Search Results
Below are your search results. You can also try a Basic Search.
(04/10/14 12:59pm)
We Fling because we can. Because Fling has grown into a force of nature, a tradition that cannot be stopped, even if we wanted it to. We Fling because it’s one of the reasons we came to Penn, because of the memories of Penn Preview/Quaker Days past. We Fling because we remember the excitement of drinking before noon and that first time getting bass–blasted on the concert floor. We Fling because we have to.
(04/02/14 12:35pm)
Accessories can make or break an outfit. And glasses are perhaps the most controversial of all accessories. Just ask Anne Hathaway circa "The Princess Diaries," or any movie/Taylor Swift music video where the plain Jane heroine need only take off her glasses and brush her hair to instantly transform into queen bee. Let these stylishly spec-ed Quakers show you how to rock those (prescription) shades.
(10/23/13 9:50am)
West Philly gets a new go-to for smart comfort food.
(09/26/13 9:11am)
Let me answer the first question on your mind: “Do infomercials ever count as television?” To that I counter, “Yes, they do.” After all, they are exclusively available for viewing on television sets, which is more than can be said for many of the moving pictures we beam our laser eyes at in this day and age. (I’m looking at you, Netflix.)
(06/20/13 1:43pm)
Kanye West is perplexing. How does someone who once claimed (on his hilarious/infamous Twitter account) that Coldplay is on the same level as The Beatles actually make coherent, infectious, genre shaping music?
The first and most dominant impression from “Yeezus” is anger. “Black Skinhead,” the album’s second track, is demonic and frenzied in the same vein as those old Rolling Stones songs that people used to play backwards. Perhaps it’s something to do with the album’s screeching electronic production, or maybe it’s West’s lyrical delivery. You can almost hear him foaming at the mouth in the track “New Slaves,” rapping "So go and grab your reporters / so I can smash their recorders" with a fury that’s frankly kind of terrifying.
Listening to “Yeezus,” you kind of wonder about how much of it is rooted in reality. The unapologetic misogyny and almost sadistic sexuality in the latter half of the album could be read as West’s last hurrah (or desperate plea for help?) before officially becoming permanent arm candy to his high maintenance baby mama. In “I’m In It,” he raps about being so scared about "kids and the wife life" that he goes "to sleep with a night light.” For any other rapper, you’d know that’s just hyperbole, but for West, it could easily be reality.
You hear a little bit of the old West in the frequent and probably ridiculously expensive sampling of old tunes. Sometimes, it seems like he just does it to be extravagant, but on “Blood on the Leaves” — in which Nina Simone’s familiar voice is raised to a disconcertingly higher pitch — it works, to a mesmerizing, albeit freakish, effect.
This isn’t just a "Watch the Throne” sequel. With Daft Punk on the record, the sound veers almost towards a Nine Inch Nails level of punkish electronic angst. Still, the themes are classically West. The track “I am a God (feat. God)” is exactly what it sounds like, a Kanye ode to Kanye.
Grade: B
99 cent download: “Black Skinhead”
Sounds best: after your initiation into the Church of Satan.
(05/30/13 4:19pm)
It seems every few years, out of England springs some female singer-songwriter that catches our attention across the Atlantic. Once it was Kate Bush, it might have been Amy Winehouse, lately it was Adele. Laura Marling is perhaps less well-known by the mainstream set than the latter, but she is a musical “indie darling” if there ever was one.
(05/23/13 2:18pm)
Based on their musical repertoire, it seems The National and its baritone lead singer Matt Berninger have had their share of bad breakups. The band’s sixth album, “Trouble Will Find Me,” is by and by about love…that of the doomed variety. “You keep a lot of secrets / And I keep none / Wish I could go back /And keep some,” Berninger sings on the track “Fireproof.” Ouch. The amount of angst packed into a National album could come off as annoyingly woe-is-me to some, but they’re able to pull it off because the music is just so beautiful.
(04/18/13 2:30pm)
“The Terror" is, we know now, that even without love, life goes on... there is no mercy killing,” lead singer of The Flaming Lips Wayne Coyne said once in an interview. Clearly, Coyne’s last relationship did not end well; either his lover left and ruined him for all others, or she turned out to be a flesh–eating alien from outer space who tried to eat his heart out. At the very least, the band must have been partly inspired by the supernatural, because “The Terror” is such a strange, hypnotic auditory experience. Tracks like “Try to Explain” and “You Lust” sound as if every electronic baseline carried with it the vague wobble of a theremin. Either a fever dream or a crazy person’s diary put to music, this album's frenetic and charged with anxious energy. But it’s also mesmerizing the same way crazy people are mesmerizing.
(03/21/13 11:00am)
“You wanna raise your voice / Don’t be scared to breathe / Don’t be afraid to hurt / Don’t be ashamed in me,” Jon Bon Jovi sings straightforwardly in the title track off of his band’s twelfth album. This aspirational, gung–ho message is nice, but it’s also vague and a bit dated, much like the rest of the album. Gone are the heavy metal solos and unabashedly fun nature of old hits like “You Give Love a Bad Name.” The whole album is almost soft rock in its vibe, with “That’s What the Water Made Me” as the one track that seems like it has a pulse. The bland earnestness of “What About Now" is the sort of thing that could have been excused in earlier albums due to the band’s status as reigning kings of all–American, working–class rock ‘n roll. The fact is, the ‘80s are over, but Bon Jovi is still here.
(02/14/13 10:15am)
Choosing a favorite Mariah Carey song is a doozy (after all, she’s been around since before Britney and has a repertoire to match), but mine would have to be the 1996 winner “Always Be My Baby.” Maybe it has to do with that instantly identifiable opening guitar strum, but “Always Be My Baby” is one of those songs that everyone can recognize, but not everyone can name. Nevertheless, it’s a true Mariah classic—embodying the pop diva in all her '90s glory—complete with easily caricatured vocal runs, humorously long words like “inevitably” and “indefinitely,” a requisite middle–of–song key change and a chorus that demands a sing–along. It’s also just a great, tried–and–true love song, one that’s worth sharing with that special someone this Valentine’s Day.
(02/13/13 10:23am)
If you’re ever in a funk (campus looks grey, everyone walking around has a dead glaze over their eyes), and you’re just itching for a change of scenery (not Rittenhouse because it’s the same old Philly cobblestone rowhouse scene, not Center City because been there, done that) then make your way down to the edge of Bella Vista in South Philly, and find the little Vietnamese strip mall where Pho Ha is located. There, Penn (and the rest of Philly) will feel far, far away.
(01/31/13 10:43am)
Cue the eye roll when you hear everyone’s favorite slightly emo, girl power indie band has turned the synthpop route...just like everyone else, it seems, and to mixed effect. Tegan and Sara’s new album “Heartthrob” sounds like normal Tegan and Sara, but with the volume turned up. If older hits like “Back in Your Head” could be played on an upright piano a lá Michelle Branch, these songs would only work on a keyboard. They’re more cinematic—more synth and bass-heavy—than their predecessors, but the themes of heartache and angst and girl problems stay more or less the same, albeit with less lyrical punch. It seems our favorite sisters have discarded their guitars and angsty one-liners for a heavy-handed producer and slightly more radio time.
(01/24/13 10:00am)
PUNTAL—Free Music For All
(01/17/13 10:06am)
[media-credit id=6747 align="alignleft" width="302"][/media-credit]
(01/15/13 4:00pm)
(11/26/12 8:57pm)
“My Dad is Baryshnikov” does two things and does them both beautifully. It tells a classic coming–of–age tale about a gangly boy named Boris who wants to be a ballet dancer, and it’s also a spot-on period piece.
(11/08/12 10:38am)
Despite the requisite melodrama and a sprinkling of well–timed one–liners, “Skyfall” is, in some ways, a refreshingly different Bond film. In one early scene, Bond takes part in a clandestine meeting at an art museum with the new Q (Ben Whishaw), a young, scrappy bespectacled thing. Bond dismisses the suburban computer whiz and his high–tech toys, but it soon becomes apparent that our hero’s facing a new enemy here, one that fights not with guns and fast cars, but hard drives and codes.
(11/01/12 9:14am)
Calvin Harris has got the formula down with his newest album, “18 Months.” The Scottish DJ’s catchy electro beats have high energy and low experimentation, but they clearly work based on the popularity of two familiar tracks, “Feel So Close” and the Rihanna hit, “We Found Love,” both of which aren’t by any definition new — but they appear on the album anyway. In terms of new tracks, the album’s breakout hit will probably be the spazzy but infectious single, “Here 2 China,” a collaboration with Dizzee Rascal that has the one solid rap on the album. Other big guest appearances include catchy vocals from Ellie Goulding on “I Need Your Love,” and the typical shenanigans from powerhouse vocalist and resident crazy lady Florence Welch on “Sweet Nothing.” If you want to get a sense of what our venerable frat institutions will be blasting this winter, listen to “18 Months.
(10/25/12 9:39am)
Mask & Wig's "Tights, Camera, Action!"
Iron Gate Theater
37th & Chestnut St.
10/24–10/25, 8 p.m.; 10/26–10/27, 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.
$15 (door), $10 (on the Walk)
(10/11/12 9:26am)
Before Ben Affleck was a serious, hard–hitting director of movies based on true stories (and before he had adorable Jennifer Garner–babies), he was that guy who accompanied J. Lo’s butt to movie premieres, such as that of the 2002 classic, “Maid in Manhattan.”