![The winter guard team makes fifth place at the state championship finals in the Denver Coliseum, March 30. The team performed to Barnes Country's “Glitter and Gold,” lead by coaches Margo Sanford, Blair Bickerton and Anna Orgren. In their class there were a total of nine groups participating, and the top five who made it to finals received a plaque. “[Walking onto the stage] is very nerve-wracking, but also very exciting as well. When you first start color guard there's a lot of anxiety and uncertainty when you first perform in front of an audience, but once you've done it for a while, it starts to become the best part of the season,” Ella West ‘25 said. “It's very fulfilling to see an audience react to something you've put your heart and soul into.”](https://rockmediaonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Both-socal-media-nd-website-main-1-1200x846.jpg)
![April marks the 25th anniversary of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, created by the National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC). This month is to spread awareness of the harassment, assault and abuse that happens around the world. The symbol that represented the month was a teal ribbon; however, some survivors of assault create different symbols and movements like the TikTok trend in 2022, where survivors would tattoo Medusa on their body, in honor of her backstory in Greek Mythology. “I don't think [this month is known] at all. I rarely see anybody talk about it. I rarely see much of an emphasis on posting it online, or much discussion about it, and I feel like there needs to be way more discussion,” an anonymous source said. “I think just validating every experience that a person has gone through, regardless of the degree of it, the severity, is an essential step into making sure that people are aware that this is a very real problem in a society and that we need to do better in addressing it.”](https://rockmediaonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/IMG_0011-1200x900.jpg)
![Lesbian Visibility Day is April 26, and it’s a holiday to celebrate the lesbian community of the world. Lesbian Visibility day was established in 2008 by many queer activists and organizations who sought to raise more awareness for lesbian history and culture. “So this is why during Lesbian Visibility [Day] we celebrate and center all lesbians, both cis and trans, while also showing solidarity with all LGBTQ+ women and nonbinary people,” Linda Reily, in an article written by her, said.](https://rockmediaonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Lesbian-Visibility-day.jpeg)
The Weeknd’s “After Hours” Review
An Album of the Year Contender, Cheering up the World in a Time of Despair and Fear
March 31, 2020
The Weeknd has done it again. Abel Tesfaye, better known as The Weeknd, is an R&B artist from Canada. In his sixth studio album, The Weeknd has made an instant classic album that fans have been waiting on for four years. He teased his new album, After Hours, by releasing three singles since November.
The album itself is amazing to say the least. In the past, The Weeknd addresses themes of love and relationships in his music by singing over R&B slow beats. He continues to sing about the same topics but over more trap and pop beats on the new album. For example a song where you want to get up and dance like “Blinding Lights” actually has very sad and dark lyrics like, “I can’t see clearly when you are gone.”
His ability to sing over these beats allows this album to have almost no skips at all. This album has so many capabilities that you could lay in bed and cry to it or you could be out and for lack of a better word, vibe to it.
Some notable songs off this album include the title track, “After Hours.” This song is about Abel’s heartbreaks as he sings about them over a dark production. He sings about these relationships and missing them over this underlying 808 beat to give off a dark vibe.
A notable two-song run is “Hardest to Love” straight into “Scared to Live”. The production on both of these songs are amazing as it is a dark, pop beat but Abel is singing extremely sad lyrics about his relationships. “Scared to Live” really gets into your mind and the sad lyrics make you want to text every person you ever had even a crush on. If you are in the mood to cry then I wholeheartedly recommend that two-song run.
My favorite song of this album has to be either “After Hours”, “Scared to Live”, or “In Your Eyes”. Like I said before, the production and lyrics on the first two songs are just so amazing that I have to keep on replaying those songs. On “In Your Eyes”, he changes it up a bit and sings over a jazz beat. The whole second half of the song he is singing about a girl he misses while a saxophone plays in the back and that’s just amazing to me.
Overall, this album is amazing and is definitely going to contend for the Album of the Year. The Weeknd continues his legacy of an amazing artist and he cheers up the world during a time of despair and fear. My go to songs of this album are going to be “Scared to Live” or “In Your Eyes”.
Key Tracks: Hardest to Love, Scared to Live, Alone Again, Faith, After Hours, In Your Eyes, and Too Late.
Overall Score: 8.5/10