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(11/17/09 11:01pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Switchfoot has produced seven albums in 10 years, and I was starting to think the band’s sound was getting stale. Well, I was wrong. Switchfoot delivers with the new album “Hello Hurricane” because of a diversity in songs that still pull the album together as a whole. In the past, Switchfoot has achieved greatness seemingly without too much effort, but “Hurricane” feels a little different. “Needle and a Haystack life” is my personal favorite, and an energetic start to the album. It ties the older Switchfoot sound with the new. The title track “Hello Hurricane” is one of the album’s lesser efforts, but does bring a heavy personal message the other songs do not have – the fight against the storm and the struggle to hold on. However, songs like “Free” and “Bullet Soul” don’t seem to have any solid message and are actually a little whiny. Though past releases felt effortless, the slight change in sound makes “Hurricane” one of Switchfoot’s best.
(11/11/09 5:37pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Straight No Chaser definitely has a unique sound in its new Christmas album. Even with classics like “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “Jingle Bells,” the songs show off the a cappella group’s style.When you hear the beginning of the song “We Three Kings,” you think you are listening to the “Mission Impossible” theme song, and then suddenly they start singing the traditional lyrics. “Santa Clause Is Back in Town” sounds like a cross between Elvis and the Beach Boys, which spices up the song and the album a little. My favorite song on the album, “The Christmas Can-Can,” is an interesting spin-off that’s very clever in its own right. “Donde Esta Santa Clause” and “Who Spiked the Egg Nog?” are not traditional holiday fare but are fun, upbeat songs that add pizazz to the album. “Donde Esta Santa Clause” features a salsa sound that stands out in the crowd, and “Who Spiked the Egg Nog?” is an appropriate and entertaining song, especially for this group.
(10/20/09 9:01pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Five for Fighting is best known for catchy piano melodies and John Ondrasik’s melodic voice as found on mainstream hits “100 years” and “Superman.” Just like past albums, “Slice” features key piano work that makes the songs unforgettable. “Slice” features a better flow than previous Five for Fighting albums, but the songs still share those strong, upbeat and reflective messages on efforts like “Note to the Unknown Soldier” and “Hope.” But there are actually a few more straight-forward, hook-filled pop tunes on this album, like “Love Can’t Change the Weather,” which feels like a classic love song. The album is generally more light-hearted (and even slightly humorous at times), and that’s an interesting but welcomed change. Though many of the songs on “Slice” are overshadowed by the few really great ones, the overall result is still enjoyable. Who knows if any of these songs are going to become very mainstream, but “Slice” does feature a lot of catchy melodies that should catch Top 40 attention.
(10/07/09 9:53pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>With past albums “Saturate” and “Phobia”, Breaking Benjamin kept improving their style with stronger guitar riffs and improved vocals. However, that all seemingly stopped, as “Dear Agony” is severely disappointed. Though there are some hard-hitting tracks this time around like “Crawl,” it has the same brooding message as all the other songs on the album. “Dear Agony” is full of hard-hitting lyrics that you can’t help but to sympathize with, but as the album keeps going the songs sound exactly the same.Hell, I thought “Without You” and “What Lies Beneath” were the same long-ass song. All the efforts have the same catchy guitar riffs, strong angst-ridden lyrics and catchy choruses. A number of these songs are fine and good radio-rockers, but “Agony” features a little too much of the same.
(10/01/09 2:43am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Anyone who loved Three Days Grace before and did not want them to change will still love them now. The popular Canadian band’s new album, “Life Starts Now,” has the same angst-ridden style as their old albums. For all those Three Day’s Grace fans, there are no surprises here. This album, like all the others, has the same angry, intense lyrics and the same attacking guitar solos. The album starts out strong with the great energy but taxing lyrics of “Bitter Taste.” The first single, “Break,” features hard energy with sharp sounds and fiery vocals. However, their songs start to depreciate throughout the rest of the album. “The Good Life” is just weird, with its odd vocal changes and choppy sounds that just don’t really belong, and “Goin’ Down” is just as awkward. It is not the work of a great lyricist at his best. Three Days Grace, despite their lack of originality, will probably do very well with “Life.” They still have the same hard-hitting lyrics that every Three Days Grace fan loves, even if it’s the same old story.
(06/11/09 12:58am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Busta Rhymes traded in his dreadlocks in 2006 when his album “The Big Bang” came out and turned him into an angry thug. Since “The Big Bang,” his career has not been the same. The new album “Back on My B.S.” is a move back in the right direction for Rhymes’ career, but it still lacks the luster that once roped in fans. This new album is a return to the old formula, but not all of the songs succeed. Tracks “Give em what they askin for” and “Kill Dem” consist primarily of screaming and yelling with no obvious meaning. “Arab Money” is an ignorant ethnic stereotype and an unsheltered racist anthem. Many of the tracks on the album are suffering from an eagerness to please and lack the creativity he once possessed. The lyrics are forgettable and the strong beats that most rap listeners thrive on are missing. However, not all the songs fall under that unfortunate category. A club song like “Arab Money,” even with its ignorant stereotypes, and “Sugar” stand out, with rattling lyrics and decent beats.Songs like “We Miss You” and “Sugar” possess depth and meaning, which are lacking in many of the album’s other tracks. Even with a few failures on this album, there are a few successes that will keep Rhyme’s career afloat for a little longer.
(05/08/09 3:16am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The new Rascal Flatts album sounds remotely the same as all their other albums, which never surprised fans. In “Unstoppable,” the songs are still the same anthem ballads the trio has always recorded and it doesn’t matter that the new album follows the same equation.Listening to a Rascal Flatts album is like going to a good friend for advice: You can always trust them. Any Rascal Flatts fan would be upset with any kind of change. Like most of their other tracks, the song “Unstoppable” starts in a slow romantic ballad and then eventually builds to a fun anthem with the chorus. The chorus is usually the strongest part of the song. The good-natured beginnings grab the listeners with their passionate and slow starts and then surprise the listeners with strong playful choruses and endings. On the other hand, some of the trio’s songs are sultry and passionate; the song itself is slow and gentle. The track “Things that Matter” is a bittersweet song about the important things in life, like a father watching his daughter in her ballet recital. Those are the songs that touch the hearts of many. Although the songs still follow the same distinct pattern and the album can get very repetitive, the style and repetitiveness of the songs grab the listeners and they become forever fans.
(03/25/09 3:33am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The Maurer School of Law will be joining other law schools around the nation by establishing their Public Service Program, voluntary pro bono work to be completed by the students.Starting this fall, students will be encouraged to complete 60 hours of pro bono work while they are in the law school, according to an IU press release. The goal is not mandatory, but the law school hopes students will provide law-related services around the community without pay or academic credit.“Helping other people is very personally fulfilling,” said Judy Reckelhoff, Pro Bono Fellow and JD Candidate 2010 in the law school. “This type of volunteer work can help people with low income get the legal help they seek because it is usually their only access.”Rachel Yates, JD Candidate 2009, said she agrees.“The law school has always had a commitment to volunteer for the community,” Yates said. “Now the school wants to institutionalize commitment and launch a formal program.”The law school offers extensive clinical opportunities, but this program can give a student the initiative to volunteer in other local organizations including Tenant Assistance Project, the Inmate Legal Assistance Project and the Protective Order Project, according to the press release.Reckelhoff said she is part of the Protective Order Project, which helps victims of domestic violence and stalking. Yates said she hopes the number of free services student groups and institutions already give will grow.“In this time of economic downturn, it is a good service and resource for people to have who cannot afford legal help if they need it,” Yates said. Some other law schools do have programs where the service is required, Yates said. The law school is mimicking the American Bar Association, where the volunteer commitment is also voluntary. The aspiration is 50 hours a year for a lawyer after law school. Yates said she thinks the students should volunteer because they want to, not because they feel they have to. “In my opinion, the volunteer work should be voluntary and it should also be an ethical commitment,” Yates said.The pro bono work is also a way for law students to get job experience.“Law school focuses on the hypothetical,” Reckelhoff said. “The volunteer work brings everything that the students learn in the classroom to a state of reality and gives the student real life experience. It also looks good on a resume.”Reckelhoff also stated that it is popular for first-year students to volunteer with various organizations to gain experience.“We haven’t gotten much law student feedback on the program yet, but we think it will be great feedback,” Reckelhoff said. “The likelihood that most law students are providing these kinds of services with other programs in the community is very great. We want to encourage other students to do the same and recognize the students that are already committing their time to these services.”
(01/23/09 4:26am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>After three weeks of classes in the Lee Norvelle Theatre and Drama Center, students and faculty will have to find a new place to meet. The Theatre and Drama Center is undergoing renovations starting this semester that will last well into next year.“It is incredibly old; the walls are falling apart and the floors are warped,” said Serena Eduljee, a voice student with a class in the theater building.Jonathan Michaelsen, chair and producer of the Department of Theatre and Drama, said the department needed to move the classes out of the building for safety. Most of the staff and the classes ended up in the Theatre Annex located at 306 N. Union St.“The Theatre Annex is a long hike away,” Michaelsen said. “We opened up one classroom in the old building for the staff to start their classes if they wanted to, but once the construction is underway, it will be too dangerous for the classes to be in the building. We are trying to make it convenient for the students and instructors and make the move as humane as possible.”Michaelsen said the contractors are drawing up an estimate for the cost of the building renovation next week.A black box theater is part of the renovations, Michaelsen said. Students will use the space to create and rehearse their own work.“The classrooms are in need of repair,” Michaelsen said. “This renovation will also open up new space for additional classrooms and for additional rehearsal space for musical theater and voice students. The new building will open up new public performance.”Michaelsen said the cinema will hold film archives, and he said he wants it to be useful for IU students. The new cinema will be located where the old theater was and can be used as an art house where students can show and preview their independent films. Since the theater building is directly next to the IU Auditorium, the auditorium will also be affected, Michaelsen said.“There will be more loading dock space, which is a much better way to unload scenery,” Michaelsen said. “It will keep labor costs down, and it is much faster and efficient.”Doug Booher, general administration director for the IU Auditorium, said the IU Auditorium staff is “excited about the renovation.”“The completion of the theatre and cinema will liven up the area and bring more attraction to this side of campus, and it will adequately serve the needs of the touring shows and events,” Booher said. Booher said that the IU Auditorium plans to make full use of the loading docks, and it will connect the stage with the rest of the theater building.Booher said he does not think the renovations will have much of an effect on the auditorium.“The auditorium will not shut down. It will still be able to support events,” Booher said. “Most of the work will be down in select staging areas. We will still have a full calendar of events while the renovation is going on, and we intend to support all the events as best as we can.”Students are willing to accept the renovations because of what they will bring.“The building has great rehearsal space and good places for classes and workshops,” Eduljee said. “It is a really useful building. The renovation will hopefully make it even better.”Michaelsen agrees with Eduljee. “Ultimately, it will be exciting for the theater department to have all this new space and technologies,” Michaelsen said. “It will be disruptive, but I think everyone is just willing to live with it.”
(12/15/08 2:13am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Before entering a class, many students go the extra mile to find out how hard that class will be – by frequenting RateMyProfessor.com, plaguing roommates and friends with questions about past reading assignments and even rearranging schedules to get the easiest classes that start after 1 p.m.But there is an easier way to predict a grade in next semester’s class.Campusbuddy.com is a site, launched in October, that offers more than 80 million official university grades at hundreds of campuses nationwide. It has the most up-to-date and accessible collection of grade distributions anywhere.But what many students don’t know is that IU also has a Web site similar to Campusbuddy. Students can go on the Web site to look at the grade distributions of classes by professor, course or section number.The IU grade distribution information is located on the Office of the Registrar web page, www.registrar.indiana.edu/gradedist. According to the Web site, the access to the grade distributions of the classes was first implemented in 1976 by the Bloomington Faculty Council after discussions concerning grade inflation in certain classes. The grade distributions were only available to the school deans, department chairs and faculty.The Web site includes several elements in addition to grade distribution, said Roland Cote, the associate vice provost for Enrollment Management and Registrar, in an e-mail interview. “These reports served as the basis for current finals grades reports that are made available to students at the end of each term,” Cote said.Because of this huge change, new data files were designed that were separate from the original historical files, and they are made available on the Web by course and section. Some of the information included for each class on the Web as of Sunday are the number of students that withdrew from the class, the percent of the students that were majors, the average grade of the class, the average GPA of all the students and the instructor.The Web site was created because much of the faculty wanted these grade distributions posted for other faculty members and even students. “The Bloomington Faculty Council wanted it,” said Linda Shepard, senior associate registrar. “They thought it was appropriate for students to have access to.”The Web site is not only used for looking up grade distributions. According to Shepard, it is also used for faculty tenure and faculty promotions.Students have access to this information to help them search for classes as well as to see which teachers they’d like to have. Shepard said the registrar’s office doesn’t survey students so she doesn’t know if students use it to take easier classes.“It is not surprising that some students have used the site in conjunction with academic advising, degree progress reports, the planner, the schedule of classes, online course descriptions and other information when planning their enrollment,” said Michael Carroll, senior associate registrar, in an e-mail interview.Cote said the grade distribution information along with the context information is only one resource that students might refer to when choosing classes. “The University is committed to providing students with a network of advisers who have a number of resources at their disposal to guide students through the course selection process,” Cote said.
(12/10/08 7:13pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Former Geto boy Scarface brings his solo career to a close with his new album Emeritus. Though he declared his retirement years ago, this time seems a little different. Although the album isn’t full of the traditional farewell tales, it basically shows the consistency that Scarface has been known for over the years. However, in a slight departure of his other albums, this one has more of a bitterness that recalls a sense of loss.There really is no sense of finality in this album; it’s the same sound we’ve heard from Scarface before. One would expect that a final record would be filled with diatribes about a long career, but aside from some bitterness in a few tracks, nothing can label Emeritus as a retirement record. That’s probably because we all know rappers never truly retire. Each track carries a lot of bitterness and anger, especially “Forget About Me,” which is full of spiteful lyrics. “Can’t Get Right,” “Soldier Story” and ironically “Redemption” all look back on Scarface’s career with bite. His thuggish lyrics and sound have a flow his fans can count on.In his supposed farewell album it seems like Scarface is looking back on his career in a negative way. He’s always been able to provide solid, yet underrated hip-hop; and though he strays from that a bit here, it all still works. His well-crafted compositions and strong, jabbing lyrics and rhymes in “Forget About Me” and “Can’t Get It Right” are the standouts, but even so, a cold feeling lingers over them. But either way, it doesn’t feel like the final album.To the surprise of no one, Emeritus doesn’t sound much like a farewell. Scarface provides tracks that fit right alongside most of his catalogue, but there isn’t enough here to really stick out as career-ending or defining. It’s all great, but it’s also a shame that he didn’t put a proper stamp on a great career.
(12/03/08 10:22pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Many who watched “American Idol” last season probably thought David Cook would become the next Chris Daughtry. If you were one of those people, you were correct. Although the “Idol” winner has a similar style to Daughtry, he brings his own personal touch to the pop-rock mix. With help from producers Rob Cavallo and Brian Howes, Cook creates a melodic sheen that is a perfect fit for his husky vocals. The emotion and expressiveness in Cook’s voice is perfect for his self-titled debut’s booming anthems like “Light On” and “Declaration.”For an initial, post-“Idol” release, Cook really does deliver. His husky, distinct voice powers each track, and all of them are what everyone who watched him on “Idol” was waiting for. While rock songs like “Declaration” show his strong resemblance to the aforementioned Daughtry, others like “Time of my Life” present a softer sound. Cook’s ability to switch back and forth will give his fans exactly what they want.Though most tracks follow the same simple verse-chorus-verse structure, Cook’s strong vocals keep them from being completely boring. The more popular of these songs are “Bar-ba-sol” and “Mr. Sensitive,” which have an anthem-like energy that makes the repetitious pattern not as noticeable. Cook’s appearance on “American Idol” may drive comparisons between him and Chris Daughtry, but his more distinct voice and personal vocals make this a strong debut and one of the better initial releases from an “Idol” competitor.
(11/19/08 4:51pm)
Even at her young age, Taylor Swift has really captured the country-pop sound solidly on Fearless. Surely her success will carry forward, and she will continue to grow as an artist.
(11/11/08 2:29am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>There were at least 50 people in the stands at University Gym on Election Day watching the Volleyball Intramural championships.Many IU students were in the stands cheering for their favorite teams and their friends.“There usually isn’t as big of a crowd for volleyball as there is for football or basketball,” said Stacey Lee, graduate assistant for intramural volleyball, dodgeball and indoor soccer. “It was really nice to see all the students that came out to the games to cheer on their friends on the teams.”The championship games were played in University Gym, which is usually the gym where University teams and clubs play, not intramural teams.“It was nice that our Intramural Championships were played in University Gym,” Lee said. “We were able to make announcements of both the teams and the officials, and it made the environment a competitive as well as a recreational environment.”Six leagues were part of intramural volleyball, including CO1, CO2, Women 1, Women 2, Men 1, and Men 2. The CO leagues are the mixed men and women leagues. The CO1 league is more competitive than CO2 league, and the CO1 league can have at most two players from a club team because the players on these teams are usually more experienced. This is the same for the Women’s and Men’s leagues as well.The CO1 championship winner was the Gary Westsiders against the Red Rockets with a match score of 2-0. The CO2 champion was Team Patrick against Mafia with a score of 2-1. The Women 1 champion was Bad News Broads against Spandex Senioritas with the match score 2-0. The Men 1 championship winner was Alpha Tau Omega against Cali Kids with the match score 2-1. The Women 2 champion was Dig This against Ballers with match score 2-1. Finally, the Men 2 championship winner was Beta B with the match score 2-1.The teams are formed mostly by students and are led by a captain. The team picks its own name and then register for one of the six leagues. The team plays against other IU students on their own teams. There were more than 50 teams, and each of the teams made the playoffs. The teams were eliminated once they lost.“With the different leagues, it gives everyone a chance to play on the intramural teams,” Lee said. “A student can play with only girls and only guys or on a co-ed team and be in the correct leagues for their skill level. Most of the students enjoyed being on these teams. It brings students together, and it helps them to meet new people.”A big misconception about intramural volleyball is that only fraternities and sororities form teams, but people can form their own teams and register to play with them.Many teams, such as the Electric 6, are made of freshmen from the same dorm floors.“We got to meet new people, and it was fun playing them,” said freshman Cecily Barajas, a student who played on Electric 6. “It also helped us to bond as a floor.”Intramural sports are also a good way for people to play on competitive teams without having to travel.“For a team with no experience, intramural volleyball really helped us and we had fun doing it,” said Freshman Chelsea Sue Bessler of team Electric 6.Lee said intramural sports are a way for IU students to play against other students and have fun in a relaxed environment.