Culture Hash | Page 2 of 13 | Semi-Coherent Ramblings About Popular Culture. Every Fortnight

Track Review | Taylor Swift’s “Look What You Made Me Do”

Taylor Swift is back with a mediocre lead single from her forthcoming album, Reputation. “Look What You Made Me Do” has taken the internet by storm as fans rush to count the number of scores settled by the singer’s latest video. The song is a phenomenon, breaking streaming records and receiving eight million Spotify plays on its first day.

Produced by Jack Antonoff, formerly of Fun., “Look What You Made Me Do” is more contemporary and minimalistic than Swift’s previous album, 1989. Instead of ripping off the sounds of the 1980s, Swift instead copies Lorde’s half-sung delivery. Antonoff was executive producer for Lorde’s Melodrama and shows his hand with Swift’s latest single.

Amusingly, Melodrama displays far less melodrama than “Look What You Made Me Do”.
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21 Savage Has the Worst Song of 2017

Rapping is hard. It’s about more than rhyming words together; there are important considerations such as flow and the way you say things. 21 Savage isn’t a great technical rapper, but makes good music thanks to his captivating personality and the grim, atmospheric beats he rhymes over.

Today we are going to talk about a rap song by 21 Savage that is very bad. It’s called “7 Minute Freestyle”, it goes on for a very long time and I’d like to tell you how terrible it is.
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Rebecca Ferguson – Lady Sings the Blues | Album Review

From the archives a circa 2015 review of Rebecca Ferguson’s Lady Sings the Blues album

This is Rebecca Ferguson; you may remember her from such songs as “Nothing’s Real But Love” and finishing second during X Factor 2010. Previously, we wrote a gushing review of her debut album, Heaven, where I described her as the only credible musician to get their break from the series.

As a result of watching the majority of X Factor 2010, I developed an affection towards her and have followed her career with declining interest as she struggled to follow up her impressive start. Heaven was released in 2011 on Simon Cowell’s Syco Music, with the support of several heavyweight producers and co-writers which created memorable singles like “Glitter and Gold” and “Backtrack”. With the backing of Syco, there was a six month period during 2011 when Rebecca Ferguson became a borderline-household name and her album sold enough to go 2x Platinum in Britain. Then came the dreaded sophomore slump.

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Dunkirk – A Brilliant ‘War Is Hell’ Movie | Film Review

Dunkirk is the latest big budget World War II film, that opts to join the crowded ‘war is hell’ sub-genre. Christopher Nolan writes and directs a movie that is less about the largely-silent characters and focuses on the loud, frightening world they inhabit.

In a year of great films, Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk is the latest to garner rabid praise from the critics; a Rolling Stone review argues it ‘May Be the Greatest War Film Ever’. Many believe that this is the first serious contender for the Best Picture Award at 2018’s Oscars.
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Migos – Culture 2 | The Fake Review

2017 has been a breakout year for Migos, the ubiquitous rap group consisting of family members Quavo, Takeoff and Offset. Supported by monster single, “Bad and Boujee”, the group took control of mainstream rap in early 2017 with their album Culture which achieved Platinum certification.

Culture 2 is due towards the end of the year, Quavo’s attempt to tease the project ended in embarrassing fashion. The Atlanta rapper planned to preview some tracks on Instagram Live, which ended in tears when it became clear he’d lost the hard drive containing the album.

Let’s hope the boys had backed Culture 2 up on some sort of cloud-based storage. This is no great loss; I’m sure Migos will get together, smoke cookie in the hot box then mumble some raps about drop tops thots and they’ll be fine.

While we wait for Migos to get their shit together, we’re going to review what will be likely to feature on Culture 2:

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