Opinion Vacations in Walcott and chasing girls on campus are distant reflections as Vampire Weekend grow up on their third album, “Modern Vampires of the City.” A classic complaint of aging is that all adults become dull and boring, and Vampire Weekend unfortunately don’t quite escape this stereotype. Suddenly the kids who didn’t stand a chance are preaching the importance of listening skills on “Obvious Bicycle,” and sharing unremarkable tales of other lame-duck adults like “Hannah Hunt.” It’s as though the conclusion of their second and premier album, “Contra,” were the final drips from their personal fountain of youth. “I want good schools, and friends with pools…I think you’re a Contra,” was a Christmas list mixed with childish paranoia and yet it worked wonders for these night crawlers. A group that once sounded as though they lived exclusively for the weekend now openly gripe about the Monday to Friday grind as they almost proudly reveal the small, but notable, aging lines on their faces. The first two singles, “Dianne Young” and “Step” continue their strange tradition of releasing the worst songs on their albums as singles. It is a precarious ploy that is either intended to maintain a healthy and manageable fan base or a method of testing the patience of their hipster loyalists. Despite the spike in maturity, Vampire Weekend thankfully aren’t quite ready to sing about driving mini-vans and hosting neighbourhood BBQ’s just yet. Their musical compass has led them even closer to the heavenly gates of Paul Simon’s Graceland, exemplified by “Everlasting Arms,” and especially “Worship You.” Lead singer Ezra Koenig’s voice sounds incapable of anger, as every utterance is as pure and crisp as the instruments that accompany it down this growth spurt of a record. Where the group continue to flourish is their ability to incorporate traditional African rhythms with their modern-rock moxie. The shining star of the album is “Ya Hey,” a song where Koenig has never sounded so sure of himself, a certain and positive sign of the wisdom that accompanies growth. The track was made for the royalty of the jungle, a musical contribution that could characterize an African Safari atop a pair of friendly elephants. It’s the moment where your best friend announces he can longer party on a Tuesday night because he has suddenly become inundated with commitments. You can either accept that Vampire Weekend, while still down to revel in the excitement of a Friday and Saturday night, will now be looking to discuss much more profound and potentially less exciting topics than what the typical conversation on your college campus produced. Despite what Vamp fans may have wanted, the group have officially left Neverland. They aren’t Van Wilder’s, but ambitious young adults looking to move from middle of the pack to the Rock n Roll elite or better yet, “through the fire and through the flames.”
James Pavel
Opinion
By James Pavel
5. Hellcat Spangled Shalalalaa
Generally the Monkeys seem keen on appeasing only those mesmerized by Turner’s cheeky lyrics, but they finally ditch the VIP treatment and throw an all-ages party for “Shalalalaa”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAlRXC19hmE
4. Love is a Laser Quest
A rare song that is equally beautiful in its original format and as strictly an acoustic song, Turner seems to have the experience of a wise man reincarnated for centuries based on his personal reflections in this modern masterpiece.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7LtqEEQv34
3. Do me a Favour
The feverish drums are a perfect precursor to the Monkey’s incoming request. “Do me a Favor” begins as a question but catapults into a demand when suddenly the group hammer down on every instrument on set and make favors sound life-altering.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXJEDlLepD4
2. 505
It’s the stunningly honest visions that these monkeys constantly paint that make them more than just your average apes. A woman lying on a bed with her hands between her thighs sounds dull and uninteresting until Turner remarks on the common position and suddenly its a pose capable of generating a million ideas.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifZfUVp2chE
1. Cornerstone
Not unlike seemingly every visionary English band to debut post-Beatles, The Monkeys are clearly influenced by the prose of Lennon and McCartney. But while Paul and John had to experiment with drugs to truly begin to enter the realm of weird, Alex Turner seems to be naturally, and beautifully, odd. His thoughts in “Cornerstone” are breathtakingly original and as honest as a man taking an oath.
Opinion
By James Pavel
Critics have hammered Leonardo DiCaprio’s latest work, The Great Gatsby with negative criticism but it hasn’t stopped the film from bringing in an impressive $51 million in its first weekend.
The critical blundering is completely unjustified because even watching DiCaprio do absolutely nothing is grander than watching a normal man attempt amazing feats.
The film is a glamourous spectacle, with wild, ostentatious parties, elaborate and decorative outfits and slick haircuts that would look just splendid in today’s time-traveling fashion lineup .If you haven’t read the classic novel, “The Great Gatsby,” then you wouldn’t know that it is about a man who has seemingly everything, who has accomplished even the wildest of ambitions, but who does it all for the love and affection of a woman named Daisy.
It is an electric and dreamy love story, which is likely what critics disliked so vehemently. When a regular gentleman explains their quest for the hand of a lady, it can be energizing and thrilling, but also repetitive and glib. But when Leo falls in love, it is never anything short of enchanting.
Everything exuded by Leo is with the passion of a thousand poets, a man who is now a master of emotion and sincerity. He appears almost blindingly dashing in each scene, leaving men grateful that he is restrained to mingling only with only supermodels and Hollywood celebs and not us mere mortals.
The 3-D experience is also stunning, as it provides the most engaging and stimulating visuals since “Avatar.” Gatsby isn’t for the traditional summer audience who are only moved by relentless car chases and meaningless dialogue.
Gatsby is for those appreciative of love and aware of its ability to possess the soul and force it to conquer anything in order to attain the true and undeniable love of a single man or woman.
An actor who has played so many historic characters would often grow tiresome or almost unbelieving to an audience because of such a mass assortment of aliases, but not Leo.
He is as visceral as Gatsby as he is Jack in Titanic. He is as much a tourist on a beach in Thailand as he is a South African excited by blood diamonds. The only element that doesn’t seem real is Leo himself. He is and always will be, the king of the world.
Opinion
By James Pavel
It was yet another gaff-filled night for two of the NHL’s most over-rated goaltenders, Pittsburgh’s Marc-Andre Fleury and Montreal’s Carey Price.
Both have been touted as potential starting goaltenders for the 2014 Team Canada Olympic team, but May 7, 2013’s dual for worst play of the night between the two goats was a swift reminder of how horrific both are capable of playing.
Both goaltenders, who perform in a similar style, have managed stunning saves and strings of superb play in their careers but are rapidly becoming notorious for their knack of completely dissolving under playoff pressure.
No single player this playoffs has given away a game the way Fleury donated to the Islanders yesterday evening. With the lead changing back and forth, and the Pens up ahead often, Fleury continued to discover new and creative methods of allowing the opposition back in the game. Maybe the most brilliant maneuver was when he faced the puck while it was behind the net, had it deflect off of his paw and allowed it to slither into the back of the goal.
The Penguins have one of the greatest first two –line combinations to be established in the past decade and yet they may succumb to the Isles because of Fleury’s crafty ability to allow everything short of the Zamboni into the goal.
The Canadians desperately need Price to steal a game, and he has. Except the recipients of the theft are from the nation’s capital, as the Senators are on the verge of upsetting a team that should be completely dominating them based on their terrific regular-season performance.
It would be fitting to have either of the goalies fill the shoes of the legendary Martin Brodeur for the upcoming Olympic tournament. Yet although Marty has admittedly allowed the odd circus goal throughout his illustrious career, he was typically as safe as a bank’s vice between the pipes when the game mattered. Unfortunately the same can’t be said for Fleury or Price.
The 2014 starting goalie position is as available as Sean Avery on the free market. All that has been made clear so far this playoff season is that Fleury and Price have both been etched out as potential candidates for the coveted position.
Opinion
By James Pavel
5. No One Else – Weezer
Lead singer Rivers Cuomo’s dating portfolio is one of a megalomaniac tsar but at least he knows what he wants. “I want a girl who laughs for one else,” is only the beginning of his tyrannical wish list, and yet he must be commended for such outlandish ambition. “When I’m away she never leaves the house,” is a controlling boyfriend’s jail cell fantasy, but still a concept that every sane member of a relationship could happily live with.
4. Hey Jealousy – Gin Blossoms
If only every dude who drank six cocktails too many could express their jealous rage the way the Gin Blossoms managed to do. “Hey Jealousy” is a poem acknowledging the wrench twisting and turning this gin flower’s fragile heart, but in typical fashion, jealousy never replies back. Nobody gives the silent treatment better than this poisonous yet overwhelmingly powerful emotion, and although Gin Blossoms call jealousy out over 15 times throughout this 90s rocker, unbeknownst to them, jealousy put the phone off the hook a long time ago.
3. Every Breath You Take – The Police
Yes, I am 100 per cent aware that this song is notorious for being authored through the eyes of a pseudo-stalker. But really, what is a stalker? Yes, they follow one around and conduct a pile of illegal and disruptive mayhem, but is the core of their behaviour not derived from jealousy? He is watching you because he can’t have you. “Can’t you see you belong to me?” They are the words of someone who is convinced that the apple of their eye has gone astray and it is their duty to bring clarity. Their views are diluted and their actions are unethical, and their heart is flooded with jealousy.
2. Jealous Guy – John Lennon
Never has jealousy been so delicate, yet Lennon manages to rock it back and forth as if it was a newborn child and not a monster inside of him. It’s the sober second thought after a night of raging insecurities and unfounded betrayal. Nobody ever wants to be labeled a jealous guy, yet rarely is one completely insusceptible to feeling pangs of anger when someone is smiling too much in the direction opposite of one’s tender eyes.
1. Mr. Brightside – The Killers
Whenever emotion is explained in explicit detail like never before, a song is bound to become recognized for generations. The Killers conveyed the hurricane of pain and fury that encompasses jealousy like no other author or poet could foster, and managed to do it with a grin on their faces. Where usually music is most successful when it is broad, “Mr. Brightside” is hauntingly specific. “I just can’t look, it’s killing me,” puts the listener in an exact time and place and transforms Brandon Flowers’ words into personal details of an unforgettable moment. Flowers’ begs to be released from the grasps of jealousy as he pleads “let me go.” He can’t have her, at least not anymore, and he knows why. Destiny is calling, and love will have to wait, and the notion that he will find love again is why he will always and forever be, Mr. Brightside.
Opinion
By James Pavel
5. Honey, this Mirror isn’t big enough for the two of us
It’s MCR at their most raw and vulnerable, a state that many die-hard MCR fans will eternally prefer. It was a band teetering on unpredictability and a singer making love to wonderfully-harmful toxins, the first chapter of MCR was immediately pulsating and made listeners eager to conquer any new additions to this faux-romantic novel.
4. Cemetery Drive
They were a rock band capable of swindling heartbreak into moving melody while keeping kids prone to screaming their lungs out content. A band obsessed with the darkness of death that inspired thousands to live, it was the juxtaposition of bleakness and MCR’S never-say-never sound that made this group a fleeting, but notable superpower in the past decade of music.
3. Famous Last Words
Venom shaken with bravery, it was fist-pumping bravado for youth finally ready to exit the shadows. It was the brief period when MCR ruled over the rock n’ roll kingdom, with their dark-royalty attire acting as perfect wardrobe for a group briefly considered the modern-day Queen. “Welcome to the Black Parade” was a wonderful choice for the opening single, but the knockout blow that made Black Parade their greatest contribution to music was this second single. “Famous Last Words” was mountain-scaling guitar riffs and lead singer Gerard Way practically spinning his new-found crown around his finger while fist-pumping a torch engulfed in inspirational fire.
2. The Kids from Yesterday
“Now this could be the last of all the rides we take,” was the opening line of their last great song. MCR went from standing on the edge of skyscrapers envisioning nightmares out loud of taking a step further to dreaming in Technicolor and fantasizing about the joys of summertime on their final album, Danger Days. “Kids from Yesterday” is a jackhammer of synth drilling a hole to nostalgia and understanding as Way makes a modern-day adage resembling “you don’t know what you got til’ it’s gone” when he roars, “You only hear the music when your heart begins to break.”
1. Helena
The video was November Rain for the post-Marilyn Manson audience not afraid to dabble in something less satanic and more melodic. Nothing has ever been so simultaneously pleasing and eerie as Gerard Way’s pleading in the rising action to the climatic final stanza of “Helena.” It was the closing song for a career that was only just beginning. A band eager to fill the shoes of long-gone Smashing Pumpkins, they would deliver a satisfying discography that although will no longer be increased, it leaves enough for one to loathe them, or love them with all of one’s black heart.
Opinion
By James Pavel
Signs, memos and advertisements across Calgary have increasingly ignored Canadian spelling when attempting to capture the attention of their desired audience.
A recent memo distributed by the chair of the Academy of Arts and Design program chose to disapprove of vandalism by using the word “behavior” instead of the correct version, “behaviour.”
He spelled it “behavior” because a) He is American b) He hates the letter “u”, or c) the most likely scenario, he used spellcheck and it informed him that behaviour does not enjoy having an upside-down letter ‘n’ inside of it.
Canadians are increasingly crumbling under the pressure of the red squiggly lines as they continue to correct words such as colour and centre, because the language mother ship of Microsoft Word slaps their wrist every time they commit such an un-American manoeuvre.
Many will roll their eyes at what they perceive as a trivial matter, but language is the foundation of how we as a nation communicate and separate ourselves from the 190+ countries on the planet.
We are Canadian. We are not American. And although there is nothing wrong with claiming loyalty to either nation, the slight alterations to spelling is what helps keep each proud identity intact.
Canada uses the British spelling because the great red and white was founded by the English and the French, hence why franҫais is our second language and makes guest appearances in Canadian English from time to time (ex: cul-de-sac.)
Americans are a republic and therefore hold no particular allegiance to the Commonwealth, explaining why the English language has mutated into its own version that Americans see fit to use.
Canadian English is already contending with the overuse of the term “like,” and it cannot handle another internal crisis. Canadian pride has skyrocketed since the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and this new-found satisfaction should not just be reserved for hockey games and beer chugging, but for proper usage of words such as colour, centre, and yes, behaviour.
Microsoft allows one to add words to its database, meaning that the menacing red squiggly line can be evaporated.
So tell Microsoft that it’s wrong when it screams that you have misspelled “honour” for the tenth time and include this wonderfully-extended term alongside others in your Word database.
This is Canada and we love our extra u’s and transposing our r’s and e’s.
When your American device demands that you conform to the language of the stars and stripes, remember why you wear a tuque, remember why you have three different-coloured snow shovels, remember why you think ice-fishing is fun, remember why you follow Bob McKenzie on Twitter and remember that the slight differences in our spelling is what makes us special and beautiful as the nation of beaver dams and stray deer.
