Blog

So this is my first blog post. I’ll be honest and say sometimes it’s hard for me to describe the music I listen to. Talking about literature, movies, and art is just different—it’s a slow analysis, a matter of being patient and finding meaning in something that is usually consciously constructed to begin with. Music is more difficult to analyze—there is something mathematically innate as to why it is constructed in a certain way. Our brains seem to have some inherent proportional awareness of rhythm, what chords go together, in the same way we can view one face as attractive, another as not. We tend to see a face as a sum of its parts, and when the eyes, nose, mouth, exhibit a certain “canon of proportions,” so to speak, we can deem it as attractive. I think we also hear music as a sum of its parts, and that is the basic science behind how you decide whether you like a song or don’t. There is a science behind...

By Hannah Froehle

I wouldn’t exactly call myself a dedicated Mountain Goats fan. What I mean by that is, previous to seeing them play at the Ottobar a few weeks ago, I had heard of them. And that’s about it. An insightful comment by one of your wise WJHU DJs persuaded me that it still might be worth my time anyways: “People who are into the Mountain Goats are really into the Mountain Goats.” And all you concert lovers out there know that there is a direct proportional link between the level of “into-it” of the crowd and the rock-i-tude of the performing band, so this show had potential. I was not disappointed. Although I couldn’t join in with the crowd on even the most well-known numbers, the men of the Mountain Goats thrived off the furious love of the crowd, and they returned the sentiment in kind. It made for an intensely visceral concert going experience, the kind where the connection between the crowd and...

Tonight in Baltimore there is no better thing to be doing than listening to So Beautiful Or So What with the windows open—the temperature outside is the meteorological equivalent of being naked, and the breeze evokes the small, warm chill (if, in fact, a chill can be warm) that runs up the back of my neck whenever Mr. Simon tumbles through a particularly wonderful guitar riff. Readers who are familiar with my (occasional) reviews will notice a shift of tone here—I am a cynical young woman, and I do not like to publish accounts of my actual emotions if at all possible. But here we must pause a moment while I take a deep breath and announce: Paul Simon is lovely. Not “bodacious” or “incredible” or, god forbid, “rocking”—just “lovely.” Meaning, an emotion that comes from one’s heart. Even if it’s a cynical one.

So Beautiful Or So What is a soothing return to the Paul Simon of old—it lacks the overly-gimmicky...

It's time we all sat down and had a little chat about James Murphy.

Okay, so, it's time to talk about something that didn't just happen in the past fifteen seconds (a decade in blog-years). It's time we all sat down and had a little chat about James Murphy.

If you're thinking, "who?" then I'm not about to give you a big bollocksy lecture on how you're oblivious, because hey, I'm sure you could name fifteen or twenty really radical people I've never heard of, either-- here's a confession for you: I'm not as much of a music junkie as some other folks here on the ol' WJHU Blog. I'm a writer. I love music and I think it's the most incredible force known to mankind, but I don't listen to music 23 1/3 hours a...