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The Kickback - Lonerism

By The Observer · Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2013

There are several definitions of "new music." For the most part, "new" means the project was just released, as in "it just came out this past Tuesday and I had to refresh my browser at midnight because I couldn't go to sleep without listening to it."

The Observer

Please Go Away, Christmas Music

By The Observer · Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2013

I really don't want to hear any Christmas music yet, but it's not for the reasons you might think. It's not that I don't love turtle doves and partridges in pear trees as much as the next person (trust me, I do). It's not because most of the songs these days just remind me of how commercialized the season has become (even though it has). It's not even because Christmas music makes me anxious about everything I need to do before the holiday (although it does). Every other year of my life that I can remember, I've listened to Christmas music before Thanksgiving. Way before Thanksgiving. Sometimes even before Halloween. I never worried much about beckoning the holiday season too soon. How could it ever be too early for Christmas? But this year, I'm more hesitant to crank up the carols. Although I'm still itching to create an iTunes playlist consisting entirely of Josh Groban, Michael Bublé and Mannheim Steamroller, I'm doing my best to hold off for another week. It's hard, especially when my Pandora account insists on playing holiday-themed ads and I've already heard Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You" blasting from a North Quad residence hall on a Friday afternoon. Christmas lights hang in the window of my friend's dorm room, and the University has been sneakily decorating trees around campus for weeks. I'm not even going to pretend I don't feel a slight twinge of joy every time I walk into Starbucks and see vibrant red bags of coffee grounds lining the shelves. The truth is, I'm a sucker for Christmas. I live and breathe for the holiday season. I find myself wishing in June that it were already Christmastime, and I count down the months until it arrives. My obsession with all things even marginally related to Christmas is almost embarrassing. This year, though, I'm not going to listen to Christmas music before Thanksgiving. I just won't. And here's why: I'm trying to learn to recognize what's wonderful about the average days. You know which days I mean - the ones when its too cold and maybe raining, and the dining hall isn't serving anything good, and you have a paper due tomorrow, and you still haven't gathered up the courage to ask that person to the SYR and now that you think about it, nothing particularly exciting at all has happened for a while. In other words, the days that don't belong to Christmastime. During Christmastime, maybe it's too cold and it's raining and you're hungry and stressed and wishing there were more hours in the day - but there are twinkling white lights and nativity scenes and peppermint hot chocolates and Christmas music. And those things make everything just swell, regardless of whatever else is going on in your life. But I think we should be able to convince ourselves that everything is just swell on any given day, not just on the ones that fall between Thanksgiving and New Year's. There is something oddly beautiful about those standard, run-of-the-mill days that have nothing particularly special about them. They're completely blank slates on which joys and heartbreaks write themselves in unpredictable ways. The uncertainty of what will come from average days is humbling, and I'm attempting to appreciate them for what they are. On regular days, there is no Christmas music to automatically make the world brighter, which forces us to look a little deeper to find what makes each day meaningful. For me, holding off on Christmas music until Thanksgiving is a reminder to find beauty in ordinariness. I'm not going to tell you to follow my lead by stowing away your Andrea Bocelli Christmas album for the next week. I'm just suggesting we enjoy the present moment, instead of always jumping ahead to the next exciting thing. But when that next exciting thing arrives and Santa Claus's sleigh rolls into Herald Square at the end of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, you'd better believe I'll be turning up the Christmas tunes. So, to the Christmas music playlist to which I haven't been showing any love, hang in there. I'm almost ready for you. Contact Marisa Iati at miati@nd.edu The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer. 

The Observer

Dance Company Shows Off New Moves in Winter Showcase

By The Observer · Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2013

The Dance Company of Notre Dame is returning for its first major production of the year tonight, as the annual Winter Showcase show seeks to outdo their impressive and beautiful performance last year. After months of preparation and constant rehearsal and attention to detail, the Dance Company has assembled a new group of artists, performers who bring to life the music behind each of its choreographies. Under the direction of president Kelsey Richards, the Dance Company, this year's production is sure to make for another exciting, passionate exhibition of dance. "[With this year's performance], you'll see a lot of the same styles of dance," sophomore dancer Claire Magnuson said. "But I think with every new semester, the dancers get more and more creative with their choreography and take more risks with their music choices." An intriguing take from the returning performer, as last year's performance already seemed to make a point of strong song choices and powerful performances, as music choices such as "Give Me Love" by Ed Sheeran were strengthened and livened by the emotion and graceful force of last year's core of dancers. This year's core, however, seems stronger than ever, as the support and passion among the dancers seem to feed off of each other and enhance each others' abilities, something which Magnuson eludes to being the very nature of the Dance Company itself. As much as the members learn from the technique classes offered to them every week, the true power of the Dance Company lies in its ability to foster an environment where the dancers are supportive of each other. "Each year you see new people bringing forth their new choreography and I think we all inspire each other with lots ideas for new choreography or music choices or ideas for new pieces," Magnuson said. After seeing brief snippets at the beginning of the semester, the dances all come together for the showcase. "The choreographers' pieces mean a lot to them, and everybody's genuinely excited to watch all the routines at the showcase," she said. Despite the demand for such great attention to detail, and a natural necessity for immense dedication and faithful practice and precision, the Dance Company members are always looking forward to improving their technique and grow as dancers. Even more, to many the Dance Company provides a sanctuary for its members, a place of comfort away from the stresses of schoolwork and of their own personal forms of struggle and hardship. The Dance Company is a means for its performers to transcend daily living and truly make art on stage, an opportunity for each of the dancers to emphatically express themselves - often without even having to say a word. The Dance Company of Notre Dame's Winter Showcase will run tonight and tomorrow night at 7:30 p.m. in Washington Hall. Tickets are $5 and can be purchased at the door. Contact Miko Malabute at mmalabute@nd.edu 

The Observer

A Real 90s Kid?

By The Observer · Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2013

One glance at any social media website and you can tell a few things about us college-age students - we love lists, we're incredibly nostalgic and we are absolutely obsessed with the 90s. Every other post on Buzzfeed is a list that inventories the toys we played with, the school supplies we couldn't live without, our horrible, horrible taste in fashion and the music we loved way back in the 1990s. But while I laugh and nod along to these articles while mourning the loss of my Tamagachi and Lisa Frank pencil case, I also can't help but wonder why we love these lists so much. The Internet has certainly helped, providing a forum in which we can collectively ruminate in our precious 90s memories, complete with accompanying GIFs of snap bracelets, YouTube videos of "Saved By The Bell" and mp3s of our favorite Britney Spears songs. It's not just the Internet making our childhood nostalgia easy, however - there's something else. My theory is that we aren't really 90s kids. I mean, in 1999, I was 6 years old, and I entered the new millennium with pretty much only fleeting memories of my Skip-It and an undying love for "Spongebob." I wasn't a fan of "Clarissa Explains It All" or "Daria," because I wasn't old enough. Still, so many of these "You Know You're a 90s Kid" posts include these references, and I eat them up (especially "Daria," because I found out later that "Daria" was awesome). So what is it that keeps us returning to 90s reflections even if we were just toddlers that decade? Probably a few things that can be crudely summed up with this: the late 90s felt awesome to us. We were young and carefree. The economy was pretty cool. We didn't understand the news, and even if we did, the biggest political scandal of the time had little to nothing to do with politics. People rocked overalls. Overalls! So even if they aren't our distinct memories, the love of the decade, the longing for our childhood and the world wide web on which we were raised has made 90s nostalgia a fun and ever-so-distracting hobby for us college kids. Never mind that we hardly had a grasp of the language back in '97 - we're going to post those Buzzfeed articles on Facebook all we want. Now that that's established, I hope we agree that there's nothing wrong with looking back on the 90s fondly. Still, just because we were fans of certain musicians when we were four-year-olds doesn't mean we have to half-ironically, half-nostalgically listen to them all the time. The decade also had some pretty awesome music that we never appreciated as tiny, tiny humans because we were too busy with Furbees and the Spice Girls (which, incidentally, was my very first concert). Now, we have the power not only to curate elaborate stills from 90s cartoons, but also to listen to music back then we never gave a chance. Here are some favorites from 90s that toddlers probably didn't love back then. Contact Allie Tollaksen at atollaks@nd.edi The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer. 

The Observer

The Killers look back

By The Observer · Monday, Nov. 18, 2013

Earlier this month, The Killers released their first greatest hits album, "Direct Hit," giving fans a chance to look back at one of the biggest alternative bands of the past decade and to reflect on what that band has done for the industry.

The Observer

Top 20 albums of 2013

By The Observer · Monday, Nov. 18, 2013

For us music lovers, early December is like March Madness of sorts - everyone's betting on which albums will ascend to the top of year-end lists from publications like Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, Stereogum ... the list goes on. If you're crazy enough, you make your own, post it on the Internet and wait for your musical friends to tell you how wrong you are. But only one list really matters: The Observer's Top 20 Albums of 2013. Crafted by stalwart music nerds John Darr and Matt McMahon, this list brings together the best of the best of this year.

The Observer

Underappreciated animated television

By The Observer · Monday, Nov. 18, 2013

Brought on by my unreasonable inclinations to fervently discuss and dissect one of television's best series currently airing, "Bob's Burgers," and other underappreciated shows, I wanted to deliberate over "Bob's" and some lesser-known, but also stellar, animated comedy series.  

The Observer

A Capella Fest Hits All the Right Notes

By The Observer · Sunday, Nov. 17, 2013

Last Saturday night, eager students packed the Carey Auditorium in Hesburgh Library to see Notre Dame's various a capella groups perform. Students sat in the aisles and stood in the back rather than miss the A Capella Fest hosted by Halftime, Notre Dame's "premiere co-ed a capellagroup."

The Observer

The KickBack - Sail Out

By The Observer · Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2013

The second you hear her voice, you'll know why she is a budding superstar. I first heard her voice associated with Top Dawg Entertainment on songs with Kendrick Lamar, Schoolboy Q and Ab-Soul. You probably first heard her voice on a few cuts off Drake's latest album, "Nothing Was the Same."

The Observer

Xbox One vs. PS4: Games Galore

By The Observer · Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2013

For those of us who did not receive a next-generation gaming console from Target before launch day due to distributor error, the wait will soon be over. The Play Station 4 and the Xbox One are set to release on November 15 and 22nd, respectively. In a previous article, I attempted to summarize the very few hardware differences that these two consoles will have; however, now we will concentrate on what will truly differentiate these two systems: the GAMES! With this new generation of gaming consoles, Sony and Microsoft are squaring off head-to-head on a level playing field for the first time. The new systems have essentially identical hardware, unlike the last generation. Therefore, what will probably make or break these consoles will be the exclusive content they offer and the ability to attract consumers with distinct, interesting games that distinguish themselves from their competitor's content. This means games offered at launch or within the "launch window", from November to around April or May of next year, will be particularly important to these two companies. Interestingly, as evidenced by the list of confirmed titles that will be launching alongside the new systems as well as the list of games that will be released within the launch window, the two companies clearly have unique ideological approaches with which they hope to drive their sales. Microsoft is seemingly concentrating on releasing fewer exclusives overall than Sony, announcing that around fifteen exclusive games will be coming out between launch day and the supposed launch window. Although there may not be too many games coming out within the launch window, most of the already announced games seem to be franchise worthy heavy-hitting blockbusters assuming they aren't already part of a successful franchise, such as "Forza 5." Sony is employing the opposite approach by choosing to concentrate on releasing many exclusives within the launch window, as many as thirty-eight games, but with a focus on probably shorter Indie-style games. This has clearly been Sony's plan since the Play Station 4's inception, since they have been collaborating with many of the industry's most important developers to design the console's architecture from the ground up to facilitate the creation of these independent games. Another interesting difference between the two companies' focuses is that Sony will be releasing five different Massive Multiplayer Online games, but Microsoft has not announced that they will be releasing any games for this genre. This seems like an interesting move, because the focus of these games is usually to create a self-contained world that fosters a strong feeling of community among the players within this world, but perhaps Microsoft is not releasing any such games because they feel their online Xbox Live community is a large enough source for this feeling of cohesion. The one exclusive game coming out for the Xbox One that the public seems most excited for is "Titanfall." The game centers around a future war in which soldiers are able to fight by using giant "Mechs" to command the battlefield, but who also have the option to use the jet packs strapped to their person as a tool to facilitate dynamic warfare and thereby enable the battle to be fought from above and below the enemy Mechs. This game took this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) by storm. It was the recipient of over sixty awards including a record-breaking six E3 Critics Awards. The future seems to hold a lot of promise for this game, and it will no doubt be one of the crowning jewels of this coming launch season that ensures the Xbox One sells very well. In the racing genre, Microsoft can surely expect heavy demand for "Forza 5," which will be competing directly with Sony's racer game "Driver Club." Lastly, another great game that will surely drive sales for Microsoft is "Ryse: Son of Rome." The game follows Marius Titus, a Roman general on a quest for revenge. As for Sony's most anticipated exclusive game, it depends on whom you ask, since their roster of games is so Indie heavy. Fans of Massive Multiplayer Online games may be most excited for "Warframe," a game where you are a space ninja fighting against an oppressive force known as the "Grineer," a constantly spreading force attempting to conquer your solar system. The interesting caveat about this game is that it will be offered free with a Playstation Plus subscription, which is equivalent to an Xbox Live subscription. Among the four blockbuster games that Sony has announced will be available before the launch window ends, the most anticipated game may very well be a tie between the two blockbuster exclusives available at launch, "Killzone: Shadow Fall" and "Knack." Killzone is the next iteration in one of Playstation's most important franchises and Knack is a brand new game that has struck a chord with the public. A close second to these two games would probably be "Drive Club," which was supposed to be available at console launch but has unfortunately been delayed to early 2014. In the end, it seems we will all definitely profit off from this recent console war no matter what system you end up buying. Prediction: Sony starts on top since it is being launched first and is coming in with good momentum, but in the long run Microsoft overtakes Sony for the number one spot. Contact Juan Ramon Cancio Vela at jcancio@nd.edu The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer. 

The Observer

ND Students Make History with 'Cannemara Five'

By The Observer · Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2013

A cast of six Notre Dame students will be making history Thursday night at Washington Hall. The 7:30 p.m. performance of Micheál Ó Conghaile's "The Connemara Five" will mark both the play's international and its English debuts. For this occasion, the author has made the trip from Ireland and will participate in an interview with director Sean Cotter, a junior art history major. "There is no precedent and yet at the same time, I am very much aware that I am setting a precedent. It's so much fun to work with something that can be so original and yet make it conservative enough to be a standard," Cotter said. The play was translated for the first time two years ago from Irish into English. The National Irish Language Theatre in Galway, Ireland, originally produced the play one decade ago. Apart from being a historic event on Notre Dame's campus, the play's storyline uses a dysfunctional family in Connemara to deal with important social issues. It's a family that includes a transgender male character and another character that suffers Alzheimer's disease. "The female characters presented are very much tangential, and that in itself comments on how women are marginalized through their relationships with men. It comments on a lot of minority status people. It comments on how we imprison ourselves when we don't fit into societal norms," Cotter said of the play's themes. At its core, the show is family-oriented. Cotter said he wanted to portray the story in a manner similar to looking through a family photo album. "I imagined staging it by creating a series of vignettes or snapshots, anything that the audience can look at and recognize as a moment that they would see in the photo album of the family. Being an art history major, I drew on a lot of different artists whose presentations of figures I really enjoyed," Cotter said. The stage is set up to convey this idea, with three isolated areas set off to create different snapshots of the family's life. The cast is made up of six students: freshman Cameron Hart as Danny, senior Derek Defensor as Darach, senior Robert McKenna as Coleman, junior Anna McGinn as Maggie, junior Katherine Dudas as Cynthia, and freshman Mary Patano as Katie. After opening night Thursday, a panel discussion will be held discussing gender issues and contemporary Irish language and literature with Ó Conghaile and department heads from Film, Television and Theatre, English, Irish Language and Literature, and Gender Studies. Working from the English translation, the cast and crew had to contend with the dialect change from Hiberno English (the kind spoken in Ireland) and the American dialect. The actors worked with Professor Tara MacLeod to develop the proper accent to maintain the show's Irish character. "Taking an American group of people and making them Irish has been the most challenging part because it's not only an accent but it's how you hold yourself, how you wear your hair men and women, how you sit, what you wear," Cotter said. The show's primary themes translate across the Atlantic, dealing with issues people in many cultures struggle with. "A lot of the motifs utilized in the script are about imprisonment, and about wrongful imprisonment specifically. So, really what we are presented with is a group of people who are innocent and who have individually, either through their own actions or through society's actions, imprisoned themselves. There's very much a moral to that story that says you don't need to do this, that everyone can be their own person," Cotter says. The show's production dates are November 14th, 15th and 16th at 7:30 at Washington Hall's main stage. Tickets are $6 a piece and can be purchased at the door or at the box office in LaFortune Hall. Contact Caelin Miltko at cmoriari@nd.edu 

The Observer

Fake But Great

By The Observer · Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2013

Josie of the Pussycats. Envy Adams of The Clash at Demonhead. Cassandre of Crucial Taunt.What do all of these ladies have in common? They're all girl-rock frontwomen who I have looked up to at one point or another. They all put on an awesome a show, belting out songs and taking names. Oh, and they're also all fictional characters from movies. Yes, this week, the playlist column is dedicated to my undying love for fake bands from movies. Because though the group may be fictional, the music can be oh-so-real. While some fake bands, most often ones written for television shows, can take off and become full-fledged, touring groups of their own (I'm looking at you, Blues Brothers and The Monkees), fake musical acts in movies are better because of their transience. One minute they're on screen, wowing you with music they never actually wrote or played, and the next minute, the lights are up and you're left with nothing but a fleeting memory of an absurd or awesome band that never really was. While there are tons of fictional groups and songs I could talk about, I decided to narrow down a few of my personal favorites. Here are songs from fictional bands that got stuck in my head. They made me long for a full-length album or so tied me up in childhood nostalgia that I will never forget the words. 1. "Three Small Words" - Josie and the Pussycats from "Josie and the Pussycats" I may get a lot of flak for including this on the playlist, but I will argue to the death that "Josie and the Pussycats" is an underrated movie. If you haven't seen it since around its release in 2001, I highly recommend you watch it again. Though fake pop boyband"DuJour" was incredibly entertaining, the Pussycats had the best music, of course. 2. "Summertime" by Sex Bob-Omb from "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" It was pretty close to impossible to pick a song from this movie because the whole thing is so great. In the end, I went with "Summertime," which is fantastic and never got the attention it deserved. It's pretty hard to go wrong, though, when Beck was the writer of all of fictional band Sex Bob-Omb's music. And with an awkward, lovable cast, including Allison Pill on the drums introducing the band with "We are Sex Bob-Omb and we're here to make you think about death and get sad and stuff," the group was both cool and hilarious. 3. "School of Rock" from "School of Rock" You're probably lying if you say you don't love "School of Rock." Jack Black (as Dewey Finn pretending to be Mr. Shneebly) taught all of us about the history of rock, and the final performance of the song at the Battle of the Bands was the coolest thing you'd ever seen in all of your ten years of existence. 4. "That Thing You Do!" by The Wonders from "That Thing You Do!" The Wonders song was a hit when the film was released in 1996 and stayed in the Billboard Hot 100 long after the movie left theaters. It was eventually even nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song. And who is to thank for providing such a catchy tune to a fake band? Adam Schlesinger, the bassist in Fountains of Wayne. That's right, the guy that brought you "Stacy's Mom" also wrote The Wonders' one and only hit. 5. "Man of Constant Sorrow" by Soggy Bottom Boys from "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" Not enough good things can be said about this film's soundtrack. Between its contributors, including Alison Krouse and Gillian Welch, and T-bone Burnett as head producer, there is no wonder why the soundtrack went platinum. George Clooney made for an ever-so-charming lead singer of the Soggy Bottom Boys, but "Constant Sorrow" was actually sung by bluegrass musician Dan Tyminski. Allegedly, when Tyminski told his wife that it was going to be his voice coming out of Clooney's mouth, she replied, "That's my dream!" 6. "Supernova Girl" by Proto Zoa (and his band, Microbe) from "Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century" Okay, so technically this was a Disney Channel Original Movie (DCOM, if you will) on television, but I couldn't leave it out. This song was a jam way back in 1999, and I bet some of you still know the words.

The Observer

Odd, eccentric, funny 'Computer Chess' at DPAC

By The Observer · Monday, Nov. 11, 2013

Film director, screenwriter, actor and editor (and 36-year-old) Andrew Bujalski is known in the Indie film community as the "Godfather of Mumblecore," a genre of film as quirky and unique as one might imagine from the label applied to it. The Boston native's latest offering, this year's "Computer Chess," is an odd yet subtly funny period film that delves into the world of computer programming and chess in the 1980s.

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Psapp toys around on new album

By The Observer · Monday, Nov. 11, 2013

For all the budding hipsters reading this, I've found your new high. The electronica band Psapp, pronounced something like p-sap, works as a great "Hipsterdom for Dummies." It's an obscure experimental duo who pioneered the beauty of the genre "toytronica" and that is relevant only because they wrote the "Grey's Anatomy"theme. 

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Worst Thing Ever: 'How I Met Your Mother'

By The Observer · Monday, Nov. 11, 2013

It is simply the worst when something has been built up for years, loved dearly, had enough anticipation to invoke nervous fits and screams of excitement - and then suddenly comes crashing down to the ground, destroying all previous expectations and positive emotions. Thank you, "How I Met Your Mother," for ruining everything you used to be. You are the worst thing ever. 

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Cupid Deluxe Falls Short

By The Observer · Sunday, Nov. 10, 2013

Next Monday, performer and songwriter Devonté"Dev" Hynes will officially release his second studio album under moniker Blood Orange.  But if you're too excited to wait until then, fear not. The album, "Cupid Deluxe," is currently streaming on iTunes Radio right now. 

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