Now that it’s prelim season (and will be until finals roll around), Cornell students look more stressed than ever. You can see the pressure on their faces in libraries and cafes all over campus as they furiously throw back coffee after coffee and exhaust packs of sticky notes in their textbooks. We are now a community of people on edge, hovering around the next available seat, shooting death glares at those who dare plug their MacBook in to the last available outlet.

With all the work we have to complete, alleviating stress becomes hard. Personally, I unwind with music and tailor playlists that I feel will help my productivity. For example, when I can’t even bring myself to look at an assignment, I turn on a few songs to pump myself up. A recent favorite has been the song “Big Bank Hank” by Blue Scholars, a laid-back hip hop track that appropriately asks, “Whatcha gonna do today?” The song is seriously groove-inducing, and for me, perfect for easing my way into long study sessions.

When I study, however, I need something a bit more low-key. Usually, my artists of choice are Ella Fitzgerald, a classic, and Joanna Newsom, a folkie harpist oddity. Other times, when I really need to buckle down and blast through a paper, I prefer classical. I think it works, too; one night, after a long battle with writer’s block, I listened to Mozart and completed two pages in half and hour. Maybe I just needed a good motivator.

I recommend checking out the website 8tracks.com, a website similar to Pandora, for more ideas. The site features playlists created by its users, and you can find almost anything. Just type “homework” into the search bar, and sample playlists such as “Music to do Homework To,” “Homework Jazz,” “The Perfect Homework Music for Hip-Hop Lovers,” including others.

When you finally close the books and can study no more, I also suggest to look up “End of The Week,” a chill track by Dean and Ravo that pretty much describes every college student’s life. We all need a little relaxation during this stressful stretch of time, no matter the form.

I think I've diagnosed the problem. As Cornell students, we understand, better than anyone else on this planet, the definition of the word "stress." If anyone was confused about the precise meaning of this word, he or she would be provided with a fuller understanding of it by observing Cornell for the day than by looking it up in the Oxford English Dictionary. Despite the daunting papers and vicious cycle of prelims, we need to remind ourselves that this isn't it. In light of an entire life of inevitable strife, genuine joy and momentous experiences, yesterday's prelim was a trivial bump in the road. Cornell's problem is a serious insufficiency of smiles.

A smile can replace a million conversations. A shy smile betrays inner feelings, allowing the stranger to catch a tiny glimpse. A jubilant smile announces exceptional news, pleasantly infecting anyone lucky enough to see it.  A flirtatious smile thrives on attention, holding nothing back. A surrendering smile has the power to instantly evaporate days of built-up stress.

Even babies innately curve the corners of their mouths. Their smiles begin in their playful eyes and carry over into a toothless opening between unworn lips. Lovers smile in their seemingly eternal youth, and well into old age, when the very first hint of a smile elicits dozens of familiar wrinkles. These beautifully defined lines reveal years and years of displaying sincere smiles in honor of deserving moments.

When we think of how many doors are open to us and closed to other people, when we think of the day we met our best friend, when we think of the first person we would call on a bad day, when we picture the collective group of people we define as our support system, we cannot help but smile.

And when we think of those who feel like they have absolutely no one, we cannot help but wish to grace them with the radiance of a thousand flawless smiles. Why not at least grace them with our own? It takes less than a second of our time, less than an ounce of conscious effort. The beauty of a smile is that it is completely in our power to withhold or freely surrender. “’Cause hopelessly the hope is we have so much to feel good about.”



The room is dimly lit with glowing lights along the walls of the room, and the ceiling hangs low with a silvery-netted drape. Raised platforms are scattered around the perimeter, each one occupied by a super scintillating scantily clad go-go dancer, most of them wearing nothing more than a gold shimmering cloth that sparkles and shines in the lights as they dance around and flaunt their assets for the crowd without a care in the world. Up towards the front of the room is a stage equipped on either side with sturdy speakers busting out poppy dance beats for the steadily growing sea of people in various stages of crazily costumed stretching from the stage to the door. What is this mystical place you ask? No other than Cornell’s very own Willard Straight Hall, made over almost to a point of being unrecognizable this past Saturday night at the 2011 annual Filthy Gorgeous party put on by the university’s Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer (LGBTQ) community.

For the affordable price of three dollars, this late night dance party had a lot to offer, something attendees seemed to know in advance since a line had already formed at the event’s opening time of 10 pm and nearly reached out the door by midnight. For one night Filthy Gorgeous transformed a normally antique looking student organizations building into a flashy hip nightclub. The event spanned three rooms, one as a main dance floor, another for drinks and photos, and a third room that served as an exclusive VIP room. With the combination of those three, the building was alive with energy throughout the night. The dance floor vibrated with energy from start to finish, with the turntables spinning beat laden tunes and inspiring the most outrageous of dance moves on the floor up until the event’s closing time of three am. Well-known drag queen Chi Chi LaRue served once again as the event’s host, and did a wonderful job of keeping the crowd riled up and enjoying themselves. The entire staff worked together amazingly to keep the party going until the wee hours of the morning, and not one of them ever seemed to break character or look tired of dealing with the massive crowds and constant movement. Besides all of the technically impressive stunts Filthy Gorgeous pulled off from the surreal décor to the consistently high-energy staff, one of the most exciting aspects to note about this event in particular was the whole atmosphere. At a constantly work and stress filled institution like Cornell, it is rare to see so many students and fellow community members gathered together for one night strictly for the purpose of going crazy and partying hard. The whole mood and atmosphere of Willard Straight Hall on Saturday night seemed to leak excitement, sex, and ecstasy. Filthy Gorgeous brought to light a different side of the Cornell community, a group of liberal minded people who weren’t afraid to get down with go-go dancers, cheer for strip teases, or fight other crowd members for the free porn being chucked into the audience from the stage. Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” played over three times over the course of the night as a self-proclaimed anthem to this year’s Filthy Gorgeous, and the words rang true each time: all of those assembled at this magical event were “born this way” and should be out celebrating it. The brightly themed costumes of the staff and many event goers seemed to reflect the overall feeling of the night, a feeling of utmost self confidence and acceptance that enabled people to let go and enjoy themselves in a judgment free zone.

2011 may shape up to be an incredible year for Lupe Fiasco. His highly anticipated Lasers, a long album in the making, finally drops on March 8.

Talk of the new release began nearly a year ago when new video “I’m Beamin” popped up on his official YouTube account to promote the record. Ten months later, the album’s release date is finally solidified, and Lupe fans can finally wipe the worry and concern from their eager faces. Over the past few months, Lupe has been teasing us with more official Lasers, posting another video on YouTube for “The Show Must Go On” and releasing four album singles on iTunes.

After the hiatus, if Lupe fans aren’t excited yet, they need to check out what’s on its way. “The Show Must Go On” is an automatically catchy new track that samples Modest Mouse’s “Float On” and is the perfect song to hype up anxious audiences. The video follows Lupe down what is possibly the longest hallway ever, until at last he reaches the stage, the curtain opens, the crowd cheers-- and the video stops.

Of course the fans wanted more, so Lupe  delivered the bass-heavy “Words I’ve Never Said,” a less-catchy but harder, more politically-charged track. And as recently as February 22 Lupe released the incredible “All Black Everything,” a socially-conscious song tracing the history of racism in America. The poignant song is no less than beautiful, rapped over a hook that sounds straight out of a Disney fairytale. The content is typical Lupe, but the sound is fresh, and hopefully a good indicator of what we can expect out of the rest of Lasers.

Be sure to listen to the full Lasers on March 8, and don’t forget to wake up early on March 1 to purchase your tickets for when Lupe Fiasco himself arrives at Cornell, Sunday April 17!

Stories From Lyrics takes a  single line from a song, and develops it into a creative writing piece. The lyric is used as a jumping off point and source of inspiration.

It's simply an audible breath that takes us slightly longer to deliver. It's a tiny bit of air we hold back for a few extra milliseconds before we allow our bodies to let it go.  A sigh is something drawn out longer than it needs to be.  It is deliberate, yet undeniably soft.  Although it leaves our bodies through an instinctive set of motions, a sigh reveals our inner thoughts. It is a messenger of many meanings, a reliever of our deepest misgivings.

The common association with a sigh is relief.  We sigh when reality turns out to be far more agreeable than the outcome we mentally pictured.  We sigh when the buildup of negative thoughts in our heads comes pleasantly crashing down.  In that single prolonged breath, we gladly release every ounce of pessimism in our bodies.  Our dreadful expectations turn out to be nothing but silly exaggerations.

Another appropriate time to sigh is when that bad day we thought would last forever finally succumbs to the laws of nature and ends.  The sigh at the end of that day says, "Thank God it's over." It issues a tone that is more grateful than celebratory.  It is a way of unloading  piled-up mental stress and physical strain.  This specific type of sigh is the last conscious breath we breathe before we pass out on the nearest relatively soft surface.

The worst kind of sigh is issued as soon as we realize that something has fallen short of our expectations.  It leaves our body when we fully take in a situation, its pros and cons, and are helplessly unsatisfied.  It gives disappointment a sure and steady voice.  This is the kind of sigh elicited when our hard work doesn't pay off, when giving so much of ourselves seems stupid in retrospect, when love doesn't turn out to be a two way street.  It's less fulfilling than the sigh at the end of a bad day, and it’s far less lovely than the sigh of sheer relief.  It is "the deep and dying breath of this love that we've been working on."

Photo courtesy of Universal Motown and Derrty Entertainment -

Your questions have been answered. The Slope Day Programming Board announced at the Student Assembly meeting that hip-hop extraordinaire Nelly will grace Cornell with his presence on May 6th, Slope Day 2011. Picture this: You’re lounging on the slope, basking in the glory of the annual event, when suddenly it starts to get warmer, and warmer…Oh it’s getting hot in here, so take off ALL your clothes.

Nelly has had hits, such as “Ride Wit Me” and “Hot in Herre” that will bring us a nostalgic feeling, and recently, “Just a Dream” reached the number three spot on the US Billboard Top 100.

On a day when attending class is out of the question and the party starts at 9 am, we ask ourselves, “Does it really matter who actually performs?” Yes. Yes, it does. Last year’s event gained some negative hype, as the general consensus about Drake’s performance was overwhelmingly unenthusiastic.

The slope has seen its fair share of hits: The Pussycat Dolls, Gym Class Heroes, Snoop Dog, and Kanye West. Those days are long gone, and many of the students who experienced such musical wonders have moved past their college days. We only hope that in years to come students will talk about the Slope Days of our time with high praise. It’s time for a comeback, and we can keep our fingers crossed that Nelly will provide us with a purely slopetastic performance.

So I don’t know if you’ve heard but the Coachella Music Festival sold out a couple of weeks ago. Major bummer. Although realistically I probably wouldn’t have been able to procure $1500 to fly out and attend, it was still super disappointing. For those of you not from the Best Coast (typical L.A. kid right here…), Coachella is an annual three-day music festival in Southern California. To gain official hipster status, it is crucial that you attend. Lots of music, face painting and questionable activities go down; it is fantastic. So here we go, a playlist in honor of my Coachella dreams. RIP.

NOACHELLA PLAYLIST

1. Echoes – Klaxons
2. Crown on the Ground – Sleigh Bells

3. This Boy’s in Love (LifeLike Remix) – The Presets

4. Crazy for You – Best Coast
5. Dancing on My Own – Robyn
6. Austere – The Joy Formidable
7. Courtship Dating – Crystal Castles
8. Pink Thoughts – Moving Units
9. Walking on a Dream – Empire of the Sun

10. Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels) – Arcade Fire

Have you ever put your music library on Shuffle? If you haven’t, do it. DO IT RIGHT NOW. It truly is a gift from the music gods. I have rediscovered so many of my favorite songs and artists through those little iTunes arrows, and rediscovering good music is kind of my favorite pastime.  Recently, shuffle has led me to reminiscing on my glory days of high school. I was pretty cool back in the day...my friends and I were nominated for coolest crew senior year. Unfortunately, the “Wii Night Krew” was robbed of a victory. ANYWAY, here we go, a playlist dedicated to the glory days. Enjoy!

OH NINE SO FINE PARTY PLAYLIST

1. Gifted – N.A.S.A featuring Kanye West, Lykke Li and Santigold
2. The Royal We – Silversun Pickups
3. Pro Nails – Rusko
4. Take On Me – Reel Big Fish
5. Beautiful Life – Gui Boratto
6. Jude Law and a Semester Abroad – Brand New
7. Warp 1.9 – Bloody Beetroots featuring Steve Aoki
8. Hide Away – Midnight Movies
9. I’m Not Alone – Calvin Harris
10. I Love College – Asher Roth

Nelly’s sixth studio album was supposed to be an attempt to revitalize the recently crippled music career of the persona that is Cornell Hayes, Jr.

Known by his studio name Nelly, he was one of the most successful rap artists during the early 2000s beginning with Country Grammar in 2000 and followed by Nellyville in 2002.

The “sophomore album curse” did not apply to Nelly, but the third time proved to be the charm with his disasterous Sweat/Suit album that literally threw his career down a stairway to hell.

Nelly 5.0 dropped on Nov. 12, and its success appaears to be “just a dream.” His revamped rap career is just a dream. What he pulled out was the purest of garbage that not even the smelliest hobo would come in contact with.

If you enjoy autotune, commercialized radio songs and catchy dance tunes exclusively used for suburban nightclubs, Nelly 5.0 is the album for you!

The songs sound more like techno gone bad, and something you would here more of at Burning Man than from a man who is supposed to represent hip-hop. Is his new genre RAVE?

Rap was predicated on lyricism, but Nelly used 5.0 as a way to brag about how many bottles he can pop in VIP, hooking up with a girl in a relationship, you know the standard degrading of women that perpetuates the stereotypes of hip-hop.

So join in on the hoe-down, but this isn’t square dancing. What’s in store is 14 or 15 bucks that would be better spent on a Justin Bieber album; because his music is actually better to dance to.

Songs like “Long Gone” featuring Chris Brown and “Gone” featuring Kelly Rowland only stand as a microcosm for Nelly’s career in music: well…long gone.

His collaboration with T.I. on “She’s So Fly” is about as bland as overcooked pot roast, and “Move that Body” turns autotune into “death” tune.

When you start coming out with songs called “1000 stacks,” you know his career is about as spoiled as week-old potatoes.

Why not one million stacks? What should be counted is the amount of minutes one would be wasting listening to another gimmicky dance album.

One star out of five for this laugher. The one star is simply a sympathy point for Nelly, who is a talented and innovative artist, yet has sunken under the music industries low standards of music.

5.0 puts the “rap” in crap. Focus more on entrepreneurial endeavors, because music has officially come second for Nelly, and even his real name (Cornell) puts my school’s name to shame.

Not even worth listening to for free off Youtube. The Red Cross is always in need of some money.

Who’s ready for some hip-hop rave music? Whoever raised your hand please put it down.

While blasting our ipods thru our headphones, we take little account as to what makes a song really click with an audience. What makes us like it? Enjoy it? Love it? Dance to it? We place so much emphasis on the artist who’s singing or rapping and the lyrics and the ‘sick punchline’ that you’ve just made your facebook status, that we leave out one of the most important aspects to hip hop: the production. I mean, maybe you’ve caught Drake shouting out “40” a couple times in his songs, or Gucci Mane giving props to “FATBOI”, but how many people actually go looking for songs made by a certain producer, rather than a particular artist? Most people are unaware of the talent, skill, and importance of good hip hop producers. This Saturday, you have an opportunity to get insight into what’s behind the scenes of your favorite tracks, as NCPC brings us “9th wonder: Life Behind the Boards and the Battle of the Beats”.

9th Wonder is a Grammy winning producer who got his break thru on his work with Jay-Z on the ‘Black Album’ and his collaboration with his hip hop group Little Brother. He’s gone on to collaborate with many artists ranging from Lil Wayne and Drake to Erykah Badu to Wale to Ludacris. 9th Wonder’s unique production style consists of sampling “oldies” from artist such as Al Green and Curtis Mayfield and giving them an urban vibe, creating smooth and soulful beats. 9th Wonder currently resides in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he produces music and also does college lectures at Duke University.

In bringing in a legendary producer, Cornell couldn’t resist but to show off a few of its on beat ‘masters - in - the - making’. Following up 9th Wonder will be a competition of both Cornell and local producers in a “Battle of the Beats”. You don’t want to miss this.