Author: Emma Weidmann

Celebrating Black History Month in Waco can mean visiting Black-owned restaurants and businesses, but there are a host of other events and learning opportunities on campus and throughout the city all month long.

If you could take a time machine to 1985, you would hear people praise the ’50s for its nostalgic sound, organic vocals and generally clean lyrics. It’s easy to fall into the trap of looking at music in such a retrospective way, but the truth of the matter is that music is constantly evolving, and many criticisms of modern music are just pretentious and border on prejudice.

Pop music takes the crown this week, with new releases showcasing originality, catchiness and flair.

We’re almost two weeks through the new semester. If your classes aren’t causing you pain yet, here’s your chance to get out into Waco and see what it has to offer — before all your time is taken up in Moody Memorial Library.

Raise your hand if you have ever felt personally victimized by a movie soundtrack.

The indie music world was busy this week. There’s new music from festival favorites like Declan McKenna and Noah Kahan as well as alternative pop kings Bleachers.

Syllabus week is upon us, which means classes will be handing out less homework now than they will for the rest of the semester. Here’s a list of things to do to get reacquainted with Waco while you have the time.

Between trying (and possibly failing) to find your new classes and standing in an hourslong line in the bookstore just to grab a $300 textbook, you’re going to need a good playlist to get you through. Here’s some of the best new music you may have missed so far this year.

Baylor’s music and entertainment major was scrapped in 2014 after the music industry tanked a year prior. But this semester, Baylor’s Sales Strategy in Sports and Entertainment major has brought the music and entertainment focus back.

It’s here. Finals week — the week we’ve all been dreading and a hopeful sign that the semester will soon be over. While this week is sure to be filled with frantic studying and caffeine-induced panic attacks in Moody Memorial Library, music is the one thing that everyone on campus will be using for motivation and stress release. Here are some top new tracks for every finals mood.

We’re heading into the last week of classes before finals season is in full swing. Here are some activities to do in Waco to take away some of the pressure of studying for exams — and to get you out of Moody Memorial Library for an hour or two.

“What’s really cool about Waco is that a lot of times, it’s such an intimate experience without having to force it to be an intimate experience,” Riddle said. “That’s just the way it is here most of the time, and I think that’s something that’s really special to a scene like ours.”

If you put your life on pause during Thanksgiving break like the rest of us, it’s time to press play on some of the new releases you may have missed during the week of rest and relaxation. Get ready for this one.

It’s time to bury the idea that the common way of shortening the word Christmas as Xmas is somehow offensive. This way of spelling Christmas does not have secular roots as many suggest, and it does not take Christ out of Christmas.

Dr. Josh King, director of Baylor’s new environmental humanities minor, said the new environmental humanities minor has one simple goal in mind: to balance humanities and science to get a full look at climate change and inspire action.

I think the real issue here isn’t even the blatant highway robbery that musicians are subjecting their loyal fan bases to. It’s the fact that we’ll fall for it.

We’re in the homestretch this week. On Friday and Saturday, thousands of students will be taking a bus, a train or an airplane to head home for Thanksgiving break. Of course, nothing says travel like creating a playlist to get you through the trip.

Looking for something to do during the last week of class before Thanksgiving break? Check out this list of events going on around Waco.

Before the camels and the sweatshirts and the light shows — what was Christmas like at Baylor for its first 120 years?

If you’re staying in Waco over Thanksgiving break, you’ll be thankful for the amount of events going on in the city to keep the boredom away. Here are some to check out in the 254.

Compared to those days as a fourth-grader when all I wanted was an American Girl doll that looked like me and good hot chocolate at the last-day-of-school party, there was something lackluster about Christmas as a teenager.

‘Tis the season to panic when it comes to shopping for loved ones. But this year, the work has already been done for you. Here’s a definitive gift guide for all the different types of people in your life: the sorority girls, the indie boys and everyone in between.

John Lennon and Paul McCartney sang together for the last time in The Beatles’ newest and final song, “Now And Then.” How was it possible to revive the voice of Lennon — and of George Harrison — on a new track?

There are just two more weeks until Baylor students get to go home for Thanksgiving break. In the meantime, here is some new music to get you over the hump of last-minute exams, projects and mid-semester stress.

Though Jewish composer Gideon Klein and others were killed at Auschwitz only a few months before the camp was liberated, his story fits into a legacy of Czech musicians who defied their governments and oppressors by continuing to make and perform art in dire situations.

As the weather starts to become bearable again, Waco has lots to offer to get you out of your residence hall or apartment and out on the town. From pumpkin patches to football, theater and live music, here’s what’s going on this week in Waco.

When it comes to telling a historical story, especially one about clandestine murders and marginalized groups, audiences must put trust in the director’s research. “Killers of the Flower Moon” does not let audiences down.

“I think that Baylor bringing Primera to lead a chapel service is another sign of Baylor bringing awareness and trying to create an agenda for what it means for a university in Texas to have such a small percentage of Latino and Latina faculty,” Cardoza-Orlandi said. “I think that Baylor has become aware that should not be the case.”

If your walk to class this week is freezing cold, here is a list of hot new music to keep you warm.

And that is why Swift is relevant, time and again. Though her albums aren’t always perfect, she is successful at meeting her audience where they are. It’s no wonder why something you often hear from Swifties is that “she wrote this album just for me.”