Entertainment

Last Tuesday, ASUCI hosted this year’s Aldrich Park After Dark concert, which featured performances from Cheat Codes, YBN Cordae, Marc E. Bassy and Shaboozey.

Under the light of a bright moon, UCI students danced their post-midterm stresses away to contemporary R&B, EDM, and remixes of popular songs at UCI’s annual spring music festival, Summerlands.

Billie Eilish has always made it difficult for fans and listeners to pinpoint her definitive music genre. Pulling all sorts of elements from rock, pop, indie, hip-hop, R&B, and EDM, each of Eilish’s songs are hardly single-genre works. But that’s exactly how she wants it to be.

“Dreaming Lucid” is more than just another indie bedroom pop album, it is an indication of where young Latinx artists can seek refuge.

Despite a last-minute venue change, Vundabar with The Red Pears and The High Curbs delivered a wild, varied, and unforgettable set on Feb. 16 at La Santa.

FIDLAR’s latest release “Almost Free” bleeds counterculture in its lyrics and looks to find new ground within the pop-punk genre. The album deals with modern day issues like phones, social media, gentrification and the hyper-political climate the world find itself in.

Weezer’s “Teal Album” had a surprise release on Jan. 23, and the tracklist is just as surprising as its drop.

YouTuber StarWarsTheory’s fan film “Vader Shards of the Past,” was copyright claimed by Warner/Chappell Music (a Disney music publishing company) on Jan. 14. Essentially, this meant that they would be adding advertisements to the free movie, and all the revenue made from it would go to Disney.

In a year that saw the premature deaths of Mac Miller and XXXTENTACION, the faltering of gate-keeping artists like Kanye West, and the proliferation of drugged-out, teenage depression raps reaching even greater heights, Cole’s “K.O.D” struck the hip-hop scene with an impartial, mature, and sober clarity.

As the world we occupy manages to keep deteriorating into morbidity, music seems to be following the same trend, growing more grim and serious. However, in this world of grime on Dec. 7, the Michigan funk quartet Vulfpeck broke through the darkness with their highly anticipated eighth studio album, “Hill Climber”. The album features the group’s original four members Jack Stratton, Theo Katzman, Joe Dart, and Woody Goss along with brilliant regulars in Joey Dosik, Cory Wong and Antwaun Stanley. The band also continues its newfound tradition of featuring other talents like Louis Cole, Monica Martin, and Mike Viola to present some modern minimalist funk.

Besides the fantastic music, it was awesome to watch passionate people envelop themselves in their art. The ensembles all clearly had fun. Even if they hadn’t performed as well as they did, isn’t that all that matters?

UCI a cappella group Vermillion Vocalists' Fall Showcase boasted talented new members, classic holiday music, and spectacular, debut competition tracks. Listen to all the highlights of the evening and hear from VeVo members about the show and what's in store for 2019