Is this one of the tightest RSEQ regular season hockey races in recent memory?
“Absolutely,” Head Coach Peter Smith said after McGill’s hard fought 1-2-shootout loss to Montreal on Sunday in McConnell Arena.
The first place Montreal Carabins (8-3-1) are only two points ahead of the third place McGill Martlets (7-3-1)—the two teams are separated by the Ottawa Gee Gee’s (8-4-0).
In a gritty, low-scoring performance, McGill outshot Montreal 38-33, and converted on one of their three power plays. Montreal opened the scoring in the first period, with McGill sophomore forward Marie Philip-Lavoie retaliating with a score seven minutes into the second period.
“I think it’s two real good teams and I think the game […] was indicative of that,” Smith said. “It was two teams playing hard, and playing fast. It was, all in all, a good game.”
It is a testament to both teams’ excellent defence that neither scored until Montreal won in the shootout. Both teams were also stuck in a stalemate in the first overtime period.
“As a team we defend very well,” Smith said, “We play well in our own end, we defend the rush well. I think all six players on the ice have a real good focus on that. I would not consider us to be a defensive team, but we are defensively sound.“
McGill could not get it done in the shootout, however. Marion Allemoz of the Carabins was the only player out of four able to score, while the martlets missed all of their shots.
“I think we are disappointed with our performance in the shootout,” Smith said. “But it’s not like we don’t work at it, and we’ll get better at it.”
McGill beat the Concordia Stingers (3-7-2) 5-2 on Friday at McConnell Arena, earlier in the week. Senior centre Melodie Daoust, fresh from captaining Canada to a gold at the Nations Cup tournament in Germany, had two assists and a goal just six hours after returning to Canada. Senior forward Gabrielle Davidson scored a brace, with the other goals coming from fifth-year forward Joanne Cagianos and sophomore forward Alexandria Serpico.
The 1-1 start to the new 2016 year also proved that McGill had got over its early season power play blues. McGill were 2-4 on the power play against Concordia and 1-3 against Montreal.
McGill will play away against Carleton next weekend. With the race for the RSEQ regular season title heating up, every game is a must-win game for all teams around the league.
Quotable
“We want to be defensively sound so we can get back on offense. Our team does a good job of playing with structure when we don’t have the puck.”—Smith on the Martlets defensive style.
Moment of the game
The Montreal Carabins’ shootout goal was the only one scored in nine combined attempts between the two sides.
Stat corner
The Montreal Carabins lead the McGill Martlets 13-11 in their last 24 head-to-head games, a testament to how closely fought these games are.
Unlike Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago, which arguably set the trend or working on an album in a cabin in the woods, B.C.-based The Sylvia Platters, that followed the trend, have created an album that sounds nothing like the natural serenity of a forest. By instead labeling themselves as power pop, their debut album Make Glad the Day fits the pace of a hectic, mindless errand run through the city on a Monday. This is stomping music: Guitar-driven, upbeat, and loud.
The band’s sound mixes the classic elements of ’60s rock (hence the power pop) with the urgency of punk and the laid-back tones of surf, creating a very strange feeling of frantic relaxation. The snappy riffs sound like they want to wander off, but they never actually do. Barring a quick ballad-like interlude in “Bloody Knuckles” and the final track of the album, the pace is set early—there is no dawdling in these tunes, even when it really feels like there should be.
This is in part due to the vocals. Though the instrumentals borrow from older genres, the vocals take influence from pop punk: Think Diarrhea Planet, or even Green Day. This creates a harsher, almost jarring effect that is most prevalent in the more upbeat tracks on the album, such as “Boeselagerstrasse.” It’s interesting to listen to, but it doesn’t really work and takes away from what could otherwise be a pretty good sound.
The band prides itself on its mix of genres, and calls the album a “thrilling embrace of our fleeting existence.” Though the album does call into question the listener’s purpose, the better music is borne of the band not trying to be every single guitar-rock genre. Songs like “Girl With Curious Hair”—atmospheric and lazy, but still sticking to the pace—are where the band sounds most natural: Subdued vocals with colorful tones. The band aspires to create their own sound, but Make Glad the Day sounds best when it sounds familiar.
One could say The Sylvia Platters tried to do too much with the album, and that would be a fair assumption. The lyrics are forgettable, the details in the production are often questionable. The album certainly has a novel concept, but the execution is lackluster, and ultimately leaves the music without momentum in a heavily saturated industry. Guitar rock has many unique-sounding genres, and though mixing them is possible, this is not a good example of it.
Sounds Like:
Rooney meets Viet Cong, gets intoxicated, and puts on a show in a basement.
Standout Track:
“Bloody Knuckles”
Standout Lyric:
“Sleight of hand and twist of logic, solemn and severe.”
This year, the Arts & Entertainment section editors worked with our staff writers to come up with the best songs, music videos, albums, TV shows, and movies of 2015; however, not everyone’s favourite made the list. To let the close runners-up shine we’ve each picked our two most-beloved snubs that we felt deserved to make it into the final list.
This is something that shouldn’t have worked under any circumstances. Adapting an 800-page historical biography of relatively-obscure founding father, Alexander Hamilton, into a genre-bending hip-hop infused Broadway musical sounds like an exercise in creative hubris. Instead, it accomplishes the impossible by weaving a coherent personal narrative into the broader historical context of America’s founding and early years as a nation. Hamilton is an incredible synthesis of everything great about hip hop and history and musical theatre. It also reframes the narrative of American history, giving it back to the people who actually shaped it in the first place: Orphans, immigrants, rebels, and underdogs.
Mistress America
Writer-Director Noah Baumbach and writer-actress Greta Gerwig have proven themselves to be an unstoppable creative partnership. After Baumbach’s ho-hum While We’re Young, he returns to straight comedy, following a college freshman (Lola Kirke) in New York City who gets pulled into the orbit of her soon-to-be step-sister (Gerwig), an impulsive self-described ‘entrepreneur.’ Featuring one of the most tightly-written scripts of the year, the film nails the anxiety and possibility of starting university in a new city. Gerwig turns in a fantastic performance as Brooke, imbuing the character with the perfect amount of self-awareness and lack thereof.
Probably one of the biggest surprises this year, Carly Rae Jepsen’s second studio album, E.mo.tion, absolutely shattered her status as a one-hit-wonder. Packed with one masterful pop song after another, E.mo.tion surpasses its closest ‘80s-evoking competitor, 1989, with ease. Jepsen’s once-derided vocals now possess a noticeably smoky quality while the lyrics are both clever and witty. While her debut album, Kiss, felt immature and underwhelmed due to its uninspired lyrics and undercooked production, E.mo.tion absolutely wallows in its fabulously ‘80s retro vibe. “Run Away With Me” provides a screaming saxophone, “Warm Blood” is an irresistible journey into pulsing beats and synths, while the stunning highlight, “Your Type” is easily one of the finest pop songs released this year—E.mo.tion is the best album you didn’t know you needed to hear.
Conjuring up a rather hazy, faded aesthetic on her latest album, San Francisco-based Jessica Pratt singularly wrote, recorded, and produced 2015’s most reminiscent record. On Your Own Love Again harkens back to an era in which simple, guitar-laced melodies bubbled underneath beautifully-crafted vocal melodies were all the rage. Pratt floats through the album’s short 10 songs, her striking Kate Bush-esque vocals drifting up and down an impressive register, and forces the listener to pay attention to the devastating, love-torn lyrics. Perhaps the standout is “Back, Baby,” in which the line, “People’s faces blend together like a watercolour you can’t remember,” provides more nuance and thought-provoking imagery than the rest of her pop peers could only dream of managing throughout an entire career.
Relative newcomers within the metal community, Deafheaven are continuing to expand and redefine the genre with its latest release New Bermuda. Alongside Jack Shirley, the sound engineer behind their breakout album Sunbather, Deafheaven further cemented themselves as the pioneers of a self-created sub-genre: A combination of black metal and indie-oriented shoegaze, known as ‘blackgaze.’ What results is an excellent slew of heavy-hitting noise.“Baby Blue” stands out as the strongest track on the record, showcasing the band’s aptitude for both calm and chaotic sounds. Vocalist George Clarke delivers an astounding performance, noticeably distorting his voice with more growls this time around, and is backed by an extremely tight band.
Despite the occasional anachronisms and minor tampering with chronology, Netflix’s Narcos still manages to tell a compelling and often overlooked historical tale. Interweaving actual news footage and political interviews in between fictionalized narratives, the show does a fantastic job displaying historical facts with enough creative license to generate emotional attachment and foster a more personal investment in said historical events. Given the unfortunate rise in international terrorism over recent years, Narcos offers an important historical window into the politics of fear and demonstrates how much a single group can threaten a state, without even the use of the internet.
Earl Sweatshirt’s second album lives up to the title; most tracks are moody and introverted, with lyrics stark against a minimalist, yet sometimes messy background of sparse piano, synths, and drumbeats. Two tracks, “Huey” and “AM // Radio” have the assured attitude that Sweatshirt introduced in his last album, Doris, but I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside generally goes as twice as slow without losing any lyrical punch. In this pared-down style, Sweatshirt seems more confident and refreshingly, more honest.
In its fifth studio album, Beach House delivers the newest installment of the soundtrack of a timelessly nostalgic and faintly adolescent daydream. The band hasn’t changed much in the past 10 years, but in Depression Cherry they seem to have perfected their formula for ethereal, sentimental tracks. Depression Cherry delivers the classic Beach House sound without being boring or repetitive: The choral opening of “Days of Candy” and the surprisingly harsh guitar in “Sparks” add exciting and new layers to the songs. With every release, Beach House seems to shape the landscape of people’s most elusive dreams. Depression Cherry is no exception.
Eric’s Picks
Neon Indian—VEGA Intl. Night School
It flew under the radar, but Neon Indian took a massive step forward with VEGA Intl. Night School. By trading in acid-washed chillwave tracks for coke-fueled disco bangers, Alan Palomo has crafted his most thrilling album so far. Highlights include the reggae romp of “Annie,” the Moroder-esque “Slumlord,” and “Dear Skorpio Magazine,” a lighthearted ode to a 1980s Italian smut magazine. Don’t expect any lyrical innovations from Palomo here, but VEGA is one hell of a party record. A must own for Beegees and Daft Punk fans alike.
FKA twigs – “In Time” (Or anything off M3LL155X)
Following last year’s excellent LP1, FKA twigs put out another marvellous project this year with her M3LL155X EP. In contrast to LP1, these songs have a darker aesthetic. From the hypnotic groove of “Figure 8” to the new school vogue of “Glass and Patron,” the EP was just as boundary pushing as one would expect from an artist like twigs. The highlight might be “In Time,” a mind-boggling mixture of trap, pop and experimental electronica; however, you could really make an argument for any of M3LL155X’s songs to be in the top 10 of the year. Twigs is just that good.
Coldplay—the band you loved in the seventh grade and now want nothing to do with—released what is rumoured to be its final album this month. After 16 long years of experimenting with sounds, bouncing around on stage, and getting routinely torn apart by the international music community, the band’s latest album, A Head Full of Dreams, should place Coldplay exactly where it started: A decent band releasing a decent album. Only this time they've got history behind them.
Coldplay and its fans have journeyed through quite a few reiterations of the music scene. There were the "limestone-rock" days of old: Parachutes (2000) and A Rush of Blood to the Head (2002). Then there were commercial successes packed to the brim with neat, quotable lyrics, and hit songs ("Yellow," "The Scientist") that introduced many young listeners to a mature observation of heartbreak. This was the intellectual version of Linkin Park—the young, naive music snob's reference band.
X&Y (2005) bridged the gap between musical maturity and youthful relatability well, but Viva la Vida (2008) should have served as a subtle warning sign. Mylo Xyloto (2011) made Coldplay ‘experimental,’ showing the band opt for more synth, more colour, and, essentially, more pop. It was the ultimate betrayal: They had a song with Rihanna.
By this point, the anti-Coldplay sentiments that started simmering with Viva La Vida reached their boiling point. Devoted fans bailed, the band was dubbed as unoriginal and the bitter jokes about the group increased in intensity. Ghost Stories (2014), an album about Chris Martin’s breakup with Gwyneth Paltrow, was released without much fanfare, and quietly continued on into obscurity. But then, some silence and a Game of Thrones musical later, the group’s latest album was announced.
The long voyage of Coldplay is painfully apparent in this album. Every song twists through the band’s varied shades of polite Britpop—some instigating nostalgia, others assaulting your ears with colourful arpeggios. Sixteen years after its debut, Coldplay has released the ultimate Coldplay album, sweeping up everything they’ve done before in an impressive effort to move forward, broaden their horizons, and sound as little like Parachutes as possible.
The album takes off with a funky intro. “A Head Full of Dreams” asserts the momentum of the record as quickly as it can—this is Martin’s ‘over it’ album—but the bass line that starts the song speaks to another theme in the album: Coldplay is trying to do as much as it can with this one. This means, unfortunately, that the group’s forays will not be interesting and avant-garde, but instead tread the tried-and-true paths of its forebearers. “A Head Full of Dreams” sounds like a U2 song. “Adventure of a Lifetime” sounds like a mix of Tokyo Police Club and every EDM vocalist ever. “X Marks the Spot” is R&B pop in 2009. In Coldplay’s attempt to expand its sound, the band has lost the uniqueness that got it here.
That’s not to say the album doesn’t have traditionally Coldplay moments. “Everglow” will cure any fan’s need to hear the old sound, even though it is now more generic than ever before. “Birds” could have been from Mylo Xyloto, with its sonic colour and Martin’s up-tempo vocals. “Amazing Day” isn’t terrible, and “Hymn For The Weekend” is everything “Princess of China” should have been. But it’s been 16 years of big falsetto breaks, and much of the lyrical strength of Coldplay’s early days has faded away. “You give me this feeling, this everglow,” for example, just can’t compare to “You were an island and I passed you by.” ‘Coldplay Moments’ just won’t do it anymore.
There is finality in the sound of this album, even with its attempts to be more diverse and upbeat. Martin’s comments in an interview suggested that there was a completion with this record: it might not spell the end of Coldplay, but this is the ultimate design of their sound. It’s been a fun time; and though A Head Full of Dreams could have been far better, perhaps it’s perfect as it is: the closing chapter of a decent band’s saga.
Once the first snow sticks, you know winter is here to stay. Lucky for us, El Niño came on strong this year, and snow has been staved off for at least a few more weeks. The one thing we can say for certain is that finals come and go, but winter break is forever. Cozy up next to family and a fire and let these holiday tracks take your mind through the emotional rollercoaster that is December.
“Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays” — *NSYNC
Fall exam period is the only barrier standing between students and two weeks of rest and rehabilitation at home, and for many, holiday celebrations with family and friends. Whether it’s Christmas, New Years, or Chanukkah, this is undoubtedly the season for celebration, as *NSYNC’s “Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays” reminds us. References to specific religious holidays aside, the lyrics touch on common secular experiences like family love and childhood joy that everyone can relate to. As you trudge through the snow to the gym to take your exams, it helps to be reminded of the light at the end of the tunnel.
Aside from the festive lyrics, “Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays” is the kind of sugary sweet bubblegum pop song that everyone needs in their life during stressful times. Sure to get your toes tapping while studying, it’s an upbeat motivator to help you plow through those last few readings. It’s cheerfulness will lower stress levels just by listening, and it could even make a solid choice for an impromptu dance session. What better way is there to forget the snow piling up outside your window or the five degree wind chill than dancing?
There’s no better time than now to indulge yourself in a little nostalgia, and no band embodies the pop music of our childhoods quite like *NSYNC. There’s a certain comfort involved in revisiting the bands you heard on the radio as a child, especially those of the guilty-pleasure nature like *NSYNC.
– Jenna Stanwood
“The Christmas Song (Roasting Chestnuts)” — Arcade Fire
Arcade Fire has received critical acclaim for its studio albums since the release of Funeral in 2004; however, being overshadowed by their award-winning music, little attention has been paid to what could— generously – be called their first EP: A Very Arcade Xmas. The first song on the EP, “The Christmas Song (Roasting Chestnuts),” hilariously attempts to bear likeness to the original holiday classic recorded in 1946 by the Nat King Cole Trio. It opens with the gentle sounds of piano and xylophone, while soft laughter can be heard in the background.
“Ah, it’s Christmas morning. I smell something,” is the lyrical opening, leading into a brief, recognizable 30 seconds of the song. The final two minutes, however, are a drunken train wreck of jumbled, and at most times, completely incorrect lyrics. Although their rendition is probably the funniest version of “The Christmas Song” ever recorded, the gentle instrumentals of the piece bear surprising melodic resemblance to the original.
Recorded in 2001 at a holiday party, A Very Arcade Xmas is not commercially available, so to listen to the EP in full, YouTube is the only option. This means you will not be hearing any of these tracks on the radio; good news for those frustrated with the month of December allowing no reprieve from the familiar holiday tunes. In the words of Win Butler’s inebriated, screeching, stream of consciousness, “I know it’s Christmas in the suburban van, Christmas on the mountaintop. But who knows if we’ll get there one more time, it’s never certain—and will it ever be?”
– Aislinn Kalob
“Holiday Road” – Lindsey Buckingham
Lindsey Buckingham, better know as the guitarist and vocalist of Fleetwood Mac, may not be exactly what every person immediately associates with Christmas time. The holiday classic National Lampoons’ Christmas Vacation (1989), however, is high up on the list. Buckingham’s contribution of “Holiday Road” to the movie’s soundtrack is one that cannot be forgotten – quite literally. It has all of the elements of a song that is guaranteed to get stuck in your head: A jaunty upbeat pop melody and easy, repetitive lyrics. “Holiday Road” revels in its own simplicity with Buckingham’s signature finger-picked guitar playing and satisfying harmonies taking centre stage. And while it’s a far cry from anything found on Fleetwood Mac’s rock albums, it was one of the biggest hits of Buckingham’s solo career after leaving the British-American band.
Despite the track’s undeniable link to the beloved Christmas film and ideas of picturesque holiday road-trips, the song’s music video is surprisingly more of a reflection on corporate American culture than anything else. Taking place in a dark office with barred in windows, Buckingham delivers his lyrics straight to the camera, absent of any emotion, while a supervisor on a raised platform yells at workers who are clearly yearning for a holiday. With McGill’s Fall semester coming to a close and finals beginning, the majority of students can relate to Buckingham’s sentiments in this context that it’s going to be a “long way down the holiday road”.
Of the many problems afflicting the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) today, the most pressing is a broken electoral system. Much attention has been focused on the “intensely negative online culture,” and suggestions such as vesting the Chief Electoral Officer with greater powers or limiting use of social media by candidates have been proposed as solutions—but this is just a symptom of the deeper problems. One is voter turnout, which in in the last election was a depressing 8.7 per cent of eligible students. The other is the outcome, which regularly produces an executive with fairly homogenized views that are perceived to represent the same faction at the expense of other demographics. Candidates are increasingly forced to campaign not for the entire student body, but for the small minority that bothers to vote.
The best option is for SSMU to fundamentally restructure its electoral process by adopting a system of formal political parties. Let like-minded students organize themselves and, year after year, run for each position under a common platform. SSMU needs to adopt the process by which democracy functions in the majority of the world.
Candidates typically run on mostly indistinguishable platforms filled with empty platitudes. In the short two weeks of a campaign period, students find it easier to assess a candidate’s history and reputation than their policy proposals. Established parties would develop their ideologies and more clearly advance certain priorities, whether that be equity, fiscal responsibility, or whatever else candidates choose. The current barriers to making an informed decision for the marginal voter are unreasonably high. With anywhere from zero to five candidates running for six executive positions and 30 councillor seats, students must make a significant investment to decide which of those candidates would best represent their interests. Parties with distinct platforms would better communicate this information to voters.
The ballot box is students’ only viable opportunity for actual accountability. It doesn’t happen under the current system because student politicians rarely stand more than a single year and so cannot be influenced by re-election. Rewarding a party for a successful year by voting for their next year’s candidates, or the opposite, would be a great improvement. Greater continuity would also improve the efficacy of multi-year projects. Additionally, an organized opposition would stimulate transparency. A competitive party system would not only incentivize greater communication and transparency of legislative shortcomings to the public, it would likewise spur parties to more actively promote their successes. The average voter’s attention would be competed for, not ignored.
Candidates are increasingly forced to campaign not for the entire student body, but for the small minority that bothers to vote.
Political parties would level the playing field and improve the overall quality of SSMU elections. Running a campaign is incredibly difficult and chaotic. The daunting mass of the tasks, people, and stress to handle is mostly behind the scenes and invisible to the public; but for a candidate, it means choosing between sleep, food, or school. A party system would allow veteran campaigners to assist rookie candidates. Within the party itself, it would be a more sustained transfer of knowledge from older to younger students, not just about winning elections but more broadly about how SSMU works and how it doesn’t. A larger, experienced team of volunteers would be more capable of taking responsibility for the many administrative tasks so that candidates can spend the two weeks actually campaigning. Institutionalized parties would create opportunities for students to get involved, especially for those who aren’t as enthusiastic about the current direction of SSMU.
Lastly is the pressing concern of personal attacks. Party politics won’t end the temptation of drawing the skeletons out of a candidate’s closet, but a campaign focused on policies rather than personalities will help ease it. Strategically speaking, a single scandal could effectively end an individual’s campaign, but would do relatively much less damage to a team of six. Likewise, having equally invested peers on their side would make it much easier to weather the storm and respond to the situation. Political parties won’t end the anonymous online toxicity, but adding more regulations won’t either. Introducing political parties would be a fundamental transformation for SSMU. McGill’s student democracy is in crisis–this is an opportunity that would be foolish to waste.
Do you have opinions on how best to restructure SSMU and the electoral process? Contact the Tribune opinion section at [email protected].
In an article published in the Tribune on Dec. 1, entitled “Discouraged and overlooked, but still competing: A club athlete's experience at McGill,” the Sailing Team was profiled along with other club sports at McGill. The article sought to bring light to the underappreciated and often overlooked club sport athletes, an undoubtedly worthwhile cause. Club sport athletes at McGill practice early in the morning and late into the evening, they pay out of pocket to enjoy the sport they love, and they don’t enjoy large fan sections like the larger athletic teams on campus. The article pointed out how discouraging underfunding and under appreciation can be, citing that club athletes tend to have an “attitude of resignation.” In discussing this sentiment, the sailing executive committee felt it best to clear something up:
As sailors, students, and athletes, the 33 members of the McGill University Sailing Team refuse to be discouraged.
If you didn’t know the McGill Sailing Team existed, you wouldn’t be alone. Despite our 2nd place ranking in Canada last year and our competitive scores throughout North America, McGill Sailing tends to fly under the radar. The reasons for this are pretty easy to suss out: We practice in Dorval and tend to compete outside of Montreal. These facts have never discouraged the sailors on the team. With a dedicated executive committee and a group of incredibly passionate student-athletes, the team remains unequivocally positive and cohesive, despite the inherent difficulties that face all club sports at McGill.
The largest hurdle that McGill Sailing faces is a lack of funding. Sailing is expensive and we ask a lot of our members in order to overcome this obstacle. For everything from travel and accommodations to coaching and boats, we are entirely funded by students on the team. To add to that expense, the team is currently in the process of acquiring a new fleet of sailboats to replace our decades old, poor quality C420s. (Yes that’s what they’re called. Yes we’ve heard the joke before). Needless to say, getting through each season under budget is a challenge.
In sailing, there is a lot out of your control. The wind, the current, and the weather are almost always against you as you fight for speed on the water. Sailing is about managing all of these variables and putting yourself in the best position to win. The team takes this to heart on and off the race-course. In addition to the incredible talent that our sailors display everyday at practice, they demonstrate creativity, passion, commitment, and support to improving the team. To succeed, we use what we know: We acknowledge the inherent obstacles, we come up with creative solutions, and—above all—we always stay positive.
Isaiah Riesman-Tremonte is the fundraising coordinator for the McGill University Sailing Team. He can be reached at [email protected]. This letter was co-signed by the other members of the McGill University Sailing Team's executive: Amanda Ivey, Andries Feder, Renee Torrie, Jess Horne, Jacob Webster, and Catherine Ross
Deemed a “laureate of American lowlife” by Time in 1986, Charles Bukowski was a 20th century poet, novelist, and working-class alcoholic. His deadpan confessional style, glorification of alcohol, and misanthropic view of humanity has appealed to a large cult readership over the years. In 1987, unknown to most, Bukowski entered the Hollywood scene alongside director Barbet Schroeder, who urged him to write the screenplay for his next film. Claiming to despise the art of filmmaking, Bukowski accepted Schroeder’s offer only after considering the number of drinks he could buy with his paycheck. Barfly is essentially a simplistic, misanthropic Bukowski novel put on the big screen.
Mickey Rourke is the star of Barfly, playing the scruffy, staggering Bukowski alter-ego, Henry Chinaski. As the story centers on the routine life of a drunk, the film is more of a character study than a plot-based action story. Henry spends his days at the Golden Horn, a gritty bar occupied by a cast of regulars taking up the same stools everyday. Demonstrating the circular flow of a life composed of drinking, writing, and paying rent, the film opens and closes on the same scene: a bar fight between Henry and the bartender, Big Ed (Frank Stallone). Big Ed despises Henry, and Henry hates him back, saying: “He symbolizes everything that disgusts me. Obviousness. Unoriginal macho energy. Ladies man…”
One day, Henry spots Wanda (Faye Dunaway) across from him at the bar. Asking why she sits alone, Henry receives a response that she is “crazy.” This intrigues Henry, who later writes on a piece of paper: “Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.” He orders Wanda a drink and the conversation that follows attests to Bukowski’s adeptness in scripting dialogue. While it’s clear that Wanda is a regular barfly, she has a natural aplomb that isolates her from her surroundings.
“I can’t stand people,” Wanda tells Henry as he takes the stool next to her. “I hate them. Do you hate them?” “No,” Henry responds. “But I seem to feel better when they’re not around.”
Upon discovering that Henry is totally broke, Wanda invites him to stay at her place. A hint of her crazy side shines as she runs uphill to a field to pick green, unripe corn, exclaiming: “I love corn!” while Henry reminds her that she’s drunk. Police headlights shine on Wanda, given that she is trespassing, and the two quickly abscond to her apartment. Henry and Wanda are unadjusted to love, yet an intimacy develops between the two barflies. Therefore, when Wanda smells perfume on Henry one day, she is outraged.
The perfume is from the beautiful, delicate, and wealthy girl (Alice Krige), who publishes a literary magazine and has tracked down Henry to hand him his paycheck. She compliments Henry on his work and Henry is amused, since he always believed he would be discovered posthumously. She and Henry arrive at her house, and they flirt and drink. When she offers him space in her home to write, he declines. “I take it you don’t care for my world,” she says. Henry replies: “Well, baby, look around. It’s a cage with golden bars.”
Bukowski was known to loathe the monotonous structure of daily life. He once claimed that the nine-to-five work day was one of the greatest atrocities sprung upon mankind and that he was so repelled by the idea that he was driven to “drink, starvation, and mad females, simply as an alternative.” Barfly is overall a glorification of a vision of freedom and a tale of love between two misanthropes. In Bukowski’s own words, the film is “better than the average movie.”
Another month, another country album that your mom or American cousins might like. This month, it’s Tim McGraw, and he’s hardly poised to challenge any assumptions about what kind of person makes country music. His latest, Damn Country Music, is unlikely to challenge the standard country sound. Certainly no one is expecting him to, but with his recent outings being so uncharacteristically rocky, there’s plenty reason to be apprehensive. McGraw is serviceable in this album, and notably restrained. He serves up a few solid numbers that avoid the worst excesses of country schlock, while steering clear of his previous pop pretensions that gave listeners serious “But I’m a cool dad!” vibes. Sadly, it’s not enough to stop the slow train to Snoozeville.
On appearances alone, the album’s artwork isn’t exactly a countrified orgy of fringe and brown leather, but it leaves McGraw himself, in ripped jeans and a cowboy hat, looking like the hottest dad at the parent-teacher meeting. McGraw takes a similar restrained approach to the album itself but, far from eking out some measure of unvarnished emotion, he produces a lot of undifferentiated mush.
The first song on the album is the Celtic-and harmony-heavy “Here Tonight,” a charming duet with his daughter Gracie that at least adds some diversity to the dad persona. The honky-tonk title track is similarly nice. It's a pseudo-autobiographical ditty that shows the edge of the ironic bitterness the terrific name suggests, plunging down dirt roads of dusty memory and musings on stardom, emerging with a surprisingly sharp hook. The album goes downhill from there, however, producing a slog of same-feeling tunes that fail to squeeze any real conviction from the twangs and riffs they conjure up. It’s beyond cliché at this point to say that all country music sounds the same, but here McGraw seems unable, or unwilling, to challenge that idea; there is little, if anything, that feels surprising or new.
Indeed, there once was a time when the words “Everything except rap and country,” were the go-to bon mots of the calculatedly disinterested, the lazy recourse to replace staking out any musical opinion. Nowadays, with rap megastars like Drake and Kanye headlining festivals and blowing up arenas, and previous country darling Taylor Swift departing for pop-ier pastures, the fight to avoid instant cultural dismissal has passed to the likes of Tim McGraw. If his offering for continued relevance is Damn Country Music, then that is a damn shame.
Standout Tracks:
“Here Tonight,” “Damn Country Music.”
Sounds Like:
Exactly what you would expect.
You Should Listen If:
You already like Tim McGraw. Everyone else, steer clear.
The last few years have seen a burgeoning of the movement of ‘poptimism.’ Poptimism takes popular music as an artistic form worthy of merit and critique like any other, and has been very productive. Popular music is analyzed and appreciated more rigorously and superstars like Beyonce, Nicki Minaj, and Taylor Swift get due credit; however, within poptimism, there is a trap: Instead of taking pop music as something to critique, writers become boosters for pop artists, with everyone falling over themselves to be the one to pay homage to the new Slay Queen. With this in mind, one can examine Adele’s “Hello.”
“Hello” had considerable buzz around its release. It is the first music video to be shot in IMAX film, which people generally associate with a sense of grandeur and respectability. This is a common theme in popular culture; Macklemore and Ryan Lewis are known for using RED digital cameras, a technical aspect which contributed to their extremely successful videos. Going back a bit further, James Cameron’s Avatar’s enormous cost of filming helped contribute to its hype. The problem is, in the intrigue caused by flashy technology and high budgets, aesthetics often get pushed to the side. Avatar is a great example of this: It made an incredible amount of money, but received little critical acclaim beyond its impressive visuals. “Hello” feels the same.
“Hello” is a torch song that speaks to a lost lover of Adele’s, a topic she is well known for exploring. The song itself is decent, revealing a vulnerable side of Adele which compliments the fiery defiance she showed on 21. But there’s nothing new or exciting here—the material is more or less the expected from Adele, and it treads over ground that has been trampled by hundreds of other songwriters. That said, the thing that brought this song to fame is the video.
The video is… boring. It looks nice, shot in crisp sepia tones. It’s decision to hire a person of colour to play the role of Adele’s lost lover is commendable and different from traditional representation, if not groundbreaking. Beyond that, it drags on, and the introduction is slow and trite. The music video begins and ends with a direct address: Adele’s eyes looking at the audience. Her eyes are certainly striking, but it’s not enough. The video doesn’t take advantage of the potential for music videos to be non-narrative and instead follows a boring linear structure, occasionally cutting back to clichéd flashbacks.
Ah, remember when we laughed? Remember when later we cried in the rain? Good times.
But those flashbacks aren’t cut in a particularly impactful narrative style—they’re just kind of sprinkled occasionally, and the obvious opportunity to have the first flashback start at the chorus is missed. Adele picks up a phone and talks in a way that is frustratingly and distractingly mixed. In the second verse, the video finally gets away from the basic structure to show us a classic phone booth with the receiver hanging off of the hook. Another form of connection that is old and not working. The image is getting a bit played out, and the box just kind of sits there, and Adele doesn’t interact with it in any meaningful way. Then there’s a bridge, and another direct address and viewers get the big shot, the IMAX shot of her at a pond with blossoms flying—the climactic moment. It all feels like it is trying very hard to be meaningful, and has all these signifiers of meaning, but ultimately it doesn’t reach anything significant. It is ultimately an attempt to mimic the aesthetic of an independent video.
