The results are in! Run the Jewels – Run The Jewels 2 has bested FKA Twigs – LP1 by a slim margin of 3 votes. Arguably the second most popular album…
Elite 8
The Sweet 16 round of the Album of the Year tournament has come to a close. The round featured some very close finishes, with two matchups determined in tiebreakers. Click the box to find out what remains.
The remaining eight albums can be called elite, but they’re by no means champions. For that, they need to win three more times. Let’s take a look at this round’s matchups.
Mac Demarco – Salad Days and Beck – Morning Phase face off for a spot in the Final Four. Salad Days’ popularity in the nominations indicate it as this matchup’s favorite, but don’t count out the Grammy-nominated Morning Phase.
Swans – To Be Kind and its small, loyal following look to derail R&B star FKA Twigs’ LP1.
Run the Jewels – Run The Jewels 2 looked strong in the first two rounds of voting. We’ll see if it can maintain its momentum against Aphex Twin – Syro.
St. Vincent – s/t takes on Flying Lotus – You’re Dead! in what may be a close matchup with no clear favorite.
But you already know who you’re voting for, don’t you? Go on, then.
VOTE HERE
Read on for a recap of round one.
Sweet 16
The results for the first round of WRVU’s Album of the Year tournament are in. Check out the updated bracket to see what albums remain standing.
The journey will end here for eight of these albums. Support your favorites, because without you they will never become WRVU Album of the Year.
VOTE HERE
It’s that time in the semester. Things are starting to get crazy. Those projects are piling up. Finals are just over the horizon. Right now you’re probably halfway through an intense study session, your study playlist is exhausted, and you find yourself checking WRVU for your emerging music needs.
Luckily for you, I have some great artists to bolster the ranks of your depleted library as you take on the end of the semester. As a general rule, these artists don’t feature many lyrics in their songs as I generally find lyrics to be distracting from my work. If you can get into the studying zone while listening to music with prominent lyrics, then I envy you.
This week was a good one for Run the Jewels fans in Nashville. This morning, two days after their sold-out show at Exit/In, Run The Jewels 2, the duo’s long awaited follow-up to their self-titled debut, appeared on my news feed. I ate up this fresh musical morsel as soon I could. What I found when I dove into this album was one of the best collection of dope beats, club bangers, and vicious verses I have heard out of the rap scene this year and a continuation of the trademark style that El-P and Killer Mike have developed.
The first thing that I noticed walking in to Memorial Gym last night for Commodore Quake was the oppressive heat. The second thing that I noticed once I found a seat was the atrocious, garbled acoustics of our re-purposed basketball court. I wish I didn’t feel like I have to include these sour notes as the very first thing in this recap. I wish I hadn’t noticed these things about Quake at all. But most of all, I sincerely wish that these weren’t the most memorable aspects of my entire night at Quake.
I am lyrically challenged. I will be listening to a song and not even hear the lyrics most of the time. If I have listened to the song enough, I might be able to sing along even though I have given exactly zero thought to the meaning or even coherence of what I am singing. I also grew up listening to the mainstream pop punk, nu-metal, and metalcore of the early to mid 2000’s and held an active dislike for rap. These things considered, there is seemingly no reason that I should find myself getting into hip hop and rap at the age of 20. It turns out I just had to find the right stuff to serve as a gateway to the hip hop world. Here, I will list some of the artists that helped make the transition into the wonderful genre of hip hop a little easier.
On August 16, 2014 this mysterious blimp, sporting the iconic Aphex Twin logo and “2014”, appeared over London. Soon after, the same logo appeared in street art graffiti-ed onto the sidewalk in front of New York’s Radio City Music Hall. While many refused to buy into the hype, discussion exploded in the music community about the possibility of a new Aphex Twin album this year, which would be 43-year-old beatsmith Richard D. James’ first full release since 2001’s Drukqs. Just two days later, Syro was announced via James’ twitter, and just one month after that music fans found themselves experiencing an Aphex Twin comeback.
In early June, the elusive experimental hip hop group Death Grips released the first half of a double LP called The Powers That B, effectively dropping a bomb on the indie music community from up their sleeves. Soon after, the band announced the completion of Death Grips as a project and the cancellation of all future tour dates. Now we find ourselves in a post-Death Grips world, except one of these days we can expect Death Grips to release the second half of The Powers That B in a similarly sudden fashion.
Black Quarterback: