You’re at a party, tossing drinks back, pretending you know how to dance, and suddenly, the aux is passed to you. A pit grows in your stomach.
A couple days before our interview, I had absolutely no idea who Phillip Phillips was, except what my friends had filled me in on: his big break was on American Idol, he had a couple of viral hits. Not much to go off of. But as I burrowed through the internet to research the guy, I came to understand what his life had been like for the past few years––rough and relentless.
You’re at a party, tossing drinks back, pretending you know how to dance, and suddenly, the aux is passed to you. A pit grows in your stomach.
Phillip Phillips looked more than confident—– you could tell he was having fun. If Collateral was Phillips getting outside of himself, miles beyond the wistful folk-pop we’ve come to know him for, then his performance last Thursday at the Beacon Theatre for Bud Light’s One Night Only was a journey into his newly formed sound: untethered, stomping the terrain between slick bluesy rhythms and robust rock and roll swagger.
Do you miss spandex, eye-liner, and truckloads of hairspray?
If you’re a New Yorker, you’ve probably grieved and gripped over this year’s abnormally cold spring. But not to worry, pale friends! You can put away that Canada Goose because summer has finally arrived in the city, and with it brings sunshine, eccentricity, hot trash, and outdoor concert series like Live Nation’s National Concert Week, which runs from April 30th through May 8th.
To be black is to survive an avalanche indefinitely. But to be black is also to propel forward that experience unapologetically––black seeds will only grow when excellence is an attitude, not an afterthought. If you are a black man, woman, or child, you can, and it’s this prideful conviction that Melissa Haizlip’s documentary Mr. SOUL! embodied to the fullest during its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 22nd.
Making an album is a lengthy, back-breaking grind––a lot of sweat and tears and sleepless nights go into wrestling nebulous ideas into something worthy and palpable, a finished product that not only satisfies the artist’s vision, but also that of the record label, the critics, the haters, the fans, the superfans––the list goes on and on when you are as big and peerless as Ed Sheeran.
Staying power is hard-earned in the high turnover world of pop. But Kimbra’s latest endeavor Primal Heart, released April 20th, is an audacious attempt to beat the odds, delivering listeners a more polished, commercial sound destined for FM radio channels and summer joyride playlists.
To listen to Rainbow Kitten Surprise is to take part in a reverie; their songs are hazy, yet honest impressions that depict the whirlwind of singer Sam Melo’s cluttered past––laced with brutal emotion, comprised of cocaine and lost love.
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