Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Released on Jan. 5th, Bad Bunny’s sixth studio album, DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS (“I Should Have Taken More Photos”), has been celebrated as an “unabashed,” “determined,” “resonant,” and “triumphant” tribute to Puerto Rico. Beyond critical acclaim and chart-topping success—it currently holds the top position on Spotify’s Top Albums[Read More…]
Music
What we liked this winter break
Squid Game Season 2 – Bianca Sugunasiri, Staff Writer Dec. 26 marked the release of director Hwang Dong-hyuk’s highly anticipated Squid Game Season 2. The show revolves around the titular “Squid Game,” which extorts the vulnerabilities of financially struggling Korean citizens by offering a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to win a fortune.[Read More…]
Putting the “pop” in pop rhetoric: Sounds of a parched summer
Summer 2024 was great fun for pop music fans: Between Charli XCX’s groundbreaking album brat, the feud between rappers Kendrick Lamar and Drake, and new releases from artists such as Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan, it is undeniable that this summer has seen a resurgence of excitement in pop music[Read More…]
Where do I begin: Addison Rae
From “talentless” TikTok darling to rising Netflix starlet to pop singer making a splash in the music industry, the public view of Addison Rae has been more unpredictable than Canadian weather. Addison first introduced herself to the public in 2019 with popular but menial lip-sync TikToks, sparking similar trends to[Read More…]
Opera McGill haunts audiences with ‘Blond Eckbert’
For their second opera of the season, Opera McGill performed Blond Eckbert by composer and librettist Judith Weir, a piece that blends elements of fairy tale and horror. Based on a German short story of the same name by Ludwig Tieck, the tale centres around Eckbert’s wife, Berthe (MacKenzie Sechi/Maddalena[Read More…]
Hannah Frances’ ‘Keeper of the Shepherd’ is the most sincere record of the year
Softly strummed chords steadily resound beneath layers of swelling vocals, grief-stricken and tenderly sincere. In her song “Husk,” Hannah Frances explores the glacial vulnerability of death, expounding grief as an absent presence and a manifestation of immortalized love. For sorrow cannot exist without the chances taken by love, and death[Read More…]
MJ Lenderman ushers the spirit of Asheville into Montreal’s Théâtre Fairmount
Whirring guitars pierce through the night, sloshing through the cramped crowd of Théâtre Fairmount. The amps engulf the room in a communication of riffs, a call-and-response of rhythmic strums with the scalding guitar whistles and twang of the pedal steel. As the audience returns lyrical chants to the stage, shock[Read More…]
‘Hearing Things’ is a lighthouse for the future of music journalism
In January 2024, magazine conglomerate Condé Nast announced that it would be folding Pitchfork, a music coverage site, into Gentlemen’s Quarterly (GQ), resulting in mass layoffs for the site. This sparked outrage for fellow journalists and readers alike—along with concerns for the future stability of cultural journalism. On Oct. 15,[Read More…]
Montreal needs to plan around its cultural heritage
On Sept. 23, the Court of Appeal of Quebec ordered La Tulipe, a century-old concert hall in the heart of Montreal’s Plateau-Mont-Royal borough, to halt all shows due to a long-standing series of noise complaints from surrounding residents. While the Court’s original ruling from May 2023 stated that the theatre[Read More…]
Tokyo Police Club says a final “au revoir” to Montreal
On Jan. 23, Canadian indie rock band Tokyo Police Club (TPC) announced their farewell tour, and on Oct. 12, they played for the last time in Montreal, a city with strong ties to their beginnings as a band. The news of their breakup was met with overwhelming support from fans.[Read More…]