Point of Clarification

Given that I’ve been doing a lot of reading at home to entertain myself while cooped up due to the corona virus outbreak, it seemed only natural to highlight GoodReads this week.

My usage of GoodReads tends to ramp up whenever I feel positive about the amount of reading I’ve been doing or whenever I feel negative about the amount of reading I haven’t been doing. Right now, I’ve actually been putting a dent in my to-read list, so I’m using the mobile app and website to keep track of books to check out from the library once the DC libraries reopen in April (supposedly).

GoodReads, much like LetterBoxd, is primarily a site for personal information tracking. Users on GoodReads can leave reviews and ratings for books they’ve read, mark books that they’re interested in reading, participate in author Q&As and book giveaways, create curated lists of books, and set personal goals and challenges for themselves. In my estimation (and according to statistics), the average GoodReads user is someone who values reading but is overly ambitious about the amount they will actually read, most likely failing to meet their reading goals for the year. 

Much like Instagram and LetterBoxd, then, GoodReads seems to me like an aspirational social media platform. Users go to GoodReads because they want to feel well-read -- not because they necessarily are well-read. I feel just as accomplished logging a cheap murder mystery novel on GoodReads as I would logging Hamlet, because the end result (an increase in my number of books read for the year) is the same. 

Most GoodReads users seem to be dedicated to it - of the 80 million GoodReads users, 50 million visit monthly. GoodReads users are much more likely to be globally located, female, aged under 35, and ethnically Asian.

While reviews are generally straightforward book reviews, the editorial team at GoodReads also creates curated content in which they promote books for users, including a recent look at upcoming books for the spring. Much like how all of the content on LetterBoxd relates to movies, all of the content on GoodReads relates to books.

Brands cannot interact with GoodReads the way regular users interact with it (unless a brand is paying for a fake book review, which is highly possible). Brands interact with users on GoodReads in two ways: by offering book giveaways, which help brands to measure interest in the title by seeing how many users sign up, and by creating sponsored content for GoodReads.

This week, I continued to put off downloading and analyzing TikTok for fear of passing away due to secondhand embarrassment. There are simply only so many videos I can watch of teens performing dance challenges or sharing their One Direction conspiracy theories (yes, these are real TikTok videos that have been sent to me) before I have to throw my phone away. 

Instead, I delved into Letterboxd, my current favorite way to distract myself during a slow day at work. 

Letterboxd is, in essence, a social media site for people who take the film industry way too seriously. It’s entirely dedicated to watching, logging, and reviewing movies, with mechanisms in place to create curated lists, watchlists, and to track one’s own personal movie-watching statistics. As a type-A person, I love any opportunity to categorize and track something, so I use Letterboxd every single time I watch a movie (one to three times a week, approximately) as well as whenever I’m bored. I love to read reviews and find new movies to watch on Letterboxd. 

The user base on Letterboxd is unique from a site like Twitter in that 1) Letterboxd does not over verified accounts and 2) Letterboxd is more beneficial as a solitary activity than as a social activity. Few celebrities use it publicly - after all, a famous actor leaving a negative review may compromise their future career. Additionally, the most popular users still don’t have the reach or follower counts as their counterparts on Twitter or Instagram. The top five most popular users this week averaged between 30,000-50,000 followers. 

While Letterboxd does not publish data about the demographics of their users, there is some information available about its users’ movie preferences. For example, the highest-rated narrative film on Letterboxd right now is Parasite, indicating that its users embrace recent films and global films. However, its users also embrace mainstream popular films like The Empire Strikes Back and Lord of the Rings. Similarly, last year’s most rewatched movie was Avengers: Endgame.

Letterboxd also tracks movie popularity according to users’ gender pronouns - while “the ‘he/his’ list produced a top five almost identical to the overall list for the site,” “the ‘she/her’ list had no top-five matches with the overall list,” indicating that the user base is more male. The site also allows xe/ze pronoun options, indicating users who identify as nonbinary, genderqueer, or otherwise outside of the traditional gender binary. 

Users on the site are rather limited in their ability to post, which is part of what I like about Letterboxd. I don’t have to scroll through inane status updates, ugly graphics, or thinkpieces to get to interesting content. Users are only able to create lists of movies (their only visual medium - many users, including me, create lists sorted by poster color) or post text-only reviews of films. This, in my opinion, eliminates the options for users to create click-bait or share-bait content. The content that users create is intended to live in Letterboxd, not spread to other sites. 

I am planning on tackling TikTok in a later week of this course, so I decided to select a site that’s a bit more age-appropriate this week to balance it out: LinkedIn.

In my mind, LinkedIn has always been the leafy greens of social media: you consume it because you have to, not because you want to. I certainly wouldn’t go on LinkedIn for fun, unless perhaps I was trying to find out someone’s age via their high school graduation year or I am checking in to see what an ex-partner is doing now. 

This week, I received quite a few emails from LinkedIn encouraging me to engage with the site. Most notably, I received an email encouraging me to congratulate a high school classmate of mine I hadn’t spoken to in over a decade on starting a new position. It also encouraged me to download the LinkedIn app to “stay updated.” I wondered if this email communications method truly worked on anyone. Why do I need an app to stay updated on something as inconsequential as where my acquaintances are working? I know that I am connected with these people via LinkedIn, but it just seems like overkill.

I had to know: who is actually using LinkedIn frequently, and why?

My LinkedIn feed is a mix of the following three things: people being congratulated on their work anniversaries, new promotions, or a new positions; branded content; and some status updates. Someone I knew from college shared an article about recycling that she wrote for her job. Another classmate posted a question about women’s experience working in sales, and received a few dozen ‘likes’ and comments. 

All in all, the content on LinkedIn was dry and text-based. I barely saw any linked video content and no embedded videos. When images were used in posts, they supported the content instead of containing the meat of the content. The one usage of LinkedIn to share an image (posted below) as content felt extremely out of place, like it belonged on Instagram.

As I researched the demographics using LinkedIn, it was clear why the content on LinkedIn was so much drier to me. While I tend to spend my time on social networking sites that are popular among younger populations looking for entertainment, LinkedIn was the exact opposite. Of the 500 million LinkedIn users, only 87 million of them are millennials. Many of LinkedIn’s members are in high-level positions, and it is the most-used social media platform among Fortune 500 companies. 

I was, genuinely, floored when I read that almost half of LinkedIn users log on monthly. I do understand why users would visit LinkedIn looking to make professional connections, though, as 51% of US college graduates use LinkedIn. As someone who works in a white-collar industry, that would be very appealing if I’m trying to find a new hire for my team. 

While I am used to seeing brands use visuals (video especially), the only promoted content I saw was mostly textual. I received many advertisements for graduate programs, which I suspect is because I don’t have this program listed on my LinkedIn yet. Branded content usually received only a few dozen likes and a handful of comments. Apparently, how-to & list posts perform the best on LinkedIn and articles without video perform better than those with video.

This week, my focus was on YouTube.

I’m definitely a frequent consumer of YouTube and have been since I first learned of the site in eighth grade. However, in my opinion, there’s a big difference between clicking a link to a YouTube video cross-posted on another platform and going to YouTube without a specific video in mind to watch. Normally, I only go to YouTube if someone has shared a link with me. This week, I looked at how YouTube curated the homepage for me: my recommended feed, the feed of content created by users I subscribe to, how it sent me push notifications, etc.

I was particularly struck by two specific categories of content I found on YouTube: the reaction video and the apology video. YouTube has created a platform where users can monetize their own reactions to something; in essence, YouTube has made the act of watching something into something watchable for an audience. Users contribute to the cultural conversation around a topic (i.e. a new movie trailer dropping) by posting their reaction videos as soon as possible.

I was struck by how apology videos seem to be the norm for content creators who have been criticized for certain behaviors and actions, but most importantly I was surprised by how many creators posted apology videos for going on hiatus from posting videos. So many users cited the stress and the pressure to constantly innovate and create videos and said that they were experiencing burnout. They then apologized to their audience. 

I think that this kind of apology seems to be considered necessary on YouTube (as opposed to other social media sites -- I never see users on Twitter or Tumblr apologizing for posting less frequently) is that YouTube is in a class of its own for content sharing. Tumblr, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and Twitter all cover more or less the same fields: text and photo posts. But YouTube is by far the most popular, most ubiquitous name for video hosting (”Over 90% of 18-44 year old American internet users watch videos on YouTube”), so if a user isn’t creating videos for YouTube, it’s like they’re not creating videos at all. 

While brands certainly use YouTube, I have noticed that they use it less to create their own content and more to collaborate with and sponsor other YouTubers. I believe that this is because YouTubers are, essentially, their own brands. Each YouTuber is their own channel and their own publishing platform, so brands that sponsor YouTubers get access to that user’s entire audience. Additionally, I noticed many users had monetized their content by creating merchandise. For example, cooking YouTuber Binging with Babish created his own cookbook:

This week, I dipped into an app that I typically only visit when I’ve already refreshed Twitter and Facebook half a dozen times: Instagram.

I’m obsessive about content consumption, but I only really started spending a large amount of time on Instagram in the wake of the 2016 election. When scrolling through my Facebook and Twitter feeds meant being constantly reminded of America’s political turmoil, Instagram was the only safe space left where I could enjoy content in peace. It was escapism distilled into aesthetically-pleased layouts and video compilations branded as “oddly satisfying” - see the bottom of this post for an example.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Satisfying Videos (@satisfying.video) on Jul 20, 2016 at 8:38am PDT

While all social media platforms seem to reward creative theft and plagiarism in their own ways (the same copy-pasted tweets go viral every month or so), Instagram is unique in that content reposting seems to be not only commonplace but encouraged. Massive communities build up on Instagram dedicated to different topics: cooking, cute animals, memes, playing with slime, and ASMR were all popular ones I witnessed. But on my Discover page, the main drivers of content were all accounts that aggregated and reposted other accounts’ content to thousands if not millions of followers. I never saw these accounts receive any criticism for this practice. My guess is that these accounts are tolerated because users are just happy to receive the visual content they want and smaller accounts are grateful for the exposure provided by being featured on larger accounts.

When you have over 1 billion users  on your app, there’s probably going to be pretty much every community, interest, and demographic represented to some extent. However, I mostly noticed how young all of the Instagram users were, even those who had monetized their Instagram accounts and turned them into brands. The statistic in the above link that 70% of Instagram users were under 35 honestly seemed low to me.

Instagram is not a text- or link-friendly app. Many users can only link one thing on their account at a time in their bio and they cannot provide hyperlinks in post descriptions. However, Instagram has recently rolled out new features that allowed me to interact with a brand’s post and be redirected to the brand’s website to buy the product featured. This, to me, symbolizes Instagram’s clear willingness to delve further into the realm of e-commerce.

It is, however, so visually stimulating that it is overwhelming at times. Users post stories (which are available for 24 hours) as well as permanent video and photo posts. When clicking through my friends’ stories, I would get ad stories from brands targeted to me. The ad stories would be tuned to my visual aesthetic and were often in line with the types of posts I like to see. I tend to seek out colorful, cheerful Instagram pages, and my ads are similarly themed. In fact, in my experience, Instagram ads are far more accurate in showing me products that appeal to me than any other social media app. Often, like below, ads look just like content posted by my friends.

This week, I selected the social media app Snapchat for my area of focus.

While I used Snapchat on occasion to communicate with my friends in college, I never used it as a platform for media consumption. I was vaguely aware that brands used Snapchat as a content publishing platform, but had never watched or interacted with their videos. 

I was not surprised by the demographics of Snapchat’s usership. The majority of Americans age 18-24 “used Snapchat in 2018.” I was, however, surprised to see that teens considered Snapchat to be their favorite social platform - I had assumed that Instagram, with its features that ape Snapchat’s, had surpassed Snapchat in popularity. 

Shockingly, the average Snapchat user spends 30 minutes a day on the app. That’s plenty of time for users to be consuming and interacting with branded content.  Snapchat is known for its filters feature, which alters videos and pictures taken. Most popularly, the filters alter the face of the person using Snapchat. Users can then send these altered selfies to their friends. In fact, the majority of images sent via Snapchat by college students are selfies - 50% of college males and 70% of college females polled said they send selfies using Snapchat more than half the time they use the app.

This past Sunday, I had the fortune to attend the first-ever DC Music Summit sponsored by Accelerate with Google. The event brought musicians, writers, producers, and managers to a rapidly-gentrifying area in Southeast DC for a full day of performances, discussions, and panels.

I attended as part of my work with TheFirstinline, a website dedicated to sharing fan stories. While everyone in attendance at the summit worked in or adjacent to the music industry, it was clear that they were also massive fans of live, local music.

The highlight of the summit was a panel entitled “The Music Industry from A-Z.” The presenters were all players in the local music scene: Chris Richards, pop music critic for the Washington Post; Rich Shelton, a songwriter/producer for artists including Mya, Keyshia Cole, and Amerie;Casey Rae, CEO of the Future of Music Coalition; and Alexis Kimbrough, CEO/founder of the Growth Group. Chris Naoum, the founder of Listen Local First, moderated. Throughout the panel, the presenters provided key lessons and opinions on how to grow a local music scene and how to make it as a national act.

Collaboration

When asked about what needs fixing in the DC music scene, most of the panelists claimed the lack of collaboration. Alexis Kimbrough applauded the fact that “DC is a huge melting pot, you got music from all over the place, all different countries,” but said that “we all need to start collaborating more … music needs to go across genres.” Rich Shelton seconded her call for collaboration, citing the fact that many local pop artists had no knowledge of the hip-hop scene and vice versa.

This need for collaboration is especially salient given the fact that DC “offers the freedom for artists to make music that’s exclusive for themselves,” said Chris Richards. Because Washington isn’t a major music center in the vein of New York, Los Angeles, Nashville, or Atlanta, there is less of a need to conform to industry standards.

Casey Ray, whose organization was founded “to demonstrate that musicians have a voice in federal policy,” called for collaboration between creatives and policymakers. Integrating creative voices into cultural policy conversations is necessary because often policymakers are, as he put it, “so focused on federal policy that sometimes it’s easy to lose contact with the local communities that you’re advocating for.”

One ray of hope: Kimbrough cited local organization We Are the 9, which unites nine local songwriters covering a wide range in genre and perspective for a night of musical collaboration. Called “one night of nine different points of view,” the series aims to bring together fans of all different genres to expose them to new music scenes.

Gentrification

Ray’s emphasis on supporting local communities rings especially true in DC, ranked by Huffington Post as the fifth most expensive city in the United States. Richards lamented the fact that Washington is too expensive for most musicians to live and rent studio space in.

A glance outside the window confirmed his statement: we were in the middle of DC’s warehouse district, full of shuttered storefronts promising discount and wholesale goods. But in the distance, I could spot the gleaming lights of Union Market, a newly developed Instagrammer’s paradise catering to the young, white, and wealthy in search of a new brunch spot.

Even more bitter was the reminder that Mousai House, the host for the summit and self-proclaimed “Haven for Underground Artistry,” was soon to be demolished. Mousai, which provides affordable recording studios, community music lessons, and local jams, will soon become a “high-end, boutique hotel,” in spite of protests by local musicians.

The tour booking industry has been gentrified as well by huge companies like Live Nation. Richards bemoaned the fact that local acts no longer open for national touring acts due to the consolidation of the music industry and priority given to companies with national clout. He called on the audience to vote with their dollars and show venues that local groups have the potential to draw crowds.

Changing Industry Standards

Many of the presenters had worked within the industry for over a decade, and had witnessed the huge role the internet has played in changing the music industry. Rae emphasized the necessity of registering music for streaming royalties, just in case “your song got placed on like Grey’s Anatomy, or whatever the hell people watch these days.” Versatility is key: “today, revenue doesn’t just come from one area” — exposure can come from YouTube, Spotify, radio, or even a tweet.

The measure for success has been completely scrambled by the rise of the internet. All of the YouTube views in the world don’t necessarily indicate a meaningful connection with a loyal audience. Richard noted that artists often think that digital exposure is the be-all and end-all of success: “people think they can just sit back and push a button” and the song will magically find its way into earbuds everywhere. Rae asked, “does something exist if it’s just a digital potentiality on a server somewhere?”

Richards noted that the role of music criticism has been massively diminished by the internet. He provided a few tips for submitting music for review in a periodical: “say something juicy about what makes your music different from anyone else. Don’t compare yourself to other artists. Don’t say ‘my music is like a combination of Frank Ocean and the Allman Brothers,’ although I’d loveto listen to that.”

Kimbrough cautioned against artists pushing their CDs on unsuspecting passersby, since CD drives are no longer a necessary inclusion in cars and laptops. Instead, she recommended that artists make an actual connection with potential audiences and get to know what they listen to.

Finally, the panelists presented us with some final tips. Richards encouraged musicians who also do daytime work to find the most brainless, easiest job they could in order to save their mental resources for their creative projects.

And Kimbrough, the business manager? She just wants her clients to pay their taxes. It’s a lot harder to produce music from jail.

Here we are - my top five albums of 2015. Before we begin, I’d like to give a quick kudos to the artists whose albums almost made it: The Weeknd, Little Mix, Grimes, Allie X, and Fall Out Boy. Sorry, guys. You really brought your A-game, but you won’t be achieving music’s greatest honor (rotation into my shower playlist) this year. 

5. Melanie Martinez - Cry-Baby

With a whisper and a giggle, Melanie Martinez creates a jarring and campy confection in which she plays the fictional “Cry-Baby,” navigating a grim world with childlike innocence. Cry-Baby is a dark and often ridiculous concept album that rigidly sticks to its theme of childhood: “Mr. Potato Head” is a stand-in for plastic surgery, a “Sippy Cup” can hold codeine, and “Play Date” refers to activities of a far more adult nature. Her aching, wispy delivery matches her subject matter perfectly. Cry-Baby combines trap production with sticky-sweet imagery to create a hypnotic and harsh pop confection.

4. Kacey Musgraves - Pageant Material

I am the least qualified of anyone to determine what constitutes authentic country music. That being said, Musgraves infuses her lyrics with a specificity and a cheekiness that are impossible to counterfeit. While she’s often lauded for covering topics foreign to country music like smoking pot and sexism (the fantastic and sly “Pageant Material” touches on both), she’s not an outsider by any means. “You can take me out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of me,” she sings in the sweet, sparse “Dime Store Cowgirl.” Musgraves writes with a universal ‘we’ that’s welcoming and charming, inviting the listener to take a second look at rural upbringings and annoying family members.There’s a gentleness and a swing to her loping lyrics and guitar twangs, which makes her hokey platitudes and small-town enthusiasm seem reassuring and necessary in a music market oversaturated with beer-chuggin’, truck-ridin’ bro-country.

3. Jason Derulo - Everything Is 4

Everything Is 4 is Derulo’s strongest album yet, a slick compilation of club-ready bangers that showcases his chameleonic ability to ape and improve upon pop’s latest infatuations. He gleefully dabbles in tropical house (“Try Me” with Jennifer Lopez and DJ-of-the-moment Matoma), layers background vocals and funk guitar into “Love Me Down,” and blends gospel and country on “Broke.” Derulo is too ambitious to waste any time - the synths must be slinkier, the breakdowns more climactic, the booties more engaged. In his quest to create the Ultimate Jam, Derulo has continued the work he did with “Talk Dirty” and “Wiggle” and nearly eliminated the pop chorus as we know it, paring it down to only electronic squeals, repetitive bass lines, and the requisite DJ Mustard “hey” chants. Standouts include “Pull-Up,” a skittering trap vehicle for Derulo to show off his falsetto and make puns about automotive sex, and “Get Ugly,” which opens with the earnestly delivered lyric “Oh my oh my oh my god / this girl straight and this girl not.” Listening to this album all at once feels like listening to all of the top 40 hits of the past year compressed down into a tight, pulsating package with a sex-positive attitude and a heart of gold.

2. HOLYCHILD - The Shape of Brat Pop to Come

Blistering and gaudy, The Shape of Brat Pop... is meant to be blasted at full volume with a champagne glass clutched tightly in a chipped-manicure hand. HOLYCHILD duo Liz Nistico and Louie Diller insist that their album and Brat Pop (their self-created album) in general are about rebellion, equality, and finding some sort of universal truth - but not if that means sacrificing fun. “Money All Around” offers a criticism of capitalism and media expectations, but it’s delivered in a cascade of looped hiccupping vocals and room-shaking bass. “Dye your hair! Tan your skin! Liposuctions really in!” Nistico screams in her best Valley Girl whine on “Nasty Girls,” the album’s most obvious vehicle for feminist themes. HOLYCHILD may sound like a pack of cheerleaders let loose with some 808 drums, but they stick to their message without compromising their sound, and what could be more punk than that?

1. Carly Rae Jepsen - E•MO•TION

In the year of our Lorde 2015, Carly Slay Jepsen blessed us with a true 1980s masterpiece. Jepsen provides aching, delicate pop vocals which lend a perfect note of earnestness to prom night ballads “All That” and “Your Type.” “Boy Problems” transforms a typical pop topic - ugh, boys! - into a question of honesty and support within a female friendship. All of this pales in comparison to the album opener and its powerhouse of a chorus. When Jepsen commands you to ‘take her to the feeling,’ nothing matters anymore. Her unfair lack of Grammy nominations doesn’t matter, your bills don’t matter, nothing matters - as long as Carly’s harmonizing with her own sax line on “Run Away with Me,” you’re free and everything is pure. Reader, I really really really really really really like her.

The beginning of a new year is upon us, and with it the promise that someone out there cares about my opinions on pop culture as long as I rank them in a list format. To compile this list, I considered every album released in 2015 that I had listened to in full, which unfortunately wasn’t as many as I would have liked. Instead of consuming full albums, I usually just cherry-pick a few singles to listen to and ignore the rest. As a millennial, I just don’t have the time to listen to fifteen songs when I could be sexting, Snapchatting, or composing emoji-filled conspiracy theories (JET ✈️ FUEL ⛽ CAN’T 🙅 MELT 🔥 STEEL 🏢 BEAMS 😨).

You may notice that some of the albums on this list are actually EPs, and correspondingly have shorter reviews. I saw fit to rank EPs over full-length albums because albums often suffer from poor editing. Sometimes that fourth or fifth version of the same song with the same yawny vocals just isn’t necessary, Lana Del Rey. I prefer an EP with five fantastic tracks to an album with ten fantastic tracks and five clunkers.

Here’s numbers 6-10, and keep an eye out  (or don’t) for the top 5 in a week or so. 

10. Fifth Harmony - Reflection

Reflection is what tween girls have deserved since the beginning of time, and it’s a damn shame that they never got an album like this until 2015. I’ve previously written about Fifth Harmony’s emphasis on financial independence and self-confidence in their single “BO$$,” and Reflection offers more of the same pop-feminist jams. On the title track, they croon “Ooh where you from? Must be heaven / You’d be rich if looking good was your profession / Think I’m in love ‘cuz you so sexy / Boy I ain’t talking about you, I’m talking to my own reflection.” Subtlety is not 5H’s strong suit, but it’s not needed when they’re making lyrical references to Lil’ Terio and Instagram filters. Vocally, none of them stand out from each other, but they provide soulful R&B harmonies and sassy clap-backs in equal measure. Destiny’s Child is a clear influence: “Brave Honest Beautiful” opens with a “Bootylicious”-inspired roll call, and they dedicate an entire song to Mariah Carey. 5H seem to be singing from an ivory tower high in Girl Land, where you’re always Worth It, anyone can whine like Rihanna if they believe in themselves, and every selfie gets at least 100 likes.

9. SOPHIE - Product

Anonymous music producer SOPHIE doesn’t make pop so much as he carves up pop like Swiss cheese, leaving holes everywhere: the vocalizations are minimal and the lyrics are repeated into oblivion. SOPHIE uses only synthetic instruments: no drum, no guitars, just bass and electronic squeals and slurps. Just like this is barely pop, Product is barely an album: at eight tracks, it’s just long enough to be entrancing and short enough to be unsettling. Each track sounds like only half of a song. SOPHIE abandons traditional song components like bridges and verses and offers instead flanging and disarming syncopation. This is a cobbled-together pop monster, and the transition from “Bipp” with its disco vocals and sunny synth to the deep bass and echoing, ominous rattles of “Elle” feels like descending into a techno swamp. SOPHIE clearly enjoys playing with societal roles and expectations: he’s a male producer calling himself SOPHIE, playing with hyper-feminine vocals, and selling his album packaged as a dildo-like ‘silicone product.’ Product is, indeed, a product of commercialism, and “Lemonade” has been featured in a McDonald’s advertisement for that very product. The brightness of his music is always superficial and hollow underneath: “Lemonade” unnervingly turns into a hyper, K-pop-esque song underscored with dissonant, terrifying bass. The biggest surprise on the album is its closer, “Just Like We Never Said Goodbye,” which is undoubtedly the most traditional track and could easily be a deluxe track from Carly Rae Jepsen’s E•MO•TION. Both stripped-down and hyper-produced, the track ends before its final chorus, leaving the album in hollow silence.

8. Imad Royal - Cycles (EP)

Imad Royal’s twitter bio reads “I sing, I write, I make beats. Minimalist.” and his debut EP is a testament to the DC-based performer’s versatility. His collection of five songs is soaring and atmospheric, incorporating sounds as diverse as chains rattling, thunder, and pan flutes. Methodically, he wraps layer upon layer of bass, drum, and vocals until the drop feels achingly inevitable and yet completely unexpected.  

7. Halsey - Badlands

The Badlands, a dystopian futuristic landscape, serve as a metaphor for Halsey’s mental state while composing her synthpop/R&B debut album. Comparisons to Lana Del Rey and Lorde are frequently and aptly made, but Halsey sings from a nastier, darker place. Murky, muted guitars fuse with trip-hop beats to form songs that feel like a smoky exhale and punch straight to the gut. When her voice isn’t slipping too close to Indie Girl Voice territory (and it happens more often than it should), Halsey emotes everything from mournful melancholy to spitfire rebelliousness. Halsey is most compelling when she is her own subject - she wastes one too many songs lamenting over sad boys in tight jeans. She positions herself as the subject of her own mythology, an almost supernatural being outside of human control - “I’m a wanderess, I’m a one night stand / Don’t belong to no city, don’t belong to no man / I’m the violence in the pouring rain / I’m a hurricane,” she sighs in “Hurricane.” Backing herself with a hymnal chorus on “Castle,” she declares “I’m headed straight for the castle / They wanna make me their queen / And there’s an old man sitting on the throne / And he’s saying that I probably shouldn’t be so mean,” cementing her status as a pop revolutionary.

6. Frankie - Dreamstate (EP)

“No I don’t wanna be your best friend, just let me be your new obsession,” coos Frankie simultaneously to an imaginary paramour and to listeners worldwide. She sings with a wide-eyed poptimism and winking cheekiness that make her self-referential requests for fame on “New Obsession” and money on “Gold” seem totally ironic, you guys, don’t even worry about it.

If I didn't know better, I'd swear that "Drop That Kitty," the new single from the unlikely trio of Ty Dolla $ign, Tinashe, and Charli XCX, was recently unearthed from a time capsule from 2005. All of the elements are there: references to a video phone (so, like... a phone), the line "shake it like a saltshaker/she goin' hard like a jawbreaker," and Ty's long drawn-out "uh oh"s that sound like a Black Eyed Peas chorus. 

The fact that it's a throwback doesn't mean it's a bad song, though. Ty Dolla $ign's verses are a fun combination of sexy and playful, and the first verse is an impressive stream-of-consciousness monologue about a girl shakin' it. Tinashe's pleased, confident purr is a great counterpoint to Charli XCX's drill-sergeant chanting. Also, the song is technically G-rated, even though the 'kitty' metaphor gets old quickly. In theory, you could play this song for a ten year old, although they would probably wonder why Ty's "playin' with that kitty/it ain't got fur."

SB967, a bill passed in California a month ago that defines consent in terms of the presence of a ‘yes’ instead of the lack of a ‘no,’ has now been signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown.

This is a welcome change from the typical standard that “no means no.” Yes, of course, no DOES mean no, but this kind of thinking ignores the unfortunate facts that people are pressured into sex every day and that people can be too intoxicated to coherently express their concerns.

As opposed to “no means no,” SB967 requires "an affirmative, conscious and voluntary agreement to engage in sexual activity," and though nonverbal consent is recognized as valid, “silence or lack of resistance does not constitute consent,” and “someone who is drunk, drugged, unconscious or asleep cannot grant consent.”

As a college student involved in the fight against rape and sexual assault on campus, this is huge. In far too many cases (and even one case is too many), the victim’s level of consent will be questioned or ignored.  On Washington University’s campus, hundreds of students engage in sexual encounters where one or more participants is under the influence of alcohol, according to the 2013 Studlife Sex Survey. With alcohol consumption and sexual activity so frequently linked, legal safeguards are necessary to keep sex safe and consensual.

SB967 also “requires training for faculty reviewing complaints so that victims are not asked inappropriate questions when filing complaints,” as well as “access to counseling, health care services and other resources.” It’s fantastic that the bill goes beyond simply establishing legal consequences for rapists - it also provides care for survivors and acknowledges that they have needs beyond legal repercussions for their attackers.

If you're mourning the fact that you're finally sick of Clean Bandit's "Rather Be" and Chromeo's "Jealous" isn't cutting it anymore, give Robin Schulz's remix of "Prayer in C" a listen. 

Equal parts pulsingly hypnotic and charmingly folksy, the song merrily bumbles its way into your brain and refuses. to. leave. Nili Hadida's vocals have a rough, quivering timbre to them which anchors the track from slipping into completely soulless rhythms. 

Fifth Harmony’s star could not be bigger right now. The teen pop group, formed on the 2012 season of The X Factor, has had a string of recent successes that have catapulted them into school-stationery-level pop stardom. During just a few short months, Fifth Harmony has embarked on three US tours, opening for Austin Mahone and Demi Lovato and selling out their own headlining tour.

In fact, Fifth Harmony is the biggest girl group in America right now, but if you’re over the age of 18, you probably haven’t heard of them. They won the coveted Artist to Watch award at the MTV Video Music Awards over the predicted winner, the punk-rock group with boyband appeal 5 Seconds of Summer. In an awards category notable for its appeal to tween & teen girls (past winners include One Direction and Justin Bieber), Fifth Harmony is the first female winner since Lady Gaga in 2009 (pre-meat-dress).

With the recent media attention, it’s only natural that Fifth Harmony would want to capitalize on their win. Their newest single “BO$$” is a catchy, overproduced, danceable banger … with lyrics like “working for the money 'cause that's what my mama taught me / So your ass better show me some respect” and “boy, I think you know who run this house.”

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The lyrics call for economic achievement, praising self-confidence and loyalty. The girls “ain’t thirstin’ for no bae” - they’re too busy making “Oprah dollars.” And childish as the lyrics are, they’re a great introduction to  the feminist message of the importance of financial stability without dragging bell hooks or Judith Butler into the mix.

If you don’t think that economic independence for women is relevant anymore, then you haven’t been paying attention. In 2012, female full-time workers made 77 cents compared to a similarly employed man’s dollar. But that (already depressing) number dwarfs the amount women of color make. Compared to white men (who make up 90% of Fortune 500 CEOs, the real BO$$es of America), Hispanic earn 59.8 cents to the dollar and black women earn 69.6 cents. All of the members of Fifth Harmony are women of color; name-dropping Michelle Obama and Oprah as ladies making paper shows little girls that their role models don’t have to be limited to pop divas.

And speaking of divas, 5H absolutely dominate every scene of the music video, from defeating a bunch of rowdy young men in an arm wrestling competition to marching in formation for an American flag.

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In crop tops, tight skirts, and fitted pants, their muscles are on display, and they dance with power instead of modesty. Because the internet will be the internet, the “BO$$” video on YouTube was deluged in comments telling the girls to cover up, that they were sluts, rabble rabble rabble. Member Lauren Jauregui responded to critical commenters asking whether their parents approved, saying “they thought that we looked great and were very supportive of us feeling confident. I think that was the main thing about the video, to show confidence. What we were wearing wasn't the main focus at all. We didn't even think about it to be honest, it became a whole thing after. It was more about getting across the message of the song, which was to be empowered and be comfortable with yourself.”

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And the girls are empowered, from turning their cameras back at the paparazzi (I’d be lying if I said I didn’t scream “male gaze!” when I saw it) to posing as Rosie the Riveter for their instagram page - a page with almost 700k followers, most of whom are young girls. I’m not calling Fifth Harmony the musical version of Audre Lorde. I’m just saying they’re Maybachs, and misogyny’s a Volvo.

Chances are, it wasn’t your alarm that woke you up this morning. Instead, it was almost certainly the screams of millions of young fans who logged onto Twitter and saw that One Direction had announced a new free song “Fireproof” and the release date, as well as the title and cover art, of their next album Four. All this before 6 am on a day reserved as a break from touring.

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“Fireproof” is great, better than its free price tag implies, and it flows with mellow breeziness that contradicts the frenzied fan response it received. I’d say it’s meant to remind fans of The Beach Boys, if I believed there were any 1D fans who listened to them. It’s too chill to be a single, but since the band tweeted “Anyone get the feeling this is going to be a big week?” I have a feeling that that announcement is coming soon as well.

  But while “Fireproof” lacks the power chords of previous singles “Live While We’re Young” and “Best Song Ever,” it’s still undeniably catchy and supported by a relentless drumbeat. The lyrical progression of the song is a work of art. Yes, they’re still singing to an unnamed, generic love interest (see: their entire discography), but the lyrics tell a story that’s more complicated than that. The opening lyrics of “I think I’m gonna lose my mind … I roll ‘til I’m out of luck” transform after the chorus to “I think I’m gonna win this time … I roll ‘til I change my luck,” showing with just a small shift in vocabulary the indestructibility of their love. It’s also incredibly refreshing to finally be able to hear the differentiations on each of the boys’ solos, with Zayn and Liam sliding through the bridge like it’s an R&B song and Louis serving up what might be his best solo to date. The entire song is underscored with gorgeous, subtle harmonies that provide a constant reminder that we’re years away from the autotuned, indistinguishable cheese that was their first album.

  And while we’re on the subject of album maturity: this is the most obvious rebranding attempt since Britney lost her clothes for Rolling Stone. A band that has three perfumes and a line of school stationery doesn’t release a song for free unless it wants to attract new listeners. Instead of continuing the the gently cheeky narrative of the first three albums (Up All Night, Take Me Home, Midnight Memories - tee hee, these boys have heard of sex!) the title Four reinforces their more mature, stripped-down image and reminds fans that, hey, these boys have made a lot of music and they probably know what they’re doing by now.

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