“Welcome to the North,” may make you want to go south for the winter. The Music’s first release since its popular self-titled debut loses sight of itself as it grabs too far, too fast, trying to top its predecessor. Pop-ish melodies are littered...

If you want to see some junk in the trunk, there is no need to watch the newest Lil’ Jon video. The junk is closer than you know at Otto’s Niteclub, 118 E. Lincoln Highway, every Thursday night. For the next couple of weeks, Junk in the Trunk, a group...

Lonnie “Yogi - Da Jagaknot” Pollard and Anthony “Antidote” Currie are both seniors here at NIU who consider producing their mix-tape, “The Bright I.D.E.A. Mix-Tape Volume 1,” their greatest achievement thus far. Pollard is majoring in business...

Fresh out of high school, Raven-Symone is ready to break into the music industry with a new identity. “This Is My Time” is not her first album. She released “Here’s to New Dreams” at age 8 and, in 1999, released “Undeniable.” The entertainment...

A few weeks ago, English instructor Amy Newman visited the Barnes & Noble bookstore to read her newly published series of poems titled “Fall.” A crowd of about 50 NIU students, faculty and friends came to listen to Newman read sections from her...

For a movie about ballroom dancing, its outcome is pretty decent. Directed by Peter Chelsom (“Serendipity,” “Town & Country”), “Shall We Dance?” is a movie about Chicago accountant John Clark (Richard Gere), who is happily married but...

With the presidential election less than two weeks away, Weekender wanted to find out which celebrities you would like to see not endorse candidates, but take up a campaign of their own: Krist Novoselic, the former Nirvana bassist, with aspirations of...

Every year, the third Saturday in October provokes relationship carnage over non-existent gifts, half-hearted gestures and those strange looks you keep giving that poster of the hot Olsen twin. Sweetest Day (or as I call it, the annual “Greg, you will...

Welcome back to another flavorful edition of Playback, homes. This week’s jam session comes from junior photojournalism major John Lykowski. Lykowski, a Glenview native, loves ’80s music and longs for Chicago. If he were to make a mix CD today, these...

From MTV to NIU, Cribs is in the house ... well, apartment. Throughout the semester, Sweeps will frunk out the funkiest fly facilities NIU students inhabit. Close to campus and next to the endlessly exciting birthplace of barbed wire, five upperclassmen...

“Frisbee Tournament at NIU!!!!!!!!” “House Party Tonight” “IMPORTANT INFORMATION REGARDING THE SCHEDULE OF CLASSES” These are but a few of the subject headers you will find at the NIU Community at livejournal.com. LiveJournal is an online...

Every week before NIU football games, Sweeps will bring you the real matchups that matter, like which team mascot would win in a street fight. Despite a loss in the mascot battle last week, the real-life Huskies defeated the University of Central Florida...