A callow junior freshman, Trinity Ball seems but a distant myth to me. A legendary event which takes place annually on the hallowed grounds of my beloved Trinity, a place so adversely familiar. Older acquaintances had also passed on tales of the hushed rumours which were due to circulate the cobbled paths of the college- rumours regarding who would be appearing at the Ball weeks before it was ever announced. As you can well imagine, I was suitably disappointed when no such rumours seemed to materialise this year. However, I still await the Ball with baited breath and concentrate on the two substantial acts which have been announced- Jessie J and Glasser.
Now, I’m going to be absolutely honest here. Jessie J and Glasser have never been on my list of favourites. Not that I disliked them, but more that I hadn’t ever explored their work. Of course I’d seen the music video for Jessie J’s “Do It Like A Dude” on NME while perusing the music chanels, and been intrigued by the whole aesthetic of the artist; her extroverted attitude, out-there costumery and decadent makeup. But while the tune of the track was admitedly quite catchy, I found the lyrics to be rather perplexing. All this talk of crotch-grabbing and “rollin’ money like a pimp” sounded more to me like something I would expect to hear in a 50 Cent song than that of a 22-year-old English girl named Jessica Ellen Cornish. However, on further investigation, I discovered that Jessie J is no novice to the music business, having written tracks for the likes of Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera, Alicia Keys and Miley Cyrus. She has already been announced the winner of BBC’s Sound of 2011, and been named second in MTV Brand New’s ‘Next Big Thing’. All in all, Jessie J seems like a pretty impressive act to have been secured by Trinity Ball 2011, and once she plays her hit “Do It Like A Dude”, a song to which I have now (strangely) become quite attached, she will be keeping the majority of the drunken crowd entirely satisfied.
As I’ve previously stated, Glasser isn’t an artist that I have a lot of past experience of listening to. When I searched for her in my iTunes, I came across a Delorean remix of her song ‘Glad’, which I managed to acquire by accident, as part of some complimentary playlist or other. Despite the track being quite good, and most definitely on a similar wavelength to many other bands I’m rather fond of, it seems I hadn’t bothered to amass any more of her work, that is, until I heard that she would be performing at our very own Trinity Ball in April. Without even a Wikipedia page to her name, New York-based Cameron Mesirow is daughter of Casey Cameron, founder of 70’s Boston new-wave band ‘Human Sexual Response’ (heard of them? me neither). Her experimental, electronic music, displaying a multitude of layered sounds, could be compared to that of Björk or Bat For Lashes, and is quite relaxed due to her angelic vocals, but also rather dense in places, a characteristic which can be attributed to the strict beats and bewitching synth. All in all, I think Glasser is another act that we can all look forward to at this year’s Ball.
