Editorial
INTERVIEWS
Jia Tolentino on writing through the looking glass
The Michigan Daily — Reading her essays makes you feel like you could learn anything, because hey, Jia did. Knowing yourself is a more crucial asset than anything else these days, and allows for a broader worldview. Tolentino’s talent is capturing this perspective in words, inspiring her readers to take the same leap.
Phoebe Bridgers opens up about process, poetry and performance
The Michigan Daily — When Bridgers’s first EP Killer was released on the label, I fell head-over-heels in love with her songs, her voice and the emotional investment her music creates in a listener.
Darlingside’s Auyon Mukharji on performance and the magic of folk
The Michigan Daily — Composed of multi-instrumentalists Auyon Mukharji, Don Mitchell, Dave Senft and Harris Paseltiner, the band has found a niche in the folk music scene, although their work covers a broad array of musical references and motifs.
LIVE COVERAGE
Riot Fest 2019 starts off with a bang (and a bubble)
The Michigan Daily — Contrary to popular belief, punks are some of the nicest people one could ever meet. This was at least true of those I found at this year’s iteration of Riot Fest in Chicago, as we celebrated the festival’s 15th anniversary with more diluted light beer than should exist and a whole lot of confetti.
2019 Ann Arbor Folk Festival, Night Two
The Michigan Daily — The Festival is arguably one of the biggest music events in the metro-Detroit area each year, a collection of folk and blues’s best and brightest for two nights in the cold January wind. 2019’s lineup was particularly striking, featuring huge acts like Brandi Carlile and Rufus Wainwright as headliners on Friday and Saturday.
Iceage put on a mythic show at El Club in Detroit
The Michigan Daily — Illuminated by the red glow of the stage, Rønnenfelt and his bandmates were magnetic, a sickly-sexy collection of thin, stylish Danes with serious presence.
Kamasi Washington & Herbie Hancock take Detroit to space
The Michigan Daily — Their joint performance at the newly-renamed Aretha Franklin Amphitheatre in Detroit proved as much, as their respective shows took the idea of jazz to new heights in a new age.
boygenius was always meant to be
The Michigan Daily —There is a certain kind of magic that happens when women’s voices fuse together ― it’s always spiritual even if the listener isn’t, a joyful noise made unto the congregation no matter what the circumstances.
Chick Corea & friends show jazz gets better with age
The Michigan Daily — It’s not often that a man just shy of 80 has the energy of a twenty-something. It’s especially rare for that man, famed jazz pianist Chick Corea, to have continued touring through his later years, just as excited to perform as he was at the beginning of his career.
Features
Ann Arbor, all dressed up
The Michigan Daily — There's nothing quite like Halloween on a college campus. In most people's minds, Halloween is one day, Oct. 31, where all the ghouls and black cats come out to play. But in a college town, the spirit of the season goes on for weeks, if not all year round.
Love inside the dopamine machine
The Michigan Daily — I looked at my participation in the online dating scene more as another source of digital entertainment and a self-esteem boost, rather than a realistic way to find a boyfriend.
Stop! What’s that sound: How the Vietnam War changed American music
The Michigan Daily — In the face of death, confusion and the stagnant trudge of war, American counterculture paved a path through the muck by creating music that would last the test of time.
Short-Form
10 Albums About Aliens and Outer Space Every Music Fan Should Own
Consequence of Sound — A sci-fi journey from David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust to Janelle Monáe's ArchAndroid.
Joan Jett on Fronting Nirvana and Covering The Replacements
Consequence of Sound — Kyle Meredith sits down with Joan Jett and Kenny Laguna for this Monday’s episode of Kyle Meredith With….
Song of the Week: Jeff Tweedy Waxes Nostalgic on “I Know What It’s Like”
Consequence of Sound — The beloved Wilco frontman introduces his new solo record with a melancholy single.
Reviews
Lianne La Havas’s self-titled record defines her artistic genius
The Michigan Daily — Lianne La Havas’s newest album, a self-titled record of anthems and lullabies, is perfectly representative of herself as an artist. The collection of 12 songs firmly defines her ingenuity as a singer-songwriter, encapsulating her chameleonic musical aptitude through the ebb and flow of a lilting guitar.
Miley Cyrus enters a second golden age with ‘Plastic Hearts’
The Michigan Daily — We all know the old Miley Cyrus. The Miley that we watched for years on “Hannah Montana,” the girl that tweens of a certain age all wanted to be, the girl that we saw go through the trials and tribulations of growing up under the gaze of an unforgiving public eye.
‘Father of the Bride’ proves a brilliant comeback for Vampire Weekend
The Michigan Daily — For many of us too young to be millennials and too old to be Gen Z, Vampire Weekend was the soundtrack of our adolescence. Frontman Ezra Koenig’s trademark nasality is a reminder of summer concerts with cheap lawn tickets, still-active Tumblr accounts and that one American Apparel tennis skirt everyone seemed to have.
Angel Olsen’s ‘All Mirrors’ finds splendor in sadness
The Michigan Daily — The music of All Mirrors is pleasantly evasive — cinematic, even. Each song seems like you’ve heard it before somewhere, as if it was playing in the background all along only to be pulled to the forefront of the listener’s mind.
‘On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous’ captures the pain and beauty of becoming
The Michigan Daily — From the first words of the jacket to the last of his acknowledgments, Vuong has created a world of his own within the confines of a novel, pushing his readers so deeply into the experience of his characters that it feels like they’ve lived it themselves.
Debbie Harry’s ‘Face It’ isn’t just a rock-star memoir
The Michigan Daily — Even if you don’t know her name, it’s likely you’ve seen Debbie Harry’s face. As the frontwoman of the groundbreaking sometimes-pop, sometimes-rock group Blondie, Harry’s wide-set eyes and shock of bleach-blonde hair are unmistakable, a necessary and irreplaceable part of music history.
Opinion
Clara Scott: On ‘PEN15’ and surviving an all-female puberty
The Michigan Daily — In the last year or so, new Hulu series “PEN15” has taken on the cis female experience with flying (and hilarious) colors, and I would argue that it rings truer than many of the other depictions of puberty that have graced our screens before.
Clara Scott: Carol Kaye, the rhythm of a nation
The Michigan Daily — Anyone who has listened to the radio since 1958 has heard her play at one time or another, and I hope that one day they know her name.
Clara Scott: Bait in the online ocean
The Michigan Daily — The first time I downloaded Tinder as a freshly-minted student here at the University of Michigan, I was shocked to immediately find a peculiar species of male Ann Arborite running amok: the fish man.