Music

Billy Bragg still inspires hope through his music

By Basil Hand | October 22

British singer and songwriter, Billy Bragg, decided to celebrate his 40 years of music with a year-long tour, only recently hitting the United States. Calling it the Roaring 40s tour, Bragg made his Boston (or Medford) stop at the Chevalier Theatre. My guest for the evening was my father, from St. Louis, Mo., who has attended previous Bragg concerts.

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Viewpoint

The soft power of female pop

By Theodorus Ng | September 27

Lest we forget the distinctive lime green shade and low-res, Arial-font words plastered across everyone’s social media feeds this summer, Charli XCX released her sixth studio album, “Brat” in June to resounding acclaim and commercial success. It instantly canonized “brat summer” as an epoch in the pop bible, making her just one of the many female artists who have made a mark in 2024’s pop culture. 

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Columns

GC in DC: Tales from the Swamp: Prime-time entertainment in the heart of the city

By Guillem Colom | April 12

Summer is fast approaching, and Washington, D.C. is ramping up for performances in the arts! One of the most surprising facts I’ve learned about the city is the large extent to which it serves as a critical cultural hub for entertainment. Internationally recognized artists, hailing from different genres like hip-hop, shoegaze and hyperpop, perform in D.C. on most weekends, energizing the city with the thousands of people attending these events.

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Music

BSO’s spring program welcomes the next generation of classical musicianship

By Erin Zhu | February 14

American violinist Randall Goosby made his debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra on the Symphony Hall stage on Feb. 2, the first of two performances.

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Music

What’s the deal with deluxe albums?

By Natalie Bricker | December 5

Artist and actress Reneé Rapp released a deluxe version of her “Snow Angel” (2023) album on Nov. 17. The deluxe album has three new songs — “Messy,” “I Do” and “Swim” — as well as a new version of a classic: “Tummy Hurts” (feat. Coco Jones) - Remix.” Rapp is just one of many artists who have released deluxe versions of their albums, which raises the question: What’s the deal with deluxe albums, anyway? In other words, why do artists release them, and what do listeners get out of them?

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Music

Weekender: Beth Bahia Cohen wants us to understand traditional music, each other

By Abbie Klein | November 9

Beth Bahia Cohen, a local musician, faculty member in the Tufts music department and assistant professor at Berklee College, has dedicated her life to the learning and teaching of violin styles across the world. On top of these goals, Cohen teaches violin traditions of the world in private lessons to students at Tufts. The Daily sat down with her on Oct. 22 to learn her story.

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Music

Abraham Alexander talks vulnerability in music ahead of his Saturday show

By Matthew Winkler | November 9

Soul folk artist Abraham Alexander will be performing in Boston in the Red Room at Cafe 939 on Saturday. His tour kicked off on Oct. 15 in support of his debut album “SEA/SONS” (2023), which released on April 14 to critical acclaim and reflects back on his life experiences that led him to today.

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Viewpoint

The best nap room is a concert hall

By Lucas Chua | November 9

I was lucky that my mom was a big opponent of attending the Hong Kong Philharmonic’s weekly concert with my dad. His job as a musicologist at the University of Hong Kong got him two free tickets to every concert, and I had the honor of filling the second seat — or more frequently dozing in it. 

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Viewpoint

‘I Won’t Back Down’: A brief history of American campaign music

By Nate Hall | November 7

“9 to 5” (1980). “High Hopes” (2018). “Y.M.C.A.” (1978). What do these songs have in common?They’ve all been used as campaign songs in recent U.S. presidential races. While the music a candidate chooses to play as they walk onstage for a campaign event may seem like a trivial detail, it can play a major role in defining the tone of their campaign.

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Music

The wonderful story of Roland Pearsall: Profile of a Bostonian street performer

By Jake Ren | November 3

On a rainless weekend morning above 40 degrees, you can usually find Roland Pearsall lugging a cart with cords and amplifiers in one hand and a guitar case in another. He’d be on his way to Harvard or Davis Square, about to sing his heart out for the next several hours with the voice of someone who had grown up singing on grassy plains.

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University

Music department concert showcases innovative compositions featuring cactus, ladle, bike pump

By Arvind Pillai | October 27

The Department of Music at Tufts presented an installment of its “Tufts Composers” series in the Distler Performance Hall on Oct. 19. Titled “Might as Well, Now That We’re Back,” the variety concert was curated by Professor of Music John McDonald and featured pieces by McDonald, guest composer Julia Werntz, faculty guest composer Stephan Pennington, faculty composer and alumnus Sid Richardson, alumni Jason Coleman and Yasaman Ghodsi and eight current students.

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Music

Expect a captivating performance from Sun Salon on Friday

By Abbie Klein | October 27

The local collective Sun Salon will be playing at the Fisher Performance Hall in the Granoff Music Center on Friday at 9 p.m. Sun Salon performs and records a unique combination of rapped poems accompanied by improvised jazz, and they’ve just released their first album, “Deep Space” (2023). On Oct. 17, the Daily spoke with Abraham “Abe” Brownell, the coordinator of the collective. In addition to organizing the group, Abe writes and performs poetry and plays lap steel guitar and mandolin. He also works at Tufts as the staff assistant in the Granoff main office.

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Music

Próxima Parada’s Nick Larson opens up ahead of Wednesday’s show

By Matthew Winkler | October 16

One of the “next stops” of Próxima Parada will be at Brighton Music Hall in Boston this coming Wednesday. The band, based in San Luis Obispo, Calif., had a boost in success after their 2019 song “Musta Been a Ghost” went viral on TikTok in December of 2022. The band, whose name means “next stop” in Spanish and Portuguese, delights in bringing their uplifting and groovy vibes all over the country.

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Music

Ellie Goulding's ‘Higher Than Heaven’ may be her ‘least personal,’ but it still holds up

By Jack Clohisy | April 19

Ellie Goulding’s fifth studio album “Higher Than Heaven” (2023) was released on April 7, and she described it as her “least personal” album to date — a bold claim for the artist. Her first album in nearly three years, Goulding came back swinging with this upbeat electronic body of work. Featuring 11 standard tracks and five more on the bonus edition, “Higher Than Heaven” is swift, roughly 52 minutes of ecstasy, longing and ethereality.

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Music

10 years of ‘The Way’: Ariana Grande’s career a decade later

By Jack Clohisy | March 28

Ten years ago, the budding Nickelodeon-actress-turned-pop-star was taking the first steps toward a lucrative music career. Ariana Grande released her first lead single “The Way” featuring Mac Miller on March 25, 2013, off her debut album “Yours Truly” (2013). The single debuted within the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100, securing Grande her first career entry. Grande has since continued her streak, becoming the only artist to debut the lead single off her first six studio albums in the top 10. The only music to precede “The Way?” A standalone single titled “Put Your Hearts Up” that Grande jokingly has tried to bury in the past. In an interview with MTV, Grande said, “I still have nightmares about it, and I made them hide it [the music video] on my Vevo page.”

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Music

Why Beyoncé deserved the Grammy, part 2

By Jack Clohisy | February 15

Nearly three years ago, the Daily published an op-ed detailing the racism within the music industry and how it robbed Beyoncé of winning Album of the Year at the Grammys in 2017. Flash forward to this year’s ceremony and here we are again. While Beyoncé set historic records at this year’s ceremony, she was snubbed of the night’s biggest honors once again.

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Music

Boygenius makes their triumphant return

By Henry Chandonnet | January 30

Nearly five years after its seismic self-titled EP, boygenius has returned for its indie pop crown. Made up of Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus, the trio was known for their rock-infused melodies and biting lyricism. Those words stung in their beauty and sincerity. Take one of their leading hits from 2018, “Me & My Dog,” in which the girl group croons, “I wanna be emaciated / I wanna hear one song without thinking of you / I wish I was on a spaceship / Just me and my dog and an impossible view.” With that sonic poetry under their belt, one would expect a grand return to the industry. And, if its three-song preview tells us anything, it’s that boygenius is coming back with a bang. 

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