Tag Archive for: Spencer’s Soapbox

COLUMN: Artists don’t have to be good people


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It almost feels like a personal betrayal when an artist does something out of character. You think you have come to know them, their quirks and the style of music, but then they do something completely foreign to their personality. Take Drake for example. He recently dropped More Life, a “playlist” that broke streaming records […]

COLUMN: Selling a music album is old news


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This year, Chance the Rapper was the first artist to win a Grammy for a streaming-only album, which basically means he won a Grammy for his mixtape. The award is revolutionary for music in a lot of ways, but what’s most important is that Coloring Book is another example of the changing landscape of the […]

COLUMN: Grammys do not equate to success


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When Taylor Swift’s 1989 won Album of the Year at the 58th Annual Grammy Awards, I was livid.  Despite being the first time I had ever seen the Grammys live on TV, I felt personally cheated, and part of me is still a little peeved about it. To Pimp a Butterfly is a modern masterpiece […]

COLUMN: Give “bad” music a chance


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Weezer’s first album, Weezer, also nicknamed “The Blue Album,” saw universal acclaim both critically and financially. Songs like “Buddy Holly” and, my personal favorite, “Undone — The Sweater Song” shot to the top of the charts and found love among their new fans. It seemed as if grunge would finally be dethroned because alternative rock […]

You’re Dead! is a mix of genres


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During my freshman year in college, Flying Lotus, one of my all-time favorite artists, dropped his best album to date. My first semester in college wasn’t the best, but this album was a nice way to cap it all off, even if I didn’t get a chance to listen to it until the semester was […]

Horace-Scope is a a hard bop classic


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In high school, I had one of those old school CD pockets that would wrap around a sun visor in my car, which was inherited from my mom’s car in the ‘90s. I didn’t have satellite radio, and a guy can only hear so much Aerosmith on the seemingly endless local rock stations before he […]

Blue Train was worth getting teased for


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My friends like to tease me by calling me a hipster. At first, it irritated me. The stereotypical hipster was something that angered me in high school, and to be associated with something like that was like a nightmare that came to life. However, after being called a hipster constantly through the years, I’ve learned […]

Donuts was the last work of a legend


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Sometime last year, in the midst of making one of my numerous Spotify playlists, I noticed that a couple of songs I added sounded similar. In fact, when I went back and really listened to the songs, I wasn’t sure if the lyrics were that great to start out with, or if the beat they […]