Author Archives: Erin Vanderhoof

Adele has always seemed like an unlikely pop star to me. As in, she’s not perky and I’ve never seen her participate in any choreographed dance sequences. Her dark and demure image is, however, a bit opposed to the formulaic, upbeat, jazzy singles of hers. She’s always been presented as deep, but her music hasn’t »

Josh, a Yale sophomore on full financial aid, said that his suitemates last year — whom he described as “sons of rich businessmen” — often took money for granted. He recalled one experience vividly. He was moving out at the end of the year when he heard one of his suitemates’ parents tell their son »

“Animal” by Neon Trees is a very popular song. Right now, after having spent 21 weeks on the chart, it is No. 15 on the Billboard Hot 100. “Animal” is also a very bland song. I’m pretty sure that I have to hit snooze every time I listen to it. The chorus includes the lines »

Are you even the slightest bit cynical? If so, please disregard this blog post entirely. This, much like Taylor Swift’s newest album Speak Now, was not meant for you. But if you find beauty in the sappy, or if you fell hard in love as a teenager, or if you are a teen girl in »

Yale has a surplus of musicians but a noticeable lack of a visible and cohesive music scene. Even the Yale Music Scene blog is defunct now — after less than a year of activity. But something may be brewing. Last weekend, I saw Plume Giant play three shows in a span of four days. The »

Planetariums were almost certainly made to screw with me. There is no other reason that someone would think to erect a huge fluorescent dome in an otherwise innocuous space if it weren’t meant to be a strange experience. The creator of planetaria wants me to be completely confused and disoriented. He wants me to feel »

Unlike the professions that tend to attract Ivy League graduates in droves, careers in music tend to be slow-starters. Many Yale grads that are also aspiring musicians have had to exercise the virtue of patience in the time since their graduation. “Both music and journalism are currently in the shitter,” Theo Spielberg ’10 said in »

Being in an elevator in an office building is a singular experience. Inside these upscale metal boxes, the degree of interpersonal awkwardness is absurd and your ride is scored by the most universally abhorred music of all time. The piped-in smooth jazz or treacly Muzak is designed to be placid and completely inoffensive, but it »

Sometimes I realize that eventually people my own age will be running the world and it scares me. Can you imagine us, these kids who have spent their whole lives tweaking out on the Internet and grown so accustomed to instant gratification, actually DOING something? And then there are times when I’m okay with the »

I’m not entirely sure when the DJ went from being a mere intermediary in musical experience to a bona fide cultural meme. It started as a profession — the disc jockey in his huge headphones with a smooth voice at the local radio station circa 1950 — and has somehow morphed into a lifestyle. That’s »

Americans just don’t “get” curling. It may come as a surprise to many Americans watching the Olympics that people actually cheer during curling matches. In fact, it may come as a surprise to some that curling involves spectators at all and that it’s actually a sport and not simply some very bizarre cult gathering that »

I’d bet many people who walked into the Whitney Humanities Center for the Sex Week showing of “Midnight Cowboy” Thursday night were lured by what is perhaps the films most sensational accolade: It is the only X-rated film ever to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Knowing this is a bit of a red »