By: Enoch Whitaker Welcome to the third edition of New Music Friday, where I will be reviewing the most notable releases from last Friday. This includes albums, EPs, and singles from a variety of musical genres. After listening to each project a couple times, I will give my personal thoughts and opinions on it, then a score out of 10. This week I will be reviewing “Scary Hours 2,” the latest collection of songs from Canadian Rapper Drake, and “Feels,” a single by rising American popstar Khalid, and WATTS.
To start off, we have three new songs from one of the world's biggest artists: Drake. This is the second “Scary Hours” project with the first one being released just about three years ago in 2018. The whole concept of the “Scary Hours” series is to tease a bigger and grander upcoming album. The last time a “Scary Hours” album was released it contained two songs with a run time of just under eight minutes. Those two songs would later be featured on Drake’s next album, “Scorpion,” which was released about five months later. This time around we were gifted with three songs with a run time of just under thirteen minutes. Just like the last “Scary Hours,” these songs will most likely be featured on Drake’s highly anticipated upcoming album, “Certified Lover Boy.” The first song on this compilation of singles is “What’s Next,” a song with a hyper electronic synth based instrumental. Drake seems to just bounce and flow extremely well over this beat for the entirety of the two minutes and fifty eight seconds. This was a fantastic opening track and really sets the stage for the other two songs. The next song is titled “Wants and Needs” and includes a feature from Atlanta Rapper, Lil Baby. This song is a lot more mellow and has an interesting instrumentation with distorted synths providing the main melody. This track did not seem very special to me if I am being honest, just more of what we have already heard from Drake. The last track is titled “Lemon Pepper Freestyle” and contains a feature from Floridan Rapper, Rick Ross. This track is pretty long with a run time of six minutes. Despite its long run time, I did enjoy this one a lot. The feature from Rick Ross is excellent and the instrumental compliments both his and Drake’s voices pretty well. Unlike the other two songs where Drake is very braggadocious, he actually opens up about himself, his life, and his past. This makes the song very chill and is a great way to end the collection of songs in my opinion. From the highs of “What’s Next” to the chill vibes of “Lemon Pepper Freestyle,” I can say that this was an enjoyable listening experience. I would definitely recommend this and I am feeling a seven out of ten on Drake’s “Scary Hours” The next and final thing that I will be reviewing this week is a brand new single from American singer Khalid and a rising artist WATTS. This is the first song both artists have put out since last year and I’m happy to say that they’re both starting out on the right foot. This track titled “Feels” is an R&B track with an outstanding instrumental full of synth piano chords, gentle drum hits, and soft but heavy bass. This creates an aura of upbeat and calm vibes around the listener. Going into the song, I did not know how WATTS’ and Khalid’s voices would work with each other because they are pretty similar in style. I was worried that they would awkwardly compete and try to outperform each other, but my worries were soon put to rest. Both of their voices seem to grace each other and they often find themselves harmonizing together. Nothing crazy or something we haven’t heard is found on this song, but it works for the better I feel. This song is a great example of what I want and expect from artists such as these. I thoroughly enjoyed this track and I find myself coming back to it time and time again. “Feels” by WATTS and Khalid is a fantastic song with excellent production and vocals. I am feeling a strong eight on “Feels” and would recommend it to anyone who’s looking for something new to listen to. This week we had a lot of highs when it comes to new music being released. From Drake’s strong raps to the sweet melodies of WATTS and Khalid, there was plenty of great music released last Friday. I would like to thank you for reading the latest edition of New Music Friday and I hope to see you next time.
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By: Madisen Child Welcome back to the fourth installment “This Day In History,” where we feature a prominent event, birth, and death from one day spanning all of human history. Today, we are focused on March 26.
Death: Ludwig Van Beethoven, a household name when it comes to classical music, was a German composer known for songs like Für Elise and Moonlight Sonata. Most of his songs, although the titles aren’t as well known, are very popular in Western Media. For example, Symphony No. 5 may be used in suspenseful, dramatic scenes with it’s iconic opening motif that can’t exactly be described in words. It is well known that Beethoven was deaf. One story states that, at the opening of Symphony No. 9, he had to be physically turned around to see his applauding audience. What many may not know is that Beethoven also suffered from liver disease. He succumbed to the disease at age 56 on March 26, 1827. Reports state that over 20,000 people attended his funeral. Birth: “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,” is a well known opening phrase to middle and high school English literature. “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost was written in 1915. Frost, the author of this poem, was born on March 26, 1874, making him 41 years old when the poem was written. Frost was born to Isabelle Moodie and William Prescott Frost Jr. in San Francisco, California. He had one sister, Jeanie, who was born in 1885. Frost’s life was no walk in the park; his father died of Tuberculosis in 1885, his mother died of cancer in 1900, and Jeanie had to be committed to a mental hospital in 1920. Frost grew up to make something of himself and become a classroom classic despite all these hardships. Event: Cremation, the act of burning a body to ashes, has been around for tens of thousands of years. However, Catholics of the 1800s and earlier didn’t favor cremation because of their beliefs of the afterlife. This practice was usually reserved for heretics, usually done before they died. The Victorians of Great Britain saw cremation as a more sanitary method of disposing of bodies. Previously, a doctor named William Price was arrested for attempting to cremate his baby boy. He claimed he was a Druidic priest, a notable role in Irish folklore, and wanted to cremate his son along with his own Druidic rituals. He was eventually tried and let go. The Cremation Society, formed by the physician to Queen Victoria, took this as a green light to start cremations. The first legal and official cremation in the UK was a woman named Janet Pickersgill on March 26, 1885. Today, cremation is a perfectly common, perfectly legal practice all over the world. By: Phoebe Warner Many, including students and teachers, believe phones in school are a problem. With constant notifications and access to apps, students can get distracted easily with cell phones.
One student, Allsion Dunhill, agrees that cell phones are a distraction. She says that school could function better if cell phone use was limited. Students can’t always limit their own use responsibly, so she feels that the use of phone boxes or “cell phone jails” is a way to accomplish this. Dunhill believes that students’ grades would be better if cell phones were put away during class. She explained this saying, “...there would be no distractions and the students could focus on what is happening in the present instead of answering their friends’ messages.” Dunhill argues that students are too attached to their phones and, as a result, lose out on important information that not only helps in a course but in life. Dunhill said, “...some of the things [teachers] teach us are important to our daily lives.” It’s not just about math or English and these skills we miss out on could help us with future learning and jobs. Many teachers also agree that classrooms would be more functional if phones were kept away. Students could pay better attention to what is being taught and they would have a better understanding of the topic. It’s difficult on the teachers when students can’t or don’t interact with them because they find more interest in whatever’s on their phones. Teachers are also frustrated when students don’t seem to see the connection between their lack of focus and low grades. In the end, Dunhill suggests that teachers “Take the phones away [from students] and put them in a cell phone jail at the beginning of class and don’t let the students have them back until the end of class.” While this perspective may not be popular among her fellow students, Dunhill believes that cell phones are distracting and should be put away during all hours of school. |
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March 2023
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