2| Behrend Beacon March 19, 2010 www.thebehrendbeacon.com WHO LOVES \ K % t thing new. Old fans will most likely enjoy the album and those who are curious will be able , , , to hear what’s beengidngoO over the past five On Valentine’s Day this year, the alternative The best way to think of Leve ls as this rock band Angels & Airwaves (AVA) released image: AVA laid a new foundation with We their latest studio album, Love. IHs free for Needto Whisper, then proceeded to bcffid download off of AVA’s website. un- m aesthetically pleasing stage with I-Empir*. fortunately eluded publicity since it wtt riot re- a free linSrt on thatsSge. leased in stores or even as a CD. Nothing new happens*ill ft gives tiew fans a Back in 2005, when the group's first install- decent starting pdnt ’ ment, We Don’t Need to Whisper, hit the Tl* lyrtalbf dlshoittf expectations at shelves, Tom Delonge (frontman singer) time*, making blatantly obvious statements claimed that AVA was going to change music about love and connectivity that anyone who forever. Though that is a pretty lofty statement suivtolhiah school could matte** At uoints, to make, the band did create a sound all their AVA seKlb hell-bent on hnitSjMflilrni own, winning lots of respect and fans in the thifr thoy ■imply try process \Uhteidiey fall Their second album, I-Empire, expanded on hoiKr.lhey make upforttwithlnsirainan**. that uniqueness, and steered the band in a tinn ■ ai ng i»j|Hir» «i pi more progressive direction. “Ep| c HoUday” showcSS AVA’* musical SkilL So the question remains: how much love DrummerOSom wi crown as should we give Love? • Love’s MVP, driving the From a musical stand point. Love is a soUd their classic upbeat-anelody, though Delonge’s album. It maintains the style of the previou* iq- qwjj Kennedy’s U2-esque g»a»r work is stallments, but doesn’t really expand upon it. nothing foscofl at either. In most cases, it feels like the old songs were QyeSJ&oye i s a solid CD. K simply recycled and given a new label. Ndtjo AVtfsehdetyand positive style, tt dif say that the songs are any worse, it’s just tgt pit dislike the ibuiTThSugh it they’re just the same. TTie album urfll mo* , v aoesirtb«ak new ground like the first two in hkely be loved by currently fans, bly won’t win AVA any new ones. ;.V\\ perfence for any listener The CD isn’t necessarily bad; it jqstlsri’t wy- ST 10 NATHAN CARTER Side projects are ways for artists to expose their own original side in creating a new personal band expression. Years ago, Maynard James Keenan from the band Tool created a side project named A Perfect Circle. Then Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock made Ugly Casanova. And recently M. Ward joined with Zooey De schanel to form She & Him, an indie/folk duo with straightfor ward jazz-inspired vocals by Deschanel. These are severely varying examples of side proj ects, but they all worked to gain popularity for the artists involved, exposing what the artists couldn’t or didn’t do with their original projects. Each side project brings a different element to the table. In terms of Keenan, A Per fect Circle was able to main tain political meanings and LOVE? % NEIL JAMES opinion editor LINQ JOMNb: HE & Him rhythmic trance-like chants that simply wouldn’t make sense in the heavy-inspired longevity of Tool’s material. With Isaac Brock, Ugly Casanova was a way to “allevi ate boredom and eliminate himself from the band [Modest Mouse].” However, the band’s website outlines a history of the band that began when a fan of Mod est Mouse in Denver named Edgar Graham played some of his material for them. Brock took an interest in the strange man’s work, covering some of Graham’s previously unknown material and com bining it with his own on Ugly Casanova’s Sharpen Your Teeth album. As far as Deschanel and She & Him are concerned, the band was started by musician M. Ward after discovering De schanel’s singing prowess from her film roles in Almost Famous and Elf. He found that MUS Background design from Crative Commons: M 6788 she had already written and recorded years worth of home material but was nervous to send it out. Upon their collaboration, Deschanel’s spontaneous per sonality on stage and in studio evolved from her original nerv ousness, and they created then first album in 2008 called Vol ume One. Her vocals and lyrics have a breezy pop quality that is eerily reminiscent of a modem Patsy Cline, and in combina tion with Ward’s strongly blues-inspired guitar patterns, they create some of the most original music I’ve heard in a while. Volume 7\vo, their newest album, was released on March 23, and you may still be able to sample the majority of the album on NPR’s website. Deschanel continues the Patsy Cline sound she began on Volume One with the tracks on Volume Two. The song “Thieves,” a take on a new age CA PACIFICA gv "CrtNCING IN THE ISLE/ Baroque Ensemble Musica Pacifica performed in McGarvey Commons Tuesday afternoon This was fhe final performance in The Logan Series for the 2009-2010 school year. DAN KINEM senior reporter Sean Kingston is true at heart. His lyrics are simplis tic at best, but in this case simplicity is best. They aren’t forced. They came across like each word that is written was the very initial word that was thought. No one word took more than a millisecond to write. His lyrics come across as being true to who he is and what the general population wants, whereas in the case with most artists it is the exact opposite. He isn’t intelligent. He loves girls; that is obvious. He likes his iPod. He likes singing about girls. It is as simple as that. But therein lies his genius. He doesn’t try to write catchy lyrics, they just come out m, s I 4T STAti \ xurnmn Album art from jamaipanese.com / wikipedia.com / http://www.appliedlanguage.com/flags_of_the_world/flag_ofjamaica.shtml indie ballad, outlines a couple where the girl is dealing with her tendencies for traditional love versus her boyfriend’s new age love. Throughout the lyrics, you sort of get the idea that the boyfriend is a thief, es sentially the idea of the “bad guy” that way. Thoughts th. peo ple would over-think and therefore forcefully write aren’t found on a Sean Kingston record. Whatever he thinks, he says. It doesn’t have to rhyme or have a flow or even necessarily fit the song’s structure. His metaphors could have been written by a toddler. “You are the gun to my hol ster* comes to mind immedi- ately. From lines like “Got my soldier suit and my Timber land boots/Girl I’m down for whatever cause my love is true,” to “Doin things I never do/I'm in the kitchen cookin’ things she likes,” he shows how straightforward and un creative real music should be. He literally sings exactly what is happening, stuff like, “I met you in the mall, m SMN xnrosTrtNl Fortunately, this isn’t the only example of narrative based lyricism that I hear on the album, which isn’t always the case in recent indie bands. The track “In The Sun” has this amazing trance-like feel and it ends with a great blues inspired solo by M. Ward. Jeremy Korwek / The Behrend Beacon Musica Pacifica Baroque Ensemble Background design from Creative Commons: mattjn _a_field / SaraiVßeloved Culture you was with your friends,” or a personal favorite, “One of a kind/But you mush up my mind.” A true musical artist puts no thought into the music they are making. A true musical artist just makes it. In a song where the chorus is “It’s like my iPod’s stuck on replay,” do we really need the line, “She like a song played again and again?” No. Does Sean Kingston care? You better fucking be lieve he doesn’t. These facts are the reason that Sean Kingston’s music is the realest music on the radio today or possibly ever. He can alter his voice with auto-tune, he can be faking his accent, and he doesn’t even have to be the person actually writing his music. Because shawty, Sean Kingston just is music, through and through. Creative Commons: Taras Kalapun “Ridin’ In My Car” and “Brand New Shoes” details a “this cool new girl” subject, which is what I presume Deschanel would create. If you’re looking for a new sound, specifically an original “strolling” sound, then She & Him is the way to go. MUSIC
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