Reviews
Hayley Williams’ Flowers For Vases/Descansos Is Her Saddest, Quietest Music Yet
With her surprise LP, Flowers For Vases/Descansos, Hayley Williams has forgone further pop experimentation, instead clinging to a raw recitation of profound, suffocating sadness. The Paramore singer’s sophomore solo effort, released on Friday, employs little more than austere acoustic guitar and piano interludes across its 14 new tracks, which lament well beyond the waves of Williams’ past emotional wreckage. This time, the 32-year-old star is hopelessly set adrift between shores: At one edge, the luring memories of lost love, moments both soul-affirming and earth-shattering from which she cannot fully escape. At the other, forgiveness, catharsis, moving on — none of which she can seem to firmly grasp. Back and forth she floats. While eloquently arranged, Flowers’ uniform anguish mak...
Apple’s App Store hosting multi-million dollar scams – developer
Mobile app developer Kosta Eleftheriou has a new calling that goes beyond software development: taking on what he sees as a rampant scam problem ruining the integrity of Apple’s App Store. Eleftheriou, who created the successful Apple Watch keyboard app FlickType, has for the last two weeks been publicly criticizing Apple for lax enforcement of its App Store rules that have allowed scam apps, as well as apps that clone popular software from other developers, to run rampant. These apps enjoy top billing in the iPhone marketplace, all thanks to glowing reviews and sterling five-star ratings that are largely fabricated, he says. Up to now, I’ve been in the “Apple *wants* to do the right thing” camp. My viewpoint is starting to change. How to spot a $5M/year scam on the @AppS...
Hayley Williams Lays It Bare on Intimate Sophomore Record FLOWERS for VASES / descansos: Review
The Lowdown: Hayley Williams has never been afraid to use her voice. Since exploding onto the pop-punk scene in 2004 as the frontwoman of Paramore, her name has been synonymous with expansive, acrobatic vocals. She’s also not afraid to use her voice in another sense, though — ask anyone in Nashville and you hear some variation of it: “Hayley Williams is a real one.” Since being discovered at just 14 and spending the majority of her life in the spotlight, she’s become a confident voice in music, present in conversations around mental health and aligning herself with groups like Teens4Equality. On her sophomore solo effort, FLOWERS for VASES / descansos, that growth is reflected more personally and intimately than ever before. She strips it all down: every part of the record was written and ...
BLACKPINK Light up the Sky Again with THE SHOW: Review
To paraphrase Wendy Williams: BLACKPINK? They’ve got a point: they are legends, and they are the moment. The pop quartet — made up of Jisoo, Jennie, Rosé, and Lisa — made a joyful return to the stage Saturday with their livestream concert, “THE SHOW”. It was just October of 2020 that the group released their debut full-length album (aptly titled THE ALBUM) following years of chart-smashing singles and EPs. Having already conquered international markets and ascended to unparalleled heights for a South Korean girl group, it’s easy to forget that, in terms of releases, BLACKPINK have only started to scratch the surface. Streamed through YouTube by the band’s label, YG Entertainment, “THE SHOW” was a spectacle indeed, involving a live band, a legion of backup dancers, and performance premieres...
Janis Joplin’s Pearl Remains a Stunning Gem 50 Years Later: Classic Review
Consequence Podcast Network and Sony’s The Opus is back for Season 12, which examines the enduring legacy of Janis Joplin’s posthumous final album, Pearl. Also, after you read this article, scroll below to enter our exclusive Janis Joplin giveaway or score some original Opus swag. — Pearl never stood a chance at being just an album. That was assured when Janis Joplin was found dead in her hotel room of an accidental heroin overdose during the sessions that would lead to her second and final solo record. At that point, Pearl, which came out a little over three months later, could never simply be the latest measure of the brilliant blues singer as a recording artist. It became part of the myth of Janis Joplin — an idea that’s only grown bolder and more complex over the decades. To many fans,...
Viagra Boys Churn Out More Scuzzy Salvos on Sophomore Welfare Jazz: Review
The Lowdown: If you find a political message in the music of Sweden’s Viagra Boys, it wasn’t necessarily put there on purpose. At least, that’s the party line from singer and lyricist Sebastian Murphy, whose deadpan baritone and satirical send-up of hyper-macho posturing made the post-punk band’s debut, Street Worms, essential listening in 2018. In a 2019 interview with Australia’s Happy Mag, Murphy laid out his thoughts in full: “In a way, making music in itself is a political statement,” the singer said. “If the right-wing had their way, we wouldn’t be making music at all. They hate all this stuff, and they hate this kind of culture. We’re being political just by being ourselves – and in my opinion, that’s enough. You don’t need to dive any deeper than that.” Of course, plenty of people ...
Donald Trump allies in Congress to challenge his loss to Joe Biden
A band of President Donald Trump’s Republican allies planned a last-ditch effort on Wednesday to undo his election loss to Democrat Joe Biden, a bid almost certain to fail that comes on the same day their party is poised to lose its majority in the Senate. The Republican-led Senate and Democratic-controlled House of Representatives were due to meet to formally certify Biden’s victory in the Nov. 3 election in proceedings that could stretch past midnight. In a joint session of Congress, Trump’s allies plan to challenge the results from a handful of states won by Biden. Thousands of pro-Trump protesters converged on Washington ahead of the session at his urging. Some clashed with police overnight. Biden won the election by a 306-232 count in the state-by-state Electoral College and by a marg...
ISL Matchday 8 Preview: ATKMB Meet Bengaluru & Lots More To Look Forward To
The eighth matchday of the Indian Super League is just around the corner, and it includes some exciting clashes between ATK Mohun Bagan and Bengaluru FC and a few other things to look forward to. Here’s all you need to know before matchday 8: ATK Mohun Bagan vs Bengaluru FC The action kicks off with a match between the 2nd and 3rd-placed sides in the league, as ATK Mohun Bagan face Bengaluru FC. Last Results: ATKMB didn’t feature on matchday 7, so their last match was a 1-0 victory over FC Goa thanks to Roy Krishna’s late penalty. Bengaluru beat Odisha FC 2-1 as Sunil Chhetri and Cleiton Silva got on the scoresheet. Head-to-Head: Bengaluru had a 5-2 lead over the old ATK, as only one match between those two teams failed to find a winner. During their time together in the I-League and in a ...
Education Ends the Small Axe Anthology With Full Marks: Review
The Pitch: Courtrooms, prisons, the police — Steve McQueen‘s Small Axe anthology has taken probing, deeply personal looks at the effects of racial discrimination, bias, and anti-Black violence on London’s Afro-Caribbean communities in the ’60s through the ’80s. With Education, McQueen turns his eye to London’s school systems in the 1970s, a place rife with bifurcated ideas about the intelligence of Black and white people. Enter Kingsley (a warm, intelligent turn from young Kenyah Sandy), the 12-year-old son of West Indies immigrants (Sharlene Whyte’s Agnes and Daniel Francis), who finds himself transferred to a “School for the Educationally Subnormal,” essentially a babysitting gig for special needs kids. Kingsley’s smart, intellectually curious; the school, filled with disi...
Kamaiyah Opens Up on Her Own Terms with No Explanations: Review
The Lowdown: Since 2016’s A Good Night in the Ghetto and her inclusion in the coveted 2017 XXL Freshman Class, Kamaiyah has been one of rap’s most consistent and exciting players. The Oakland-born and -raised rapper has hyphy written all over her music as part of the Bay Area’s highly influential scene, one that has birthed some of the most iconic gangster rap and party anthems. Kamaiyah exists in between the “hard” and the hyphy, taking the infectious, cocky grooves of Mac Dre and Too $hort into a new age for a wider audience without yielding to current trends. After departing from Interscope Records due to release disputes, the Bay Area star used 2020 to release multiple projects, No Explanations being the third. Despite a quiet release, due in part to the end of the year lull, Kamaiyah ...
Gorillaz Bring the Song Machine to Life with a Multimedia Extravaganza: Review
Editor’s Note: This review is of Performance 2 of Gorillaz’s Song Machine Live, which aired on December 12th at 7:00 p.m. ET. Setting the Stage: If there’s one thing that Gorillaz are known for, it’s irresistibly creative fusions of music and visuals. From the very beginning, they’ve ensured that their videos, concerts, web content, and assorted paraphernalia provided a characteristically cartoonish spectacle to match the flamboyant edge of their tunes. Their latest multimodal project, Song Machine, is the best example yet of that fusion, as it mixed episodic webisodes with an almanac, a proper LP — this year’s Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez — and more. Really, all that was missing were live performances — that is, until now. This past weekend, the group teamed up with LIVENo...
Concert Review: Primus Pull Out Deep Cuts for Livestream Show
Setting the Stage: Ever since their inception, Primus have always been a “live band.” Sure, there’s no denying that such studio offerings as Frizzle Fry, Sailing the Seas of Cheese, and Pork Soda are ‘90s quirk-rock classics … but long-time fans can verify that the trio – singer/bassist Les Claypool, guitarist Larry LaLonde, and drummer Tim Alexander – are best experienced in concert, as they most certainly take their songs to the next level onstage. So, with a proposed 2020 tour (that was to see the trio pay tribute to Rush’s 1977 prog classic A Farewell to Kings), scrapped due to COVID shutting down tours, it was announced that Primus’ lone show of the year – titled “Alive From Pachyderm Station” – would be streamed on December 11th, filmed at Claypool’s winery, Claypool Cellars, in Seba...
