The first spoken words on Mizan K’s Dark Blue – “Are you looking for somebody?” arrive at the end of a short sequence of thick, rumbling synthesizers, which, along with…
It took Rolling Loud Festival less than three years to become the largest Hip-Hop festival in the world. After three consecutive sold out festivals in Miami, FL, co-founders Tariq Cherif…
Can you feel it? Monday night at the science library. Three vending machine coffee cups and a hallucination of your girlfriend’s scent bear witness to your struggle—you’re new to the writing staff, and despite your general zeal for music and exegesis, you find yourself waylaid with uncertainty. What can you give to this blog? And what must you keep for yourself?
The National’s most recent album, Sleep Well Beast, released September 8, 2017, is characterized by a tracklist that can be compared to a morning commute. “Guilty Party” resembles the melancholy of waking before the sun has risen, a sheet of morning dew still covering the hood of your car. But the sun does rise and the gloom quickly turns into anger and frustration. “Turtleneck” embodies the morning drive itself — the agonizing slow burn of exit after exit, when you begin to tailgate cars just to feel like you’re making progress. Unlike previous albums, where each track transitions from one to the next like the tranquil flow and ebb of a stream, Sleep Well Beast is a complete mishmash.
Neck Deep is one of those bands that never fails to impress. Within the span of five years, they have skyrocketed to an incredible level of fame: between playing main stage at Warped Tour and opening for Blink-182, they have indisputably cemented their name as a pop punk powerhouse. Upon releasing The Peace and The Panic (TP&TP) this past August, their fan base has continued to expand and dote on their favorite British band. While some of the tracks on this album are somewhat questionable in nature, TP&TP is, overall, an absolute jam.
SZA’s Ctrl, released June 9th, 2017 on Top Dawg Entertainment, is widely about the endless personal journey towards understanding and balance in life. SZA, born Solána Rowe, writes about her own personal challenges, blessings and limitations and how they’ve each shaped her ability to maintain her autonomy. Reflecting on the advice and support of her mother and grandmother, provided for listeners in the form of audio clips interspersed throughout the length of the album, SZA navigates tides of uncertainty.
Hey you! You wanna see Bleachers and Tangerine at Marathon Music Works this Wednesday? Cool! Snapchat us (wrvu_nashville) your most creative video of you listening to WRVU and you could…
Pitchfork Fest was a remarkably relaxed and fun festival. The only difficult part was—as cheesy as it sounds—choosing which sets from the vast and diverse array of options to watch. Luckily, Pitchfork happens to be the rare festival that allows you to bounce from set to set with relative ease: the stages are close together which means you don’t have to walk far; the Chicago weather made for an almost too-good-to-be-true forecast to move between outdoor stages; despite the overlapping sets, the times were strategically planned such that you could catch at least a little bit of all your favorites. It seemed, in short, designed to facilitate your having your best time.
The last day of Pitchfork Fest, I’d assert, was the day that had the highest concentration of crowd-pleasing favorites: in just sheer numbers, today’s lineup was the highest up in terms of hitting on almost every conceivable niche of possible audience interest all across the obscurity-to-popularity spectrum. And with Solange—Solange!—headlining, there was nothing to possibly complain about.
After an eventful day one, Pitchfork Fest day two promised an even more saturated schedule. And it certainly delivered on that promise: first of all, with A Tribe Called Quest headlining, all the other bands could have tanked and this day still would have been certifiably historical. Fortunately, however, we were lucky enough that not a single one of the other acts disappointed.
Friday’s lineup promised an electric start to an action-packed festival weekend. Nashville’s own William Tyler played at 4 PM on Friday, followed immediately by Frankie Cosmos and Thurston Moore. The three of these provided a perfectly well-rounded, balanced trio of acts to precede the contrastingly high-energy Danny Brown, who flawlessly delivered intensity and famously rapid rap. Dirty Projectors’ intimidating, otherworldly sounds set a new kind of mood, one that held the audience rapt for a night that culminated in an impossibly fantastic performance by LCD Soundsystem.
Pitchfork Music Festival boasts an impressive lineup that is as eclectic and genre-spanning a collection as it is all-encompassing. Just as it has in past years, Pitchfork delivered a list that truly has something for everyone without relying on superfluous bill-filling bands or kitsch or campiness. Here’s what to look forward to…
The artistic narrative surrounding Frank Ocean often frames him as an enigmatic, reclusive musician whose notoriously secretive (and infamously long) recording processes result in fully-formed projects being dropped seemingly out of the ether. What does this approach to making music produce? For Ocean, the answer seems to be an oeuvre that is limited but critically unimpeachable.
So perhaps you’ve seen the pink guitar album, or at the very least seen praise heaped upon Bullet For My Valentine and thought it odd that not only have they been a band since the late ’80s but that they’ve also done anything worth mentioning in the same sentence as the words “critical acclaim.”
This song is VALID, and there’s really not much else to say. I threw it on, and suddenly I was wearing Aldo shoes (you know, like, the loafers) and I was two stepping with a truly unfathomable degree of proficiency.
A while back, WRVU had the opportunity to interview Wet, the effervescent indie pop sensation that had eager Nashvillians lining up out the door to Exit/In in hopes of a ticket to the sold-out show. We talked before their Exit/In show about touring, new music, their writing process, being on the road and in the South, pre-concert rituals…to read it all, and watch for the first time/relive their show, check out the interview and concert footage below. (We also photographed the band backstage before the show, which you can check out below as well.)
A very exciting thing is happening tonight, friends. Some groovy local bands that WRVU loves will be filling The Basement with their sultry sounds starting at 9 pm, and you would be…
Released in the after-hours of the Grammys on February 12th, DJ Khaled’s “Shining” is definitely one of the best songs in its genre of this very young year, and just about everything about it works. It’s Khaled’s trademark pop production firing on all cylinders, and its arrival after last year’s “For Free” is evidence of Khaled’s sustained return to form as a hit-maker.
WRVU hosted Boyscott, Spirit Week, The Pills, Born Animal, and Wax Mistress at The End around Thanksgiving for our first annual Turkey Jerky Jam! Now you can relive (or experience for the first time, if you missed it) the thrilling experience all up close and personal right here on the internet from the comfort of your screen.
WRVU is hosting its first big festival giveaway to the Okeechobee Music & Arts Festival in Florida taking place from March 4-6. What better way to start your spring break?…