By PABLO Y. MENDEZ
Sheridan High School Student
This column is brought to readers by Sheridan High School dual-credit program students and Human Services teacher Abby Williams.
Throughout the year of 2023, there have been many great artists releasing new music for people to listen to and enjoy.
However, many of these artists lack an important factor that the bigger, more popular mainstream artists have. They lack the ability to “move the needle” as they call it. They lack the ability to make an impact and elevate the status of the music industry. They don’t have the innate skill to push the boundaries of what music is and can be. While many of these artists have released enjoyable music filled with quality, none of them have been able to create an important moment in time.
There have been many great attempts throughout the year, with some examples being Logic’s album, College Park which is a Hip-Hop album filled with passion and great storytelling, or Lil Uzi Vert’s The Pink Tape, which is a fun, extravagant take on Rap and Rock music, or Daniel Caesar’s romantic ballads with beautiful melodies on an R&B album such as Never Enough.
While many of these albums are great and enjoyable, none of them were able to last in the conversation for too long. None of them made an impact strong enough to make other artists aware of the growing competition in terms of music.
However, in what many consider to be a slow year for big-name releases, an artist known as Travis Scott made his long-awaited return. After being away from the spotlight for five years after his massive 2018 release of Astroworld, an album which many consider to be a modern trap classic, Travis Scott returned with his long-awaited album Utopia.
Utopia was released on July 28, 2023. It was a massive night in the music industry. The album was the first of the year to reach 500,000 first-week sales. It broke streaming records, becoming one of the most streamed albums on all music platforms; so far it has been the only album this year to push the narrative further and “move the needle.”
Utopia is a dark psychedelic experience infused with advanced, yet dirty industrial sounds that make the listening experience one to remember for any music fan.
Songs like “Hyaena” with hardcore drums and an exceptional rapping performance, songs like “Fe!n” with cinematic and grandiose synths, or a song like “Telekinesis” with psychedelic vocal inflections are all examples of what makes Utopia the album the best of the year and one of the best of the decade so far.
Travis Scott’s Utopia is regarded as the best album of the year by many fans and critics alike and it has so far been an album that has most definitely “moved the needle.”