What My Students Like! (High School Album Review Thread) • Page 4

Reviews are in!

I was deeply moved by how much some of my students connected to the albums they chose. One student chose "I like it when you sleep..." by The 1975 and spoke candidly about her own depression and anxiety and how the album has become a safety net for her during the recent weeks in which she was experiencing some severe depression. She spoke a lot about how she can connect to Matty embracing his "weirdness", which makes her feel more comfortable in her own skin.

I got some kids into Bon Iver, Sufjan, Zeppelin and Nas, which is super dope. They were a lot more thoughtful than I was expecting and gave my kids a chance to get their personal thoughts/feelings/issues on the page as they reflected about the music.

I'm gonna open it up to my 10th grade to see if they want to pick out albums for extra credit, we'll see how well that goes.

 

They can try to take the arts out of education all they want, but as long as we have teachers like you, I think it'll be ok. Thanks for sharing this project with us.

 

What was the reaction to JEW? I know for me, I was obsessed with them in high school and they still remain one of my top three favorite bands of all time to this day.

 

A few of my kids rated the following 10/10:
Bear vs. Shark - Right Now...
Bon Iver - For Emma
Sufjan Stevens - Carrie and Lowell
Nas - Illmatic

 

That student still didn't turn in her project but I'm not expecting much in terms of critical analysis. She did it because she heard "Hear You Me" on a TV show.

 

Haha, I know. She tried to say that the song was about a breakup or something and I had to explain the Mykel and Carli story to the class

 

Must have been an easy conversation to have lol. Kind of a huge difference between what she thought and what actually happened.

 

Typically I would've just let her run with that interpretation because I just finished talking to them about the Death of the Author theory and how intent doesn't matter when you attempt to interpret something, but she tried to say she read in an interview the singer wrote it about a breakup and I had to correct her.

 

She must've thought she could get away with it, like not even you would have known that there's no way that's true. Sounds like she didn't research it at all. Kids, right?

 

moving forward with this as a legitimate club starting soon! hype

 

Club started today. First album....


Left and Leaving

 

Illmatic this week!

 

I really need to make this happen at my work. Haha.

Did you get a good response to The Weakerthans?

Also do you need a permission slip for Illmatic or anything, given the language and shit?

 

I had a catch-all permission slip at the beginning of the year to cover my ass.

Weakerthans response was tepid. Kids "liked it" but no one really said much. Illmatic had a better response. I'm gonna start making them write responses starting next week so I can get a vibe for how they feel

 

I get so many kids asking "Did you hear the new _____________ tape?" or "What do you think about Tom Petty?" that I feel like I should make them put their money where their mouth is that way. Haha

Super cool idea for a club.

 

To be fair I think most people I've talked about Left and Leaving about would say it's a grower. The songwriting is strong but the lyrics are a big part of that album personally and that's hard to get from a first listen. Do you have like a syllabus type thing for albums or are you picking based on whatever feels right?

 

I'm just winging it at first but I'm hoping to give them some music criticism to take a look at and hopefully build up to some sort of solidified rubric/voting system so the kids can share albums they feel passionately about

 

My sympathies when you have to listen to Hollywood Undead and XXXTentation

 

Nah the kids interested don't mess with too many artists like that thankfully. Might have to sit through 21 Pilots tho

 

A kid once prepared notes to come talk to me after school about 21P after I trashed them in class.

 

Going back and forth with today's album. I'm seeing BN Wednesday so it'd be cool to play them one of their albums since no one knows who they are, just can't decide which. YFW would be good for a lot of them because a few kids are super into blink and the like and would get down with some pop punk, but Deja is the one that spoke to me most in high school. TDAG is their "best" album and SF came out this year so it's relevant. Hm

The other option is to play the first Front Bottoms album because I think a ton of them would fuck with it and I've been listening to them non stop all week

 

I'd be careful with the Front Bottoms. As a high school junior, I know a lot of my peers are thrown off by the off-tune singing. If you're going that route better to start with BN or even someone like Modern Baseball.

 

They voted on YFW lol

 

I thought this was going to be a thread of teachers reviewing music that their students listen to. slightly disappointed.

I also teach Journalism (for the first time this year and I am strugglingggggg) so I think this is a really cool idea regardless of it not being what I thought it was!

edit: read the first page and then skipped back here to write my reply. didn't realize you turned this into a club. that is so cool. are you having the kids that come to the club write too? or are you just having them listen to the album and then discuss? I feel like I have a very small population of kids who would be willing to write anything if it wasn't being graded or counted for a class.