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May 07 2012
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By Martin Hussey Music

Finals Fixat10ns: The Best (and Worst) Study Songs

Throw on a pair of sweatpants, grab your 30-pound backpack, head to Lau, pull out a computer, slap in a pair of headphones, and (maybe) start studying — it’s a familiar routine during finals season.

And if you’re like me, you’re not only looking for your music to help you study, but also to distract you from those obnoxious whispering girls next to you, lift your spirits when the work gets too cumbersome, and provide a break from the monotony of Lau and study days.

So, here’s a list of music to help provide some extra motivation for you to finish that paper, memorize that vocabulary, or finish that last problem.

Best study hits:

Perth – Bon Iver Lead singer Justin Vernon’s voice is mesmerizingly beautiful. To be mesmerized further, here is the video from the Deluxe cover of the album.

Hell of a Season – The Black Keys With all of the nice spring weather out there, tt’s a hell of a season to try to stay focused. This song, released just this past week, should help.

The Mall and Misery – Broken Bells I wrote an entire paper to this song. It singlehandedly made me productive.

Citizen – Wye Oak Soothing voice, calming instrumentals, and great drumming. All you need to study.

Glowing Heart of the World – Calexico I find that any song that reminds me of driving alone down a desert road is suitable for studying.

Traveling at the Speed of Light – Joywave The band’s name describes this song: It’s a joyful wave.

Slowdance – Matthew Dear The more you listen to “Slowdance,” the more relaxed you become. Great for lowering your blood pressure.

The Birds Part 1 – The Weeknd Such a cool song. It’s genius.

Rill Rill – Sleigh Bells This song makes me want to study drunk. It is so chill.

Adieu – Coeur de pirate It’s easier to study when you don’t know the words to the song. Unless you’re from Quebec, you will probably not understand the song.

We Are Young (feat. Janelle Monáe) – Fun. Anything that Janelle Monáe does is infinitely better than what the Glee cast can do. I also recommend the acoustic version.

Most distracting study songs:

Love On Top – Beyoncé Listening to this song will make you want to learn its dance. Stay away from it unless you’re planning on watching the music video and learning the dance from it for hours on end.

Levels — Avicii Anything that reminds you of house parties should not be listened to in Lau. Also, avoid any of the hundreds of mash-ups using this song.

Call Me Maybe — Carly Rae Jepsen I am the first person to start dancing when this song comes on. But this hit from the third place finisher on the fifth season of Canadian Idol is not productive study music. Neither are any of the mashups on this playlist.

Any song from “Glee”: I once made the mistake of dancing in Lau. Not a good idea.

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May 04 2012
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By Michelle Cassidy Campus

Making It Through Finals Alive

Let’s face it, most of us are currently riding the struggle bus. Finals can be rough, and whether you have 3 exams on the same day or 170 pages of papers to write, we believe that you can make it through somehow. But to make the process a little easier, here are some tips to help you survive the next week and a half before glorious summer.

Self Control Whether it’s your own self control or the app (personally I recommend the app, it’s much more reliable), find a way to focus on your work. Get off Facebook, quit scrolling through old whatshouldwecallme posts, stop making memes of your friends.

Give It a Rest Make sure you’re not sacrificing too much sleep. I’m not going to tell you to get your 8 hours a night or avoid cramming because that’s not realistic, but think twice about pulling an all-nighter and going straight into an exam. You know how loopy you get around 4 a.m.? That’s probably not the best state to be taking a test that’s worth 25% of your grade in. Try to sneak in a few hours to refresh your mind. Sleepyti.me is a helpful tool that will calculate the best times to plan to wake up so you’re not groggy when you get up.

Find Your Groove Even the quietest of quiet spaces is going to have some background noise. Whether you need to tune out the loud conversations of Lau 2 or just drown out that guy who brought a selection of crunchy snacks into the quiet room, have some music on tap that will help you focus. Classical music is great (personally I’m a fan of the Lord of the Rings soundtrack), but if that’s not your thing go for something that won’t make you want to dance or sing along. See our Finals Fixat10ns from last semester for a start.

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Apr 25 2012
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By Beth Garbitelli Miscellaneous

Where will you be this Saturday?

This weekend is sort of like a choose-your-own-adventure book (remember those?). It starts with a fabulous introduction, in the form of all-out Georgetown Day celebration and the second part is up to you. Will  it  be delightfully preptastic Foxfields or chill times at Sweeetlife?

FOXFIELDS

At this point in the week, you’ve probably already made your decision and that’s the first con against Foxfields.  You can’t just spontaneously decide the morning off that you’d like to engage in a day of garden party style debauchery. Everyone wants to party with a hat on but getting to this Charlottesville shindig requires weeks of preparation.

And let’s be honest, the bus ride is the most important part of the trip so if you’re not with a good group of your friends, it’ll be much less of a fun time.

But the whole premise of Foxfields is still genius. It’s a champagne brunch on wheels to a racetrack full of people all in the same mindset.  I think it’s pretty hard to go wrong with that recipe.

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Apr 20 2012
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By Beth Garbitelli Music

FRIDAY FIXAT10NS: Impatience

It’s that in-between time of the school year, almost the end not quite. You’re ALMOST done with that final project. It’s ALMOST Georgetown Day. Admit it, you’re impatient.

Countdown — Beyonce “London speed it up, Houston rock it.” This song is so frantic and  bouncy it makes being impatient a little bit less unbearable.

Annie Waits —  Ben Folds This song is about a girl waiting for some guy to pick her up, I think. Not sure, since all of Ben Fold’s lyrics can be sort of abstract.

Whole Love — Wilco A song about loving and leaving and moving on. Sort of how some of us seniors feel about almost being done with Georgetown.

Crash Years — The New Pornographers Okay, some more obtuse indie song lyrics in this one. What are the crash years? Is that like…a reference to The Great Depression? I’m just not sure. But it definitely seems to be about being in-between here and there.

Here Comes My Baby — Cat Stevens  I.LOVE.THIS.SONG. It’s more about liking someone who’s unavailable but that’s also a type of impatience. And it’s so gosh darn positive about it.

Changing– The Airbourne Toxic Event  Part of impatience is wanting things to change. So that’s what this song is about.

We Used to Wait — Arcade Fire A great song about waiting. Plain and simple.

Changes — David Bowie And another throwaway about change, “turn and face the strange, ch-ch-changes”

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Apr 13 2012
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By Martin Hussey Campus, Music

Friday Fixat10ns: Puppy Love

FIXAT10NS: Puppy Love from thehoya on 8tracks.

All day long, we’ll be celebrating J.J.’s arrival on campus with a series of cute puppy-related posts (and with a special version of our banner and logo). To get you ready for the arrival of the new puppy on campus, we’ve compiled the best dog-themed songs we could think of.

The Dog Days Are Over — Florence and the Machine Actually, Florence, the Dog Days are still alive and well here on the Hilltop. But, then again, Dog Days are good a good thing up here.

Love Dog — TV On the Radio There are some bands that write a disproportionate amount of their songs about dogs. TVOTR is one of them. (They’ve got at least two about dogs and one about wolves.) Like us, they must love dogs.

Who Let the Dogs Out — Baha Men Then there are some bands that only make one song, and that one song becomes the go-to song for anything about dogs. No dog-themed playlist this century would be complete without this unfortunate 2000 chart-topper.

My Friend — Dr. Dog A great feel-good song to welcome Man’s Best Friend to campus.

Neighborhood #2 (Laika) — Arcade Fire  This song is evidently about a dog. (Laika means “barker” in Russian and was the name of the dog they launched into space in 1957.)

Sitting, Waiting, Wishing — Jack Johnson OK, this isn’t about a dog. But dogs sit, wait and wish all day, and we have a dog named Jack. (I admit, this song’s relevance to the  playlist is tenuous at best.)

Walking the Dog – Fun. Speaking of walking the dog, the Jack Crew must be excited to walk a puppy instead of Jack, a 9-year-old cripple who often refuses to walk out of the New South courtyard.

Dog Problems — The Format Jack is going into surgery with a broken ACL, and as any former resident of New South 4 will tell you, he drools all over the common room, chokes on paper and gets a little too excited when he sees any form of cardboard detritis (or the mascot costume, for that matter.)

Guns and Dogs (Acoustic) — Portugal. the Man This song describes better my dad’s college experience in Wyoming than mine. One thing we had in common was the dog though. (Albeit, mine is Jack and his was an Australian Shepard/Husky mix he adopted as a junior).

Puppy Love — Lil Bow Wow I love the dog barking in the background. Anyone remember this 10-year-old rapper from our grade school days?

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Mar 29 2012
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By Kyle Short City

Thursday Night D.C.

We’re past hump day and its not Friday yet, but you still want to go out. Thirds isn’t what it used to be. Your friends have 8 a.m. Friday labs. So what do you do?

This Thursday, I initially would have suggested seeing Nero, who I missed at Ultra earlier this year, at the 9:30 Club. Unfortunately, like most 9:30 performances recently, the show sold out relatively quickly. For those of you are heartbroken as I am, there are still other great things to do in the city tonight. While it may not be on a crowded dance floor, dancing to music that when the drop comes, you can’t help grinning from ear-to-ear at the options in the District this week.

District Underground doesn’t have a listed event, but you can bet that some of those people that join me in missing the Nero concert will be dancing to some pretty heavy electronic/dub on the crowded dance floor downstairs. The District is in Adams Morgan, so after you’ve worked up an appetite from fist pumps and crazy dance floor antics, there are a lot of great late night options, check out my other post on Adams Morgan.

If you’re in the mood to make music, or want to attempt to perform renditions of your favorite songs, there is always Karaoke. While my knowledge of D.C. Karaoke is limited, I have been to Peyote Café in Adams Morgan and Café Japone, which I’ve mention before in a post about the Dupont Circle area. If you can get past how dingy Peyote Café is, and how expensive their beer is, it really is a great place to hangout on a Thursday night. If you’re looking for cheap drinks though, you really can’t beat Café Japone. Also, what is up with every karaoke establishment calling themselves a cafe?

Black Cat, 1811 14th St Nw, a couple blocks Down from U St, is having what they call, “Drink and a Movie.” If you still want to go out, but don’t feel like dancing or shouting over a crowded bar, this may be a cool change of pace, and with drink specials, it’s totally acceptable to be drunk at a movie.

Hopefully it continues to stay warm outside so you have more incentive to get off campus. There are so many great things happening in D.C. tonight, so these suggestions are by no means the only great things going down. But go forth and experience the city because you’ll regret it if you don’t.

Photo: http://soundlogik.com/nero-welcome-reality-lp/

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