Harry Styles Reveals His Sign of the Times

By Amaris Rivera –

As all loyal fans know, Harry Styles is a part of the famous band named One Direction. But seeming as the group is on hiatus for the time being, the boys have been experimenting with what they can do on their own.

Back in early 2016, Niall Horan, who is also in the band was the first to release a single to the public called, “This Town.” As it is now 2017, Harry has followed in his band mate’s footsteps and in early April released his single called, “Sign of the Times.”

The melody of the song is smooth and calming, drawing inspiration from the 1970s rock songs. To some people they may not directly understand the meaning behind the lyrics. Recently Harry opened up about the logic behind him writing the song and surprisingly it’s about childbirth.

In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Harry told them what the meaning of the song was about. He explained that, “The song is written from a point of view as if a mother was giving birth to a child and there’s a complication. The mother is told, ‘The child is fine, but you’re not going to make it.’ The mother has five minutes to tell the child, ‘Go forth and conquer.'”

This is just the beginning of Harry’s solo career, as this is only the lead song to his new debut album scheduled to be released on May 12th, according to his Twitter account. Harry has big things coming his way and it’s always something brilliant and unique. Only the unexpected can be expected in this album and the anticipation is quite exciting to say the least.

Is Demi Lovato Taking a Break?

By Adrianna Fetherolf

[Photo courtesy of the Honda Civic Tour 2016]

     On October 4th, 2016, Demi Lovato announced that she was going to take a break from the music and the spotlight for this next year of 2017. Lovato said that she is “not meant for this business and the media”. Lovato posted this on Twitter followed by her shocked fans retweeting and posting comments. When asked by her fans on Twitter if she would be coming back to the fame, her response was not so reassuring. She stated, “Dunno. It doesn’t feel worth it anymore. I’d rather do charity work to be honest.”. In the past, she had started as a child actress starring on Barney and Friends, etc.. and it all excelled from there like her singing career. Everything was seeming to be fine but later down in the years she had been in a relationship with Wilmer Valderrama starting in 2010. The couple broke up on June 3rd, 2016. This might have been the cause of her downfall of wanting to leave the fame for a little while.

The Age of Virtual Reality

By Desmond Birch

     Recently I had the opportunity to buy the new Virtual Reality headset. It is 2016, new generation technology which is suppose to be a breakthrough. There are many versions of the VR headset such as the most popular version, “The Oculus”. You can choose from many genres of entertainment to pick from. Each headset entices you to enter a three dimensional universe allowing you to interact with various amounts of virtual objects. To enhance the experience you can purchase a Virtual Reality controller to enhance the fun. Within the next couple of years, Virtual Reality technology is to become a uprise in tech and soon allow people to step into a whole new dimension.

Alicia Key’s “Here” Album

By Amaris Rivera

[Photo Courtesy of iTunes Apple Store]

     Alicia Keys has long been a favorite in the music industry and has played the roles of singer, songwriter, actress, record producer, and philanthropist. After many delays on her sixth studio album, she released it on November 4, 2016. Over the course of the year, it has not been an easy road for her when it comes to getting her music out to her audience. Although she has been able to keep a bit of her spotlight by being on the show The Voice, her songs are not receiving the same attention they did on her previous albums. One of the singles she released earlier, called “In Common,” was not able to chart on the Hot 100. But surprise, surprise! That did not stop Alicia from putting out this new album. There are five total interludes on the album including “The Beginning,” “Elaine Brown,” “Elevate,” “Cocoa Butter,”and “You Glow.” In total, there are sixteen songs on the album, but the ones that stuck out the most to me are “The Gospel,” “Blended Family (What You Do For Love),” “Girl Can’t Be Herself,” and “Holy War.”

     “This Gospel” starts off slow and gradually becomes faster. The instrumental music playing in the background resembles city blues and connects with a personal part of her life. In the beginning of the song, she sings about certain family members in her life. This song talks about her family’s life in the ghetto and troubles with money and drugs. She provides a glimpse of growing up in an unstable home in a way that is raw and revealing. This shows the harsh realities of her life, which she acknowledges by singing “survival of the fittest” in a later verse. The song, overall, goes through the struggles she and her family faced in a way that people can understand and relate to. With the vocals, lyrics, and city blues-styled rhythm, it provided a new sound that listeners could enjoy. 

     “Blended Family (What You Do For Love)” is the only song on the album to feature another artist. The song is a celebration for families that have a complicated past. Both Keys and A$AP Rocky talk about their personal family memories in the song. She references her marriage with Swizz Beatz and shares her love for his son Kasseem Dean Jr. She sings in the intro of the song “Hey, I might not really be your mother,” and then goes on to say that that doesn’t mean she doesn’t love him. In a later verse she says that she’s there for him. Rocky’s approach in the song was moving and introduced us to memories from his childhood. He says “I believe love could bring us closer than blood,” and then continues to expand on this thought by talking about the stepmothers he had as a child. He also included support for his sisters “on welfare,” his step siblings and god-siblings. As a whole, the song’s core value was an effort to demonstrate that even though families might not be related by blood, they are related by the love they have for each other.

     “Girl Can’t Be Herself” is a song with a strong, empowering sound. Throughout the entire song, she sings about how young women treat themselves and how it makes her “wanna cry.” She touches on some of the major gender roles that are placed on females, such as wearing makeup and heels. She attacks these roles by asking “what if” she doesn’t want to do this. She also sings about how beauty is “in the eyes of the beholder…” which can be interpreted as everyone being beautiful to somebody. In the second verse, one of the lines that stands out the most is when she sings “why are the numbers on the scale like a God to me?” This sticks out because it reflects on how females body shame themselves and, metaphorically speaking, worship the scale as a way of knowing they are pretty.

     “Holy War” is a soulful song and the lyrics pertain to healing the world. She sings about the divisions that we placed against each other. “Divided by difference, sexuality, and sin,” she sings in the intro of the song and then contrasts this in the chorus by giving a strong message of loving and caring more about everybody. This song is a call to action, because she talks about healing each other and breaking the walls between one another. This message about healing our society and connecting with each other.

     The album as a whole is very impressive and powerful. It has a nice sound and is something good to listen to. It contrasts with some of her old material such as “If I Ain’t Got You,” and “Fallin’,” but the sound is still enriching. One of the best things about this album is that when you sit down and listen to the lyrics of the songs you can interpret and understand the messages she is trying to get across. So, if you need some new music to help calm you or make you think, give Alicia’s HERE a listen.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

By Eloise Buchanan

[Photo Courtesy of Daily Express]

*MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS*

A new movie was released Friday, November 18. Part of a new series that is to be incorporated into the Harry Potter franchise. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them follows the story of Newton “Newt” Scamander, set in 1926. He is a magizoologist that travels to New York in search of a specific magical creature, a birthday gift to a buddy back in England. However, with trouble from his niffler, he runs into a No-Maj (Non-Magical, an American Muggle), Jacob Kowalski. This same No-Maj later accidently releases many of his other magical creatures in New York by unknowingly switching briefcases. With the help from Porpentina Goldstein, an ex-Auror, her sister Queenie Goldstein, and Kowalski, the four team up to find the beasts and bring them home before the Magical Congress of the United States of America (M.A.C.U.S.A.) steps in.

J.K. Rowling wrote the script to tell the story behind the well-known textbook Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. This book appeared in the Harry Potter series, set many years later, and was used for the class Care of Magical Creatures (or a good read, if you’re anything like Hermione Granger). Characters that were later mentioned in the Harry Potter series include Newt’s grandson, Rolf Scamander, and his wife Luna Scamander, née Lovegood. Their twin sons, Lysander and Lorcan, attended Hogwarts with James and Albus Potter and Rose Weasley.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was expertly executed and gave many Harry Potter fans another dose of the Wizarding World. J.K. Rowling stated that Fantastic Beasts is only one of  five movies in this spin-off series and the fans are forward to it. It’s up to the fans to decide whether they like the movie or not but it is very much alive, like the eight Harry Potter movies.