Summer brings nostalgia for many people. Whether it’s going on vacation with family or attending summer camps with friends, memories of this time are often cherished. Another key point to this season is the music we listen to and what we deem our soundtrack for the summer. Every year the listening vibe changes based on artists and mood. Last summer it was the song “Ordinary” by Alex Warren, and the year before that it was “Espresso” by Sabrina Carpenter. These songs are very different from one another, but they still fall under the pop category. “Ordinary” is very emotional and is an outpouring of the singer’s feelings for his significant other, where “Espresso” is more of a fun and upbeat tune that makes people want to dance. With both of these exciting hits, what will the next Summer showstopper be?

Olivia Rodrigo’s new album “you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love” is set to be released on June 12, and is already showing a lot of promise. Rodrigo released a single titled “Drop Dead” from the album earlier this year and it grew in popularity quickly. With this single climbing the charts, and the success she gained from her last two albums, it is safe to assume she could have one of the leading sounds this Summer. It is also likely that the trends will stay consistent with the pop theme that has been present in previous years. 

My favorite album to listen to during the summer is Staying at Tamara’s by George Ezra. This album was released in 2018, and it has not failed me for a summer yet. The mood is slower with a more mellow feeling throughout the album. Ezra uses storytelling along with an acoustic sound to paint the listener a picture of a blissful time. My personal favorite to listen to with my windows rolled down on a nice summer outing is “Shotgun.” It talks about a simple life where the only thing the singer is worried about is riding in the front seat of a car on a beautiful day. This album is the perfect way to start a summer road trip or barbeque with friends and family. As I said before, summer brings many memories, and music holds a lot of memories as well. Therefore, instead of only playing the new hits this June, it might do us some good to hear from previous artists that have paved the way for new summer hits. All in all, when it comes time in a couple weeks, you better believe I will be riding shotgun and listening to my hit sounds for the summer.

The Fate of Ophelia
Certified banger. Keeps her literary references (Ophelia, but make it a bop), flips them into something upbeat and happy. Feels like the thesis of the whole album: she used to be sad, reflective, drowning in metaphorical rivers, but she’s been saved from her tragic fate. Now we get a pop album to celebrate. Honestly? Shakespeare could never.

Elizabeth Taylor
Solid follow-up. Continues the themes from the opener, production is fun, and the drums are BACK. 

Opalite
So much fun! About creating man-made happiness, just like opalite is man-made (and shoutout to our favorite Kansas Citian, Travis Kelce, whose birthstone this is). 

Father Figure
Taylor sings about buying her masters back like a boss. She doesn’t just own her work — she is the music industry. Scooter Braun is crying somewhere.

Eldest Daughter
Switches up the vibe (maybe necessary after the strut of the last track). Looks at why Swift became who she is. Some say the lyrics are shallow and expected more depth. Personally, my issue isn’t the words — it’s the production which feels kind of boring.

Ruin The Friendship
Meh. Not terrible, not memorable. A filler track you skip after the second listen.

Actually Romantic
Iconic. Should honestly be sung by Reneé Rapp.  People think it’s a diss track aimed at Charli XCX (a response to “Sympathy is a Knife”), which… fair. But Taylor has a long line of haters, from pop girls to the literal President Donald Trump. So this could be about anyone! Either way, it’s deliciously petty.

Wi$h Li$t
I support her dreams, but in this political climate, do I want to listen to Taylor sing about wanting to be a tradwife? Not really. Still, she’s allowed to put “wife and mom” on her vision board. (We all had embarrassing Pinterest boards in 2014, let’s not judge too hard.)

Wood
My favorite track on the album. It’s stuffed with double entendres, and while some people have called lines like “new heights of manhood” cringe, I think it’s hilarious. Let her be goofy! Let her flirt! If we survived “Me!” we can survive her being horny.

CANCELLED!
This one stirred the pot. Critics called it tone-deaf and privileged. And yeah, she is a billionaire. But here’s the thing: she owns it. The song balances her acknowledging unfair criticism while also flexing that her life is actually great. She’s not pretending to be a struggling underdog anymore, she’s saying, “Yup, I’m rich, famous, and thriving, and you still hate me.” 

Honey
Sweet but not a standout. The lyrics are solid though, about how pet names used to feel condescending, but now that she’s in love, they’re actually… well, honeyed. Cute, but not the one I’ll be replaying.

The Life of a Showgirl (Ft. Sabrina Carpenter)
My least favorite. It may be the title track, but it doesn’t capture the themes or energy of the album at all. Sabrina kills the bridge, but the rest? It feels like they cut a Midnights B-side and just slapped it here for marketing.

Key Takeaways

• Taylor Swift is a millennial, which means some lyrics are destined to be “cringe.” (Sorry, Gen Z, she’s not writing exclusively for TikTok captions.)
• She is in love. Like, nauseatingly, hopelessly, Disney-princess-in-the-last-ten-minutes-of-the-movie in love.
• She knows she’s on top, and at this point nothing can stop her (Father Figure, CANCELLED!, Actually Romantic).
• Despite the album’s title, this isn’t really about the gritty behind-the-scenes life of a showgirl. It’s about Taylor winning. In love, in fame, in life. It’s her victory lap, moving from sad-girl reflections to upbeat, sparkly triumph.

Everyone’s favorite Disney Channel icon turned pop star has released a new album, and it is blowing up the Billboard 200 charts. Sabrina Carpenter’s new album “Man’s Best Friend” has continued her pattern of irony and innuendos in songs, while mixing in her impressive vocal range. Carpenter is a world renowned pop sensation that took over the world by storm in 2022 with her first album emails i can’t send. Her song Manchild was released prior to the album as a single and fans went wild. Atwood Magazine’s writer Danielle Holian stated that the song was, “bold, theatrical, and playfully pissed off. More importantly, it feels fun.” The song is about how Carpenter tends to fall for men that act like “manchildren,” —something that almost all women can relate to.

Bold music can be seen throughout the rest of “Man’s Best Friend” as well. One of the leading songs of the album is called “Tears,” and it is one of Carpenter’s many double-meaning songs. The song centers around the idea that all a man has to do to earn a woman’s love is be responsible. She mentions examples such as doing the dishes or assembling a piece of IKEA furniture. Her words hint at a very real critique in society where women don’t always want grand gestures but would rather choose a man who listens to them.   Another song that is receiving love on this album is “When Did You Get Hot?” This song is centered around a scenario where Carpenter runs into an old friend that she didn’t find  attractive as a young girl. However, when she runs into him  later she realizes that he has “become hot all of a sudden.” This cheeky song is meant to highlight the emotions a person can feel when it comes to running into an old acquaintance with a new look. Whether it be after you have had a glow-up or the other person has, there is always some level of surprise and satisfaction for either party.

Despite the album’s success and songs landing spots in the top 3 of the Billboard 100, Carpenter has repeatedly faced criticism for the album’s cover photo. The picture is of her on all fours as a man holds her hair as a leash. Sara Delgado, a writer for Teen Vogue, stated in an article that, “Many have pointed out the image bears a strong resemblance to ‘misogynistic ads from the ’60s.’” and “others claim that the photograph is intended for the male gaze.” However, even with this criticism brought forth by fans, the album is continuing to earn a top spot on the Billboard 100, and in the hearts of listeners everywhere. This new wave of testing boundaries in music is continuing to grow in popularity, and it looks like the singing powerhouse Sabrina Carpenter is just getting started.

We all like to complain about our classes. There are too many readings, the professor is unpleasant or has high expectations, the material is boring or too complicated. I think we all know deep down that most of the time we do this it’s not because the class is actually that dismal or draconian, but because we just need to complain as a way to cope with things being what they are.

Not me.

I have rage in my heart against the CTI system that Jewell has put in place, and I have an absolutely clear and unbiased view of the way things work. Thus, everything I say about CTIs here today is not just a “rant,” no mere expression of personal frustration, but the pure, unadulterated truth, and I expect things to change around here.

Disclaimer: I’m not talking about 100-level CTIs. Gen-ed courses are a pretty normal college requirement, and I think 100-level CTIs do a great job of giving people the background they need to think critically in their other classes. My beef is with the requirement of three different 200-level courses in three different disciplines. I haven’t experienced a CTI Capstone yet, so I can’t directly speak to them, but if you have, feel free to leave a comment about your experience and whether my frustrations apply there as well.

First of all, why is William Jewell College on a different system than the rest of the known universe in terms of CTIs? I have so many friends, and I’m sure you know these people too, who have either tried to transfer out of Jewell or into Jewell and realized that they are an entire semester or even year behind because CTI credits don’t count towards your degree anywhere but here. People who want to receive an education partially from Jewell and partially elsewhere are directly harmed by our current CTI system and have difficulty graduating on time, which I believe is something we should be trying harder to avoid.

Second, 200-level CTI requirements can be overly burdensome and sometimes, frankly, ridiculous for those of us in more intense or unusual degree programs. For example, I’m a double major, and one of those is music – I’m always at the 18-credit limit and really should be doing more. To go over that limit is to pay more, which I can’t really afford, and CTI 200-level courses are 4 credits each, keeping me from completing other courses related to my major on my preferred schedule since that space in my course schedule is already taken up. Not to mention the time, textbook price, and mental commitment each CTI saps from me. Perhaps some people have extra time and credit space in their schedules and want to take a class outside their major. Awesome. Do it. Personally, I don’t want to, and I especially don’t want to pay to, and I especially don’t want to be paying to do so at the cost of courses that I actually want and need to take. It’s an unnecessary burden on a very special and cool person (me).

Some people have told me that CTIs might be inconvenient, but they’re good for me and teach me critical thinking, so I should suck it up and stop being a little b**** about it. I will not. First of all, I think we’ve all experienced CTIs that certainly didn’t take any critical thought or inquiry, CTIs from which we learned only that the world is cruel and sometimes you have to get up at 8 AM for a class that teaches you a whole lot of nothing, where you don’t know anyone,you are hungry and sleepy for two hours and that’s just how it works, buddy. (Just imagine how complain-y I’ll be as an old person.) But also, aren’t all the courses at Jewell supposed to be teaching us critical thinking? Isn’t that what the multiple 100-level CTIs we took were all about? Why do I have to take a religion course (meh) or a political science course (disgusting and revolting) on top of my other courses in which I learn to think critically or else I can’t graduate? A liberal arts college should not try to mold people into its own image, but instead should remember that to a large extent, it is still a service that we, the students, select and pay for. If we lived in a utopia and had a good system to track CTI credits as well as unlimited time and resources to spend on education, the CTI system would be more likely to produce well-rounded citizens, but because of the issues outlined above, that’s simply not what’s happening. Therefore, the control of our higher education, to the largest extent possible, should be in our own hands, the hands of the consumer, not in the hands of the people who profit from my choices – or lack thereof. This is how services work; if you went to a Subway to build your own sandwich and they also made you pay for an extra drink and side that you didn’t want, it doesn’t matter how delicious and nutritious that extra side and drink are – you would feel cheated out of your money and suspicious that Subway is becoming authoritarian.

In summary, given that Jewell’s 200-level CTIs do not transfer credit either to or from other schools and that for many of us, CTIs limit opportunities within our actual fields of study by taking up time, energy, and credit space, my opinion is that they should not be a graduation requirement. I’m all for allowing people to take CTIs as electives, but for some of us, extra work just isn’t an option if we are to stay on track and really hinders our ability to get our majors completed. Since colleges and universities under capitalism are a service that the students consume, we should be in charge of our own educations and what goes into them as much as possible; CTIs are an extra expense on our receipt that we never added to the cart. I’m thankful that some CTI restrictions are lessening, such as the new addition that the three 200-level CTIs we take do not all have to be outside of our majors, but the current system is not useful for us and feels, to me, obsolete and authoritarian. Sometimes, you just need to vent to a good friend or perhaps the entirety of the Hilltop Monitor’s reader community, and then you realize that it wasn’t such a big deal after all. Not me. I am enraged and furious, and will probably die early due to a heart condition associated with high levels of chronic anger and stress. 200-level CTIs are dangerous, Cardinals. Be careful out there.