Posts by: Liz Wood

This Week in Posivibes: A Frank Ocean Bonanza

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It’s not hyperbole to say that everyone is losing their minds over Frank Ocean’s release of Endless, Blonde, and Boys Don’t Cry Magazine. After a four-year wait between albums, this outpouring offers a lot of incredible material to unpack. Blonde’s credit list alone makes perfect fodder for music writers, listing David Bowie, Brian Eno, Kanye West, Jamie xx, Kendrick Lamar, Elliott Smith, Beyoncé, the Beatles, André 3000, and Pharrell, among others. Add in Ocean’s […]

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Flea and Koko

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The Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist recently got together with Koko, the exceptional gorilla who famously learned sign language and proved the intelligence of our mammalian ancestors along with their depth of creativity. (She also loves cats.) Of course Koko, being the super curious and intelligent being that she is, took the opportunity to test out Flea’s […]

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Covers and Cultural Appropriation

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It’s been a major issue since American popular music first expanded its sonic territory from traditional country and folk songs: the cultural appropriation of sounds, and even entire pieces, that became more marketable (and thus lucrative) once they were performed by a “safer” white voice. The instances of this phenomenon are countless, but okayplayer. has made […]

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This Week in Posivibes: Big Eyes

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Brooklyn’s Big Eyes have been putting out solid pop punk for some time now, and the upcoming Stake My Claim seems to be more of the same—which is to say it seems great. Kaitlyn Eldridge, the lead creative force behind Big Eyes, said of the album: “‘Stake My Claim,’ the song and the entire album, is about not letting […]

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A Music Drama (Actually) about Music

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Netflix’s The Get Down is receiving quite a bit of attention for being the unicorn of music drama: for once, a show about a moment in musical history is actually about the music! Directed by Baz Luhrmann, the show is receiving accolades for following hip-hop’s rise in the Bronx with respect and care: A coming-of-age drama anchored in the […]

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Lynch’s Perfect Musical Something

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David Lynch is often cited for his influence on artists of all media—a fact which may come down to the director’s incredible ability to generate an atmosphere, a full immersive sense of being in a place or mindset. Beyond the Beyond: Music from the Films of David Lynch attempts to articulate what makes Lynch’s work particularly attractive […]

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Emulation vs. Copyright Infringement

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Marvin Gaye’s influence on music is undeniably significant and pervasive. Given that, how does one measure the difference between emulation and rip-off? In the case of Robin Thicke and Pharrell’s “Blurred Lines,” the use of Gaye’s music was so undeniable and complete that even a casual listener could identify the misuse. But if the alleged infringement takes […]

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“Meat Is Murder,” the Video Game

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The Smiths and PETA have released a video game in a collaborative effort to fight the violence of industrial agriculture’s treatment of livestock. Taking its inspiration the song “Meat Is Murder,” This Beautiful Creature Must Die asks players to fight to save chickens, pigs, cows, and turkeys from slaughterhouse doom. The game’s music is, of course, an 8-bit […]

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Looking Back to New Jack City

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The 1991 cult film New Jack City is once again examined and celebrated this week, with okayplayer. publishing one piece celebrating its soundtrack, and another with a behind-the-scenes reflection from the film’s star Ice T. The artist talks about playing a cop for his first role in the days when he was best known for rapping “Cop Killer.” New Jack […]

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Ode to Connie Converse

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A singer-songwriter out of New York in the 1950s, Connie Converse is one of those musical singularities that are periodically unearthed to our great benefit. An ode to her melancholy, intelligently trapped songs sums up the beauty of her music: Converse’s music is simple, honest, and utterly devastating. A steadfast acoustic guitar accompanies poetic lyrics, the […]

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Vinyl in Space

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Jack White now has claim to a scientific achievement: he led the project to launch a vehicle that played the first vinyl record in space. The high-tech record player cleared our atmosphere to broadcast “A Glorious Dawn,” from Carl Sagan’s famous TV series Cosmos. We’re a little dubious as to the efficacy of the project, given the amount of […]

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Remembering Lou Reed

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It’s hard to believe that it’s been three years since Lou Reed’s passing. In remembrance of his work and legacy, Laurie Anderson organized a day-long tribute to her late husband on Saturday, with readings, exhibitions, film screenings, and concerts. Readers of Reed’s lyrics included Steve Buscemi, Anne Carson, Willem Dafoe, A.M. Homes, and Natasha Lyonne. Performers included Anohni, Lenny Kaye (Patti Smith Group), David Johansen (New York […]

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DC Punk for Everyone

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Dischord Records has made its entire discography available on Bandcamp, meaning that anyone can immediately become an expert on what it took many of us at least a full year of high school to collect via mixtape. The archive includes seminal DC punk and hardcore bands like Minor Threat, Fugazi, Rites of Spring, and the Faith. Check out the […]

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This Week in Posivibes: Pet Shop Boys

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With a new album out, the Pet Shop Boys’s residency at the Royal Opera House in London is likely a preface to a large tour of arena shows. Fans will be happy to hear that the residency performance has not disappointed. A review at the Guardian praises both the high and low of the show’s union of operatic […]

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Dinosaurs, Aliens, and Rappers

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In its infinite wisdom, VICE has produced a show for the company’s TV channel, VICELAND, where Action Bronson and his friends smoke themselves into oblivion while they try to grapple with the immensity of history and the cosmos as communicated by cheeseball history documentaries. In the first episode of Traveling The Stars: Action Bronson & Friends, Schoolboy Q, Earl Sweatshirt, Alchemist, […]

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Father John Misty on Numbness and Evil

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During a performance at WPXN’s XPoNential Music Festival, Father John Misty decided he couldn’t bring himself to give the show his audience expected and delivered a sermon against numbness instead. Criticizing his own role in producing a climate where dissenters are satisfied with laughing at a problem rather than working for change, the artist spoke over a misunderstanding, […]

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India Arie’s “Breathe”

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India Arie has released her first single since 2013, a hymn titled “Breathe.” As one writer put it, the track “serves as a guiding mantra, a means of dialing back the hurt and frustration that flooded the collective consciousness of the world in these trying weeks and shows us how to process, how to simply ‘Breathe.’” Watch […]

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Still Punk in Drublic

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For those of you nostalgic for Warped Tour summers, all ages shows at community centers, and taking your skateboard literally everywhere (you’re right, it was totally messed up that they weren’t down with boards in the mall’s Olive Garden), we’ve got some good news: NOFX is coming out with a new album. First Ditch Effort, the band’s first release […]

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This Week in Posivibes: Mild High Club

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Mild High Club’s sophomore release, Skiptracing, is out on Stones Throw and gathering some pretty enviably wild descriptions from reviewers. Alex Brettin’s sound is described in psych-loungey terms like, “smooth, psychedelic jazz/funk infusions with spacey tinges that sound like warped AM radio hits from another galaxy.” Intergalactic metaphors abound, with another reviewer claiming one track, “Homage,” “opens a door onto […]

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Vinyl Only, Please

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That vinyl has experienced a resurgence is a much exhausted topic, with LPs selling at large lifestyle stores and cutesy budget turntables available from any number of the same. But most labels who release albums on vinyl also release them electronically, through some combination of free-download-with-purchase promos, SoundCloud accounts, iTunes sales, etc. In these instances, […]

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Official Marvin Gaye Documentary Announced

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An official documentary about Marvin Gaye is finally in the works, and has been approved by the late singer’s family. The film will be titled What’s Going On, Marvin? and will center around the making of the seminal album. The artist’s children released a joint statement about their excitement for the film, saying: Our father was complex, but we […]

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This Week in Posivibes: Songs for Survival

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In addition to his song “Spiritual,” which deals with the issue of police brutality, Jay Z has released a playlist of songs to get us through the crushing violence lately exposed by social media. “Songs for Survival” includes music by Beyoncé, Curtis Mayfield, James Brown, Common, Outkast, Gil Scott-Heron, Fela Kuti, Kendrick Lamar, Nina Simone, Marvin Gaye, Kanye West, and others. You can listen to […]

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Artists Respond to the Violence

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The violence of the past days has left the nation in a state of shock, and citizens are reacting with the full range of human responses to crisis. Many artists can be counted among those who demand we respond as a country to the violence against black bodies. To name a few: The Game and Snoop Dogg organized a protest against police brutality in […]

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