Category Archive: Music

Liza Minnelli: Never Stop Moving

It’s tough to begin writing about Liza Minnelli. Not that there isn’t enough information or enough questions to ask, but it’s more difficult to decide where to start. She’s done a million stage performances, sang a million songs and still seems to have the energy of a five-year-old that was just given a Mountain Dew.

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Leon Bridges: Establishing A Groove of His Own

As humans, we are inclined to categorize and label aspects of the world. There always has to be a word or descriptor for something. Whether its race, sexuality, or political parties everything has to have its own clearly defined classification. However, these boxes can often pigeonhole a person and limit how much society allows them to evolve. This problem is extremely prevalent in the entertainment industry. You often hear artist complain about being typecast or how the media will make comparisons that become hard for them to escape. The same can be said of Texan singer Leon Bridges.

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Portugal. The Man: Popular Punk

Commercials have a way of popularizing songs that would otherwise only be heard by the respective fan base of the artist or group. The best commercials contain songs that can easily get stuck in your head and have you humming the tune for weeks, which will result in you googling the song. This was exactly the case for the Alaskan punk band Portugal. The Man, with their hit song “Feel it Still.”

The song can be heard in many commercials including a 2017 iPad pro commercial, a 2017 VitaminWater commercial featuring Breaking Bad actor Aaron Paul, and a 2018 Cadillac commercial. I first heard the “Feel it Still” track on a commercial and after seeing it once, I couldn’t get the catchy tune out of my head all day.

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Kelela: Redefining the Norm

In the digital age, it is becoming increasingly difficult for musicians to stand out as individuals with something different to offer the world. The industry has become saturated with act after act, that bring the same level of talent and longevity to the game, and anyone can share their work with the world on the internet. Thirty-five year old Washington, D.C. artist Kelela has a uniqueness to her art, making her stand out in the indie R&B world.

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Shawn Mendes: From Vine to Billboard 200

Singers emerge from all corners of the world, with different backgrounds, stories, and sounds. Technology and social media are evolving so rapidly, that it’s no surprise that many aspiring music artists were discovered on YouTube after posting covers of well-known songs.

The story is similar for 19-year-old Shawn Mendes, but he put a slightly different twist on it. In 2013, when the entertainment network Vine was at its peak, Mendes began posting six second clips of him singing on the app. After a childhood full of classes for acting, performing, and entertaining, singing came easily to Mendes. The self-taught guitarist gained millions of followers and garnered the attention manager Andrew Gertler who signed Mendes to Island Records in just a few months. His first single, “Life of the Party” was released in 2014 on the label.

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Ella Mai: The Songstress After Our Hearts

Everyone can relate to the nervousness and excitement of young love, but one song in particular, is able to take this indescribable feeling and put words to it.  The bubbly, R&B song, “Boo’d Up” has taken the charts and the radio by storm this summer. Its catchy chorus and engaging lyrics make it impossible to escape, whether it is being played on the radio or stuck in your head, making the song top the Billboard’s Emerging Artists chart.

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