Music Archives - Queen's Journal

A brief history of album art

Written on February 4, 2022. Posted in Arts, Music.

There’s nothing quite like a great album cover. When done right, these images often become inseparable from the music they represent. However, as streaming has grown into the predominant way to consume music, ‘the album’ has become less important to artists and consumers. It’s worth wondering if...

The Gertrudes reform to release ‘Emergency To Emergency’

Written on November 19, 2021. Posted in Arts, Music.

The Gertrudes are set to release their album Emergency To Emergency on Nov. 26 via Wolfe Island Records. Guitar player and songwriter Greg Tilson spoke to The Journal about the band’s latest album. “[There’s] a lot of energy [and] big, big sound,” Tilson said. “[There’s] roots in folk, rock, and experimental...

Breaking free from a musical rut

Written on September 24, 2021. Posted in Lifestyle.

I have a bit of a rocky history with music. I tend to fall in love with a new song or album, listen to it ad nauseam for two months straight, become slightly irritated by it, avoid it for a month or so, miss it, then add it to some playlists. And I don’t think I’m the only one with this somewhat...

Kehlani has created space for fluid, authentic queerness in the R&B world

Written on June 28, 2021. Posted in Lifestyle, Pop Culture.

When I first heard Kehlani’s “Nights Like This,” I immediately noticed the subtle hints that she was singing about a woman. It was the bridge that piqued my interest, when Kehlani sings, “You gon’ get my hopes high, girl,” in the old school R&B voice I’ve been in love with forever. Though it may...

J. Cole is unapologetically confident on The Off-Season

Written on May 31, 2021. Posted in Lifestyle.

J. Cole’s new album, The Off-Season, is a proclamation of the rapper’s immense success and his desire to continue competing in the rap game. The album’s title accurately reflects its sound: an upbeat meditation on the rapper’s legacy and what’s to come. As Vulture eloquently states, the album is a...

Lil Nas X just stole Christianity’s biggest weapon: fear

Written on April 2, 2021. Posted in Lifestyle, Pop Culture.

For most of my life, I was terrified of going to hell. Having been raised in a conservative Christian household and attended private Christian schools, I became fixated on the idea of the afterlife. Leaving the church, and subsequently forfeiting any potential relocation to heaven, was a long and...

Is it time to say goodbye to the Grammys?

Written on March 19, 2021. Posted in Lifestyle, Pop Culture.

Like many events over the past year, the 2021 Grammy Awards looked very different—from COVID-19 restrictions to an increased appreciation for female artists, a lot had changed from years prior. Still, the Grammys weren’t different enough. This year’s Grammys was a celebration of many women in the...

Women in Music president discusses organization’s push beyond gender equity to other areas of diversity

Written on November 20, 2020. Posted in Arts.

According to its president, Nicole Barsalona, the Women in Music (WIM) organization encourages storytelling as a way to inspire younger musicians and show them what’s possible. “We hope to empower women in their roles to feel more comfortable and confident and give them that network,” she said in...

Tom Savage’s personal evolution through his musical career

Written on June 3, 2019. Posted in Arts, Music.

Tom Savage shows just what Kingston artists are made of at the 11th annual Homegrown Live Music Festival. On May 4, local bars, art galleries, and restaurants overflowed with patrons who came out to hear the musical stylings of Kingston’s homegrown talent. The festival attracted musicians and...

Thank You Letter: The Jonas Brothers reunion

Written on March 5, 2019. Posted in Columns.

Last Friday, The Jonas Brothers reunited after six years with the release of their upbeat bop, “Sucker.” Back in the mid-2000s, during the band’s prime, I would’ve scoffed at the thought of appreciating new music from the JoBros. Today, I’ll crank up the volume whenever their songs pop up on Spotify. When...

Journal staff’s eighth grade jams

Written on February 5, 2019. Posted in Columns.

Eighth grade is the peak of adolescence, marked by overwhelming amounts of uncontrolled hormones and coloured braces. While most of our lives now are wildly different compared to how they were in middle school, one element will always remain the same: the quality of your favourite early 2010s banger. Here...

The unsung genius of Missy Elliott

Written on January 18, 2019. Posted in Lifestyle, Pop Culture.

When you hear Missy Elliott’s music on a dance floor, you become flooded with nostalgia and go hard. There’s no half-hearted head-nodding along to a Missy Elliott song—you give your all when you dance to her music because you know she gave her all making it. It’s a shame then, after all the work she’s...

Breaking down the Super Bowl Halftime Show controversy

Written on January 18, 2019. Posted in Lifestyle, Pop Culture.

You don’t have to be a football fan to know ex-NFL player Colin Kaepernick. The quarterback-turned-activist famously took a knee during the National Anthem in 2016 in protest of racial inequality and police brutality in America. Since then, he’s been exiled from the league while standing at the centre...

Emo rap needs to end

Written on November 23, 2018. Posted in Lifestyle, Pop Culture.

The emo music genre of the early 2000s was defined by eyeliner-donning men stalking around a stage and lyrically releasing pent-up rage. Today, emo music dominates pop culture as emo rap: joylessly auto-tuned rap songs about numbing pain with drugs, and often sung by face-tattooed men with more criminal...

Re-thinking creative study breaks

Written on November 23, 2018. Posted in Lifestyle, Student Life.

My second language is music. As a student, it’s become the perfect destresser. When I was three, I was taking violin lessons, and soon after piano, voice and saxophone lessons. It wasn’t something I could just enjoy—it required practice, discipline, and patience—and I grew to resent the task-oriented...

A Star is Born is a musical masterpiece

Written on October 16, 2018. Posted in Lifestyle, Pop Culture.

With the massive successes of Hamilton and La La Land, the past few years have ushered in a new era of widely-beloved musicals. A Star is Born, starring Lady Gaga and first-time director Bradley Cooper, triumphantly added to this trend last week. The third remake of the 1937 original, Cooper’s adaptation...

Home is where the art is

Written on September 18, 2018. Posted in Arts, Music.

Creating an album is difficult—harder, still, when your recording studio’s a bed. Christian Parry, ArtSci ’19, makes it work. The fourth-year psychology student balances his classwork, thesis research, and budding music career all within the confines of his poster-clad bedroom. Parry squeezes his...

Remembering Mac Miller, a selfless rapper

Written on September 11, 2018. Posted in Lifestyle, Pop Culture.

On his song “Small Worlds,” the late Mac Miller summed up his most-prized possessions: “A little space and time.” Those words came from an artist whose entire catalogue debuted within the top five of the Billboard charts. The humble lyrics are even more impressive when you consider...

Marianas Trench storms Frosh mystery concert

Written on September 11, 2018. Posted in Arts, Music.

On Friday night, my childhood dreams came true—for the fourth time. The annual frosh mystery concert welcomed Vancouver band Marianas Trench on Sept. 7 to close off Orientation Week with a bang. For many, this was an exciting chance to see a band that played the soundtrack to their pre-teen lives....

Journal staff’s songs of the summer

Written on September 11, 2018. Posted in Columns.

Every summer, a song emerges to become inseparable from the season. While music charts may have already announced the best-selling song of the summer, staff at The Journal have picked out their own summer anthems. Here are the songs some of our staff listened to all summer long. “Magic in the...

Drake’s Scorpion boasts something for everyone

Written on July 30, 2018. Posted in Lifestyle.

Spiteful and romantic messages. Sweet and salty lyrics. Hard and soft beats. That’s the all-encompassing description of Drake’s newest album, Scorpion. Released on June 29, and divided into an ‘A side’ and a ‘B side,’ Drake’s double album consists of 25 tracks which cater to both the hyped-up, ‘Let’s...

I miss the old Kanye: free thought gone too far

Written on May 28, 2018. Posted in Lifestyle.

Earlier this spring, Kanye West rapped, “We ain’t made it off the plantation,” calling himself a ‘slave’ to fan expectations after professing admiration for right-wing causes. The rapper subsequently tweeted in late April, “the mob can’t make [him] not love” Donald Trump, a president known for institutionalizing...

Rap provides outlet for students on campus

Written on February 8, 2018. Posted in Features.

At Queen’s, the rap and hip-hop scene has created a platform for students to discuss their university experience, specifically from the perspective of racialized students. Rap music hit mainstream culture in the late 70s and has evolved from a genre based on simple and fun lyricism to appeal to a...

Don't dismiss new musical talent

Written on February 6, 2018. Posted in Editorials.

We need to stop putting music of the past on a pedestal. This is an ongoing debate I’ve had with my father since I was a little kid. He’s always argued that music and artists from his generation are superior to the ones heard on the radio today. Growing up with a music-obsessed parent meant I’d...

Justin Timberlake's halftime show tries to dance away his controversies

Written on February 6, 2018. Posted in Lifestyle.

It’s the day of Super Bowl 52, Justin Timberlake is preparing to take the stage as headliner of the halftime show and audiences around the world are still pretty tired of him. This week was a milestone in the “Not again, Justin Timberlake” movement. His latest album, Man of the Woods, opened to a...

How this month’s music releases show streaming’s effect on music

Written on November 16, 2017. Posted in Lifestyle.

Music streaming has forever changed the way we listen to our favourite artists. But has our collective flocking to services like Spotify or Apple Music changed the way music is made too? On Queen’s campus, you’d be hard-pressed to find a student still paying for music on iTunes. The new musical norm...

Talking Heads: Who are you listening to?

Written on November 3, 2017. Posted in Opinions.

“New Choppa — 21 Savage and Metro Boomin,” Chris Osei-Kusi, ArtSci ’19. “Music to Watch Boys to — Lana Del Rey,” Leanne Johnston, ArtSci ’18.

QPOP roars back to life

Written on October 24, 2017. Posted in Arts.

On Saturday night, you couldn’t walk around campus without coming across an indie rock band performance. Attracting respectable crowds as the festival entered its fourth year running. QPOP returned to Clark Hall, The Underground and the Grad Club this weekend with a collection of student and Canadian...

The Kingston guide to supporting your local record store

Written on October 4, 2017. Posted in Arts.

Against all odds, your vinyl record collection is having a second wind. Luckily, Kingston supports a small but solid community of physical music vendors to provide you with that warm crackle and pop reserved for vinyl recordings. Physical music creates the opportunity to reach out to your local...

Don't dismiss pop music just because it's mainstream

Written on October 3, 2017. Posted in Lifestyle.

Gone are the days when emotional pop songs from artists like Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men topped the charts AND received public acclaim. In today’s music landscape, if you want your music to be considered ‘good’, the typical advice is to avoid the pop genre at all...

Tag: Music

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