I often feel old, and in fairness it is because I am. But it is also your fault, students! That’s right, you all don’t get my references…I mean we all remember MySpace right…right? I will say though that Tupac has come up a surprising amount of times in my classes this year, and I’m sorry but he is NOT alive in Cuba or Haiti (high school me wanted to believe too). Still the goal of this blog is to figure out what you all like so that I can make recommendations for things you might not know you like. So I will need your help to know what to write about (talk to me or email me!), but for this edition I will use Business Insider because NO ONE knows teenagers like Business Insider. Maybe that isn’t exactly true, but they recently surveyed a group of teenagers about what is “cool and not cool,” so we will go with that. According to that survey you all like 5 Seconds of Summer (who?), Justin Bieber (really?), along with more acceptable choices like Kanye West, Jimmy Fallon, and T-Swift (I respect the G-Less style nickname). First, before you all deny liking Justin Bieber, I overheard a student the other day say, “he is actually good now!” (For me, it was all downhill after “One-Time”). Second of all, I’m very mad at you all for making me listen to 5 Seconds of Summer; I was so upset that I almost took 5 points off grades for each of my students (I ultimately resisted the urge).

After listening to as many songs I could tolerate, I have two album recommendations from all the way back in 2005. First, is the one that I had not thought of in a long time but caught my eye when scrolling through my ITUNES, Cartel’s album, Chroma. The songs are catchy (writing that phrase makes me feel old), and upon a re-listen I was surprised that it actually kind of holds up overall, although I’m pretty sure all of their follow up albums are not good. The second album is one that I often still find myself listening to a lot, Everything in Transit, by Jack’s Mannequin. It gets Mr. Lesser’s official seal of approval. Give them both a listen and let me know what you think!

Bonus Recommendation!! Groundhog’s Day just passed and if you missed the Comedy Central marathon, I highly recommend watching Groundhog’s Day, starring Bill Murray. It is basically a perfect movie.