By Armando

The longest-serving CMA Executive Director and one of the most influential advocates of country music, Jo Walker-Meador, has died. According to the Country Music Association and the Country Music Hall of Fame release, she died Tuesday night in Nashville after a stroke. Jo Walker-Meador was 93, and he is survived by her brother Pete Denning, daughter Michelle Walker, and step-children Rob and Karen Meador.

“Jo was a champion for Country Music around the world and a groundbreaker for women in the entertainment business,” said CMA Chief Executive Officer Sarah Trahern. “On a personal note, I will miss her guidance, humor, and friendship. She was the first meeting I set up before I took this job. She taught me lessons in how to gracefully navigate the Board. She was always diplomatic in her storytelling and she had some great ones to share. Over the last six months she was a little more candid and I always looked forward to our time together. She will be greatly missed by all. My heart is broken.”

It is during her tenure that many of country music’s major initiatives were conceived, including The Country Music Hall of Fame which was created in 1961, the CMA Awards which created in 1967 and began its national tv broadcast a year later, and the CMA Music Festival; all of which are staples in celebrating the genre while also helping global awareness of Country Music.

Eric Gasa

Miley Cyrus has announced a release date and title for her highly anticipated album, Younger Now, which is slated to drop September 29. The advent of this new record finds Cyrus in a very unique position musically. Three years after her viral twerking stunt at the VMAs with Robin Thicke, the party-hard pop artist is now looking to dial back her persona of sex, drugs, and rock & roll, for a more wholesome approach.

The first single from Younger Now, “Malibu” trades the hip-hop beats for a sweet, joyful, and sun-kissed guitar ballad. The music video features Cyrus smiling, dancing, and running alongside the beach with flowers in her hair. When compared to Cyrus licking a sledgehammer and straddling a wrecking ball naked in 2013’s “Wrecking Ball” video, “Malibu” is a complete 180.

The stylistic change comes after the release of Cyrus’ last record, Miley Cyrus and Her Dead Petz, a glittery and experimental release that found the artist wearing rainbow colored hair and a unicorn costume onstage. After the tour, Cyrus went on a social media blackout, became politically involved, and moved out to Malibu to get back to her roots.

According to a May 2017 interview with Billboard Magazine, Cyrus is now off drugs, drinking, and going completely clean.
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By Niy Birden

Last year brought in a wave for newcomer Khalid, a 19 year old singer from Texas who has created yet another obsession for teenagers in the popshphere, alongside the label he is signed to, RCA Records. RCA has played a very integral role in the development of teenagers in pop culture, with one of its most famous artists, Christina Aguilera, who became a powerhouse singing sensation during the 90’s.

Khalid, who is at the same age of Christina when she got her fame, has burst through the music industry door with his first charting hit “Location”, and collaboration with Logic and Alessia Cara on “1-800-273-8255” , recently came back to the charts with his “Young Dumb and Broke” single, and accompanying music video. In the song, Khalid is talking to a love interest about the beauties and inevitability of being young, dumb, and broke, but in a romantic way that makes you reminisce your own youth. The pinnacle of most teenage anthems in America.

While the first verse is a bit too fast in the sense that it gives off the entire theme of the song in just a few bars, the vocal delivery and lines themselves go perfectly together, completing the nostalgic feeling that he is trying to play to. “So you’re still thinking of me/Just like I know you should/I can not give you everything, you know I wish I could/I’m so high at the moment/I’m so caught up in this/Yeah, we’re just young, dumb and broke/But we still got love to give”.
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Eric Gasa

“Lust for life” has always been a phrase with big shoes to fill. It’s the title of the iconic, larger than life song by Iggy Pop, a story about lusting, drugs, and living on the edge, as well as the sunshine-y jangle of the 2009 single by the band Girls. The latter sings plenty about lusting as well— “Oh, I wish I had a boyfriend, I wish I had a loving man in my life…Maybe then I would’ve turned out right.”

The same titled song by Lana Del Rey, though not as fun or iconic as the other songs listed, falls somewhere in the middle. It’s not a loathsome, sunbaked rocker, or even a love story really; it’s a sex-fueled, pop-centric kiss off.

The cover of Lana Del Rey’s newest album, Lust For Life betrays her persona all too often. On Lust For Life, the All-American sweetheart smiling in front of the pickup truck with the flowers in her hair chants for The Weeknd to take off his clothes with lusty abandon.
“Climb up the H of the Hollywood sign, yeah,” Del Rey sings, “In these stolen moments the world is mine.”

It’s a bit of an ironic shtick but one that has stuck all along for Elizabeth Grant, who’s made a career as America’s pop idol next door. She lives in a world ruled by fast cars and James Dean types crossed with hip-hop verses and Mountain Dew.

The aesthetic is no different on Lust For Life which finds Del Rey doing what she does best; being drab, dramatic, and suave as hell.
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By Niy Birden

It has been a long, courageous fight for Kesha Rose Sebert, a.k.a Ke$ha, but now stylized as simply, Kesha. When she first came out, she was ostracized and criticized for her extensive auto-tune, party glam, drunk- girl-appropriating- cultures tone of music and imagery, and then three years ago we learned that she had been suffering from sexual abuse from her main producer Dr. Luke , who used to be the owner of Kasz only Inc., which partnered with Sony Records.

While the law dispute seems to have quieted down, Kesha’s voice definitely has not. And for good reasons, of course. If anything, her voice is more unique and louder than ever. Most people don’t know that before and during her “Tik Tok” fame in 2009, she was a singer-songwriter. So it’s actually no surprise at all that her return would not only be one to shatter her prior musical image, but it also shatters the opinions of most of her listeners. “Praying” is Kesha’s most powerful song to date. Don’t be surprised if you hear about the next singing competition winner getting their fame through use of this song. It’s that good. With its powerful chorus, whistle tone-like belt, and catchy melody, it makes you wonder what powerhouses Adele and Christina Aguilera are doing with their releases.

Premiering on July 6th as the first single from her new album “Rainbow”, Kesha actually released her new golden song with an interesting music video, filled with religious symbolism, oddly-masked men, and her walking around a very large outside environment, doing a ritualistic dance and prayer straight from the Indigenous people that she so often uses for accessory. While the video isn’t nearly as powerful as the song, it is classically, a very Kesha video. The most visually stunning shots, however, are the almost-still moments when the color of the video is in a black and white shot, with Kesha laying down on a surface, against a landscape of beautiful water. While the shot is supposed to be one of a solemn moment, it creates a beautiful effect on the eye. A similar scene returns at the very end of the video when she is now walking-on water, might I add- but this time, with a golden sunset played out before her. Looks like she’s been praying indeed.
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Eric Gasa

JAY-Z’s latest music video will be offensive to some and provocative to others; such is the essence of an artist born both in the tradition and spite of the Brooklyn projects. “The Story of O.J.”, directed by Mark Romanek and Jay himself, is as unsettling as it is campy. Jay rhymes over a sharp beat that cuts right into the heart of the post-racial myth in America.

But it’s the animated visual that makes “The Story of O.J.” all the more provoking. In it, Jay is reimagined as an offensive Disney caricature ala Jim Crow, meant to mimic vintage blackface cartoon characters. The idea isn’t exactly meant to make viewers uncomfortable but rather symbolize the antiquated views black persons still face when in the spotlight.

“O.J. like, ‘I’m not black, I’m O.J.’,” the cartoon Jay rolls his eyes and sighs, “…okay.”
Regarding the lyric, the rapper said in the 8-minute mini documentary, Footnotes for The Story of O.J., “O.J. would get a free space where he’s like ‘I’m not black, I’m O.J.’ Like Tiger Woods would say, ‘I’m above the culture,’…And that same person when he’s playing golf, and playing great, [he’s] protected. When you’re not, they’re gonna put pictures of you drunk driving and embarrass you. That world will eat you up and spit you out.”

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Review: “Remember I told You”
By Niy Birden

Dancehall, dubstep and EDM have created a whirlwind of hits for mainstream radio. This has been happening since the 70’s, but with the era of technology and live retweets, when there’s a hit,there’s a hit. For the song “Remember I Told You”, however, this hit is much more interesting due to the roster of artists featured.

Nick Jonas, the legendary ex-Jonas Brother hailing from the teenage stardom of Disney Channel, has come such a long way. From Disney rock, to young-but-still-impressionable rock, and now to R&B and Pop, Nick actually has quite the discography on his hands. While he has only managed to get genuine hits since the start of his “Chains” and “Jealous” year, the hits he make are charming, upbeat, and, if you’re like me, something that you probably wouldn’t mind listening to.

He’s managed to pair with a lot of notable names in the last few years (including Mike Posner, who joins him again for this song), but for this new release, he’s tapped into a little old school and a little new school with sorta-newcomer Anne Marie, who has her first U.S. hit this year with “Alarm” and pop heartthrob Mike Posner, who you might remember from his earlier hits “Cooler Than Me” and “Please Don’t Go”, or more recently, “I Took A Pill In Ibiza”. So what can come from two veteran artists and one newbie? Electro gold, apparently.
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