HARD Summer 2024

If you asked me a year ago what I thought I’d be doing in August 2024, my last guess would be covering HARD Summer music festival. As a classically-trained musician, electronic music is probably the genre in which I feel most out of my comfort zone. Even though I’m a musicology major going into my senior year, I felt like my musical background meant I had no business covering this festival – and yet, here I was, in an effort to challenge my limits and broaden my musical horizons. Thus, I present to you: a noob’s take on HARD Summer.

Tkay Maidza @ El Rey Theatre [3/8/24]

“I’ve realized that as a sagittarius, I’m the best me when I’m delusional. If I’m delulu, nothing can hurt me.” Tkay Maidza, 3/8/24 Tkay Maidza’s music embodies the sensation of being on top of the world, and that’s precisely where she found herself on the closing night of her Sweet Justice North America tour at…

Hippo Campus @ The Greek [5/14/23]

“album cycle tours? old hat, played out, over! ep cycle tours? IN, fresh, sexy. only the hottest bands tour on ep releases. catch us on the road dishing out the hits and subjecting you to only minimal new music!” Hippo Campus’ Instagram post @thehalocline 5/15/23 Hippo Campus knows why you’re at The Greek. Yeah, they…

Rediscovering Taylor Swift’s “reputation”

On November 10th, 2017, Taylor Swift released an album like nothing the world had heard from her before. A far cry from her clean-cut country days, reputation was enigmatic, glittering, and expansive. On the album’s lead single, “Look What You Made Me Do”, Swift leaves us an unapologetic voicemail: “I’m sorry, the old Taylor can’t…

Coco & Clair Clair @ El Rey [3/23/23]

When tapping into the ever-evolving tastes of Gen Z, Atlanta-based duo Coco & Clair Clair’s eclectic Y2K sound is nothing short of genius. In the last few years, Y2K aesthetics have dominated social media, and Coco & Clair Clair’s brazen pop-rap sounds straight out of the early 2000s. Their satirical mean-girl lyrics float over their…