The “This Semester is Already Not Going Quite as Planned but I’ll Play It Off and Listen to a lot of
Listen, it’s tough. You spend the few weeks before school starts buying notebooks and planners and genuinely believing you – in the purest sense – have your life together. The fact of the matter is, though, that you don’t and never will! We endlessly study to pass tests to work for the rest of our lives and then we die so you might as well have a nice soundtrack to it all! Whether it’s your first semester or your tenth, I’m here to generously suggest some songs to accompany you on your walks from your 4pm lecture to your 6-9pm lab. As always, feel free to comment and share as you please!
Blkkathy – Rob You
A solid soft electronic song to wind down to after a busy day, Blkkathy is comprised of two women from Brooklyn who aim to “sing sad songs over very heavy bass beats”. The result is a sexy song to pull you from one class to the next, or narrate that breakup/bad hookup you probably had by this point. No worries.
Tunde Olinaran – The Highway
May go unnoticed at first because of the eccentric beat and Olinaran’s impressive vocal range, but the song is a dedication to his hometown of Flint Michigan.
“I’m broke but the bank’s got some dough they loan me though
Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan the new colonial
Powers, get all the welfare that they wanna
Does that make them John Smith? Does that make me Pocahontas?”
Frank Ocean – THE ENTIRETY OF BLONDE.
I’m not joking. You have no excuse now, it’s on Spotify. So listen to every single song. I want you to study it like you’re not studying your textbooks. Frank came back with simple guitar chords and dreamy riffs, and managed to make me emotional with a level of effects I couldn’t even comprehend in Nikes. Full respect. Favorite song? Self Control. I won’t be one of those music journalists who writes a novel on Frank, but I don’t blame all of them. This album, while arguably not worth the wait, is a dreamy nostalgia-scape made for lit candles and late night talks with friends. You deserve it. Practice self-love.
Blood Orange – By Ourselves
Blood Orange’s Devonté Hynes has mastered mixing samples into his songs in a way that fills you up with a very crafted emotion. “By Ourselves” opens with sounds of walking in the rain and a choir singing of the experience of being silenced as women. Accompanying the choir is Ashlee Haze’s “For Colored Girls (The Missy Elliot Poem)”, which drew me to the song initially, as Haze’s poem is one of my favorite slam poems on the world wide web. Just listen to this song, just listen and feel it breathe life into you.
Rihanna – Needed Me
I told you to practice self-love. I don’t care how much you want to listen to indie music. This is just a good song.
Juan Wauters – Water
The first time I heard this song I was nit-picky as usual. Juan’s nasally singing voice when focused on too much takes away from the overall song, then I listened again to the chords. When this man drags his voice through a measure or two worth of acoustic guitar accompaniment its almost always with the intention of wrapping it all up in a nice bow with a minor chord. What I love most about this song is that it isn’t what you would expect, but you can appreciate something new about it every time you give it a listen. ALSO: LATINOS IN ACOUSTIC CONTEMPORARY?! YES.
DIMMER – This is Where They Found Me
Good old homegrown, organic indie DIY bands! I’m adding the State College band because I’ll have a fun new feature on them soon! Listen up so you can be a fan before the article goes up.
Angel Olsen – Sister
I jumped on the Angel Olsen train this time last year, and she won me over entirely with deep, stomach turning ballads and scattered outbursts of upbeat pop and “sass” on her older albums “Burn Your Fire” and “Half Way Home”. Her new album “MY WOMAN” demonstrates a change in outlook from Olsen. Staying true to her dark ballad nature, she balances it with purely fun songs like Shut Up Kiss Me and synth-disco pop Intern. Sister is close to my heart just because it’s a good companion to the hard days. And God knows there are plenty of those.
Buttress – Let’s Go Tripping
The title offers a purpose for the song as it is, but the lyrics show that Buttress is allowing herself to grow and have much more fun on this mixtape than she has for past albums that have had more of a specific purpose, such as painting the multiple narratives of oppressed women in different forms in “Behind Every Great Man”. I really enjoy watching what Buttress does and how she chooses to utilize her talents. Her new mixtape “The 9/11 Mix” is a wonderful experiment in noise beats with more relaxed rapping, which she tweeted was just freestyles she edited after recording.
Hobbledehoy – Always Gonna Let You Go
Another local State College band, Hobbledehoy, is a little less seasoned having just debuted this year, but they are KILLING IT. The indie pop duo is made of Marcelyn Leibovitz and Taylor Baum, skilled and trained classical singers who transferred their abilities to a perfect crossover sound. Always Gonna Let You Go serves as the mandatory “dance track” to any well rounded album/mixtape. Normally when these electronic based dance songs are to be performed live, they don’t transfer as well on the stage. However having seen these two perform the song live, I can confirm that they get the crowd moving. Marcelyn’s stage presence and confidence combined with Taylor’s shameless belting vocals and the pair’s impeccable harmonizing makes for a great and truly unique listen.
