap.

Hall was fortunate enough to be a part of the legendary Snoop Dogg and Wiz Khalifa concert where fans rushed the stage after the guard rails around the stage came toppling down. He’s also attended the always energetic leader of new school rap, Lil Uzi Vert who has been known to do death-defying stage dives, invite kids on stage to perform with him, and strip down to his underwear, giving his thousand dollars in clothing to the audience.

At Drake and Future’s Summer Sixteen tour, Hall could barely hear the two artists due to how high his seats were at the Wells Fargo Center. Yet, he still loved the concert because he “only really care about what the crowd does and how they interact with the artist.”

But not all of these concerts have been as enjoyable as they sound.

At Made in America last summer, singer/rapper Ty Dolla Sign’s microphone wasn’t working which put a damper in Hall’s mood. As an avid fan of Dolla Sign’s music, he thought that such technical difficulties could’ve been prevented, especially at an event as famous and prestigious as MIA is.

Through the good and the bad, concerts allow us to interact with people whose most effective form of self-expression can only be seen through a screen or listened to with no interaction. Whether the concerts you go to are good, bad or otherwise, they should be embraced because they are the closest thing fans have to truly know who the artists are past a screen.

Brendan Hall

Staff Writer

 

With a pop culture landscape era dominated by maximist production and in your face themes, Earl Sweatshirt’s return to the spotlight is the antithesis to the mainstream spotlight. Some Rap Songs is Earl Sweatshirt’s rawest album to date that contains subtly and lofi mixing where he is trying to find silver linings within his life.

 

This album is a testament to one of the more interesting evolutions of a Hip-Hop artist. Over the course of his 8-year career Sweatshirt has effortlessly transitioned from being a rebellious lyrical mastermind to the voice of lost souls.  

 

The opening track “Shattered Dreams” features a soul vocal sample, that is louder than Earl’s rapping. This is an unusual decision, but Earl’s mellow delivery makes it sound fitting. Aside from this,, he has lyrics that detail references to trying to get out of a dark state of mind, “Why Nobody Tell me I was sinkin’? Ain’t nobody tell me I could leave”

 

Earl’s most revealing line may have come from the single “Nowhere2go::” “I spent most of my life depressed only thing on my life was death. Didn’t know if my time was next, tryna refine this shit. I redefined myself.” This line reveals  Sweatshirt’s intentions with this project was, he addressed his innermost conflicts and implied that there was a way out of his damaged soul.

 

The short run time of the album makes it clear that he intended to have the songs connect. At just 22 minutes, the 15 tracks feel more like one continuous song than an overblown album that is all over the place. While most artists could fall short with this concept Some Rap Songs succeeds because Earl eliminates all filler and strictly focuses on being transparent with his new-found musical persona that speaks directly towards anyone drowning in their sorrows. Despite this Earl never plays the victim card and offers words of encouragement that are authentic instead of scraping the bottom of the barrel.

 

Some Rap Songs contains almost no guest appearances, and Earl himself handles most of the production. The only guest verse in the album belongs to fellow rapper Navy Blue on the “The Mint”. However, the guest appearance that turned the most eyebrows came from “Playing Possum,” which included spoken dialogue from both his mother and poetry from his recently deceased father.

 

Earlier in his career, Sweatshirt’s mother was demonized by Odd Future fans for sending him to a boarding school during the beginning of the collective’s growing popularity. This led to the “Free Earl” campaign and fans harassing his mother in person. More recently, however, Sweatshirt has admitted that his mother was right to send him to the Samoa boarding school. . He also had a complicated relationship with his father, who was often away participating in political activism and the poetry scene in South Africa. Earl admitted on his song “Chum” that he had not opened up about missing him and used to say he “hated him in dishonest jest”. Having them on one of the later tracks shows the growth he had as a person reflecting within his art, and shows he was able to see eye to eye with his father before he died.

 

Other noteworthy moments include: “December 24” which details him trying to stay calm despite having a paranoia that causes a cycle of substance abuse which backfires on him, “Bad apple clashin’ with my kinfolk, bad acid did damage to my mental,”. The second track “Red Water” serves as essentially an interlude that reveals grim detail stating, “Blood in the water I was walkin’ in my sleep, blood on my father I forgot another dream,”. Which is a reference to Earl losing sleep after losing his father. “The Bends” and “Azucar” are both heartfelt tributes to his friends and family that have helped during his darkest days.

 

Overall, this album doesn’t pretend that Earl has found all the answers. Instead, it acts more like a journal that shows the trials and tribulations of someone soul searching and trying to become the best version of themselves. This makes the narrative enjoyable, and the execution of jazz/soul sample beats match the tone perfectly making it an excellent listen.

Courtesy: FACT Magazine

Zoe Kwasnicki

Staff Writer

It was a warm summer afternoon and I was inside, scrolling through Netflix in an attempt to find something new to watch when a trailer started playing. The show was called Insatiable. Weird title but I figured I might as well watch it – it couldn’t have been that bad right? Right?

Oh boy. Every Netflix Original is a hit or a miss and this one was definitely a miss.

It starts with Debby Ryan – yes that’s right – DEBBY RYAN, aka Jessie from the Disney, hit Jessie, in a fat suit. From there it only gets worse with clips of merciless bullying from her classmates who call her a host of hideous names such as “Fatty Patty”, “Porky”, and “Butterball.” Then she gets punched by a homeless man, hospitalized, and has her jaw wired shut.

Off to a great start right? Don’t worry it only gets better.

She loses an insane amount of weight (almost like she just took off a fat suit or something) and suddenly gains a full-face of flawless makeup as well (because overweight people can’t wear makeup I guess) and then joins a pageant with dreams of revenge.

From there the trailer just turns into a badly-choreographed, over-sexed action trailer with punches being thrown, men being set on fire and strange close-ups of Debby Ryan’s lips.

I decided not to watch it.

And then 4 months later, again scrolling through Netflix, I found a movie called Dumplin’. “Cute name”, I thought and clicked the trailer.

It was a hit.

Instantly I recognized a few similarities: a female, overweight main character, a pageant, and a revenge story. However, past that everything was different.

In Dumplin’ we meet Willowdean Dickson, who is overweight, and her best friend Ellen Dryer, who is not. They both have an affinity for Dolly Parton. Willowdean Dickson is also called names such as “whale” when her and Ellen are in the pool, but it isn’t nearly as vile as the bullying in Insatiable. There is also a huge difference between how they react: Willowdean ignores the comments and tries not to let them get to her whereas Patty sets a man on fire. Past that we meet Willowdean’s mother, Rosie, a former pageant queen hanging on to her former glory and Bo Burnham, a handsome Southern “boy next door” and Willowdean’s main love interest.

 

Willowdean and Ellen are both dealt the task of carting around Rosie to different pageant events and, after a passive-aggressive comment on Willowdean’s appearance, they decide to enter into the pageant together and stage a “protest in heels”. However, Willowdean’s protest isn’t just a way to say that fat girls can be beautiful too as she strongly states, “No, I’m not the Joan of Arc of fat girls, okay?” Because while the protest is masked in anger surrounding the pageant, it’s actually just a way for Willowdean to try and be closer to her mom. These intertwining motives for the basis of the story already make it a million times better than Insatiable.

 

Now I’m not saying that the writing or plot in Dumplin’ is ground-breaking – it’s a heartfelt, cheesy teenage movie. But that’s what it’s meant to be. It’s meant to be a regular teenage story about finding yourself while also making a point that plus-size girls can be main characters too. And what makes the story even better is that, initially, Willowdean doesn’t think she can be the main character. She doesn’t think she can genuinely enter the pageant and so she joins it under the veil of a protest. It’s only after an emotional journey guided by drag queens and soundtracked by Dolly Parton that she accepts herself for who she is.

 

The main issue with Insatiable is that it tried to do something different and failed miserably. Instead of focusing on the idea of accepting yourself for who you are, it pushes the idea of forcing yourself to change and then exacting revenge on those who shamed you. Yes, the fat-shaming students in Insatiable deserve to be punished. However, it would be much more interesting (and a little more Mean Girls) if Patty remains the same weight but gains friends, a support system, and confidence as she exacts revenge. Not to mention having Patty played by an actually plus-size actress (like Danielle Macdonald who plays Willowdean) would make the overall story much more relatable and accurate. Because while Insatiable is framed as an attack on fat-shaming, instead it is one of the most powerful, poisonous attacks on overweight girls that I have seen.

 

Besides the focus on plus-size girls, there is also a focus, albeit small, on LGBTQ characters. In Dumplin’ there is a supporting LGBTQ character called Hannah Perez who joins the protest in heels, has a few funny one-liners, and not much else. However, while she doesn’t get too many moments in the spotlight, she is played by an actual LGBTQ actor who identifies with both she and them pronouns: Bex Taylor-Klaus. Hannah could and does deserve more time in the spotlight. However, her lack of time on screen is somewhat made up for by the drag queens who help prepare the girls for the pageant. They act as mentors for the girls and the montage that ensues is one of my new favorites. It’s heartfelt and sweet, over the top and glamorous, and the comparisons between pageant and drag queens are very true and funny to see with one of the drag queens dashing in at the last moment to help Rosie with a fashion malfunction.

 

In Insatiable, however, the LGBTQ representation is…strange. We start by learning that Patty’s best friend, Nonnie, is gay and has a crush on Patty. A few issues with this the main one being that strange, straight assumption that gay people are attracted to every single person of their sexual orientation. Another is why does she not fall in love with Patty until after Patty loses all the weight? Wouldn’t it have been sweeter if she loved her all along? For who she is?

 

Senior Taylor Green has similar thoughts and a few others, “In Insatiable, Debby Ryan’s pageant coach turns out to be gay as well and that kind of seems like a stereotype? And the show ends up showing that he will have problems with his wife anyway – and then he ends up hooking up with another pageant coach – and I don’t know it just seems really stereotypical. Like its really forced. Like at one point Debby Ryan’s pageant coach and his wife like hooks up another pageant coach and they try to call it a polyamorous relationship.”

 

And while it’s good that Insatiable has LGBTQ representation backstage with its bisexual creator and, well that’s pretty much it…. representation is not always good. While the creator, Lauren Gussis, defends the writing as satirical commentary, the 232,000 people who signed the petition to have the show taken down definitely disagree.

 

To conclude this rant of preposterous proportions: watch Dumplin’.

 

Because while Dumplin’ has a similar premise to Insatiable, the delivery is completely different from one making you smile and sing along to Dolly Parton and the other making you question your Netflix subscription.

 

If you want to watch the trailers yourself:

Dumplin’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k86KDFh_q6E

Insatiable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-81WVD8xTs

 

Image Courtesy of Netflix