100%

Scanned image of the page. Keyboard directions: use + to zoom in, - to zoom out, arrow keys to pan inside the viewer.

Page Options

Download this Issue

Share

Something wrong?

Something wrong with this page? Report problem.

Rights / Permissions

This collection, digitized in collaboration with the Michigan Daily and the Board for Student Publications, contains materials that are protected by copyright law. Access to these materials is provided for non-profit educational and research purposes. If you use an item from this collection, it is your responsibility to consider the work's copyright status and obtain any required permission.

October 11, 2010 - Image 7

Resource type:
Text
Publication:
The Michigan Daily, 2010-10-11

Disclaimer: Computer generated plain text may have errors. Read more about this.

The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com

Monday, O ctober 11, 2010 - 7A

The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Monday, October 11, 2010 - 7A

ii Wayne is oniy'Human'
Newest Weezy album should not be hyped&
as jail-born artistry
By Joe Dimuzio I Daily Arts Writer

Music misery
loves company

Three days after releasing
Innervisions, Stevie Wonder got
in a car accident.
While Won-
der was travel-
ing back from a
North Carolina LIJWWI
gig with a friend I Am Not a
at the wheel, a Human Being
trucker slammed Universal Motown
the brakes on a
winding road,
sending Stevie's car straight into
the flatbed's pile of chopped
wood, shooting a stray log
straight through the windshield
and into Stevie's forehead. The
accident left him with bruises,
a brain contusion and a multi-
day coma. He lost his sense of
smell. Gradually recovering, with
his musical talent miraculously
intact, his colleagues alleged that
something had "changed" about
Stevie. With Innervisions, the
American public took the story
and ran with it. Spiritually and
musically, Innervisions was Ste-
vie's defining moment ... but it
was recorded months before the
accident.
Lil Wayne's I Am Not a Human
Being has that Innervisions mys-
tique. Released during his jail
stint for criminal possession of a
firearm, I Am Not a Human Being
can be the magical release Wayne-
heads want. His imprisonment is
the longest period of time Wayne
hasn't spent in the studio, which,
for an artist so prolific, is about as
creatively hampering as a brain
contusion. On his humble "Weezy

Thanx You" website, Wayne has
been responding personally to
fan letters and describing his
daily routine, full of exercise and
bible reading. And now, less than
a month before his release from
Rikers Island, we have our legend
- and an album that betrays it.
Truth is, I Am Not a Human
Being is a collection of old tracks.
Some post-Tha Carter III and
Rebirth and a few whetting, sup-
posed Tha Carter IV cuts. All of
the songs were recorded before
Wayne's lock-up. It's an above-
average mixed bag featuring a bit
more effort than Wayne's mix-
tapes, some highlights, some mid-
dling tracks and a couple duds.
Billed as a return to pure "rap-
ping," Human Being is a moderate
retreat-to-form after February's
already orphaned Rebirth. As a
whole, it's less than cohesive and
lacks the spontaneity of Dedica-
tion 2 and Da Drought 3. Weezy
sounds less than energized here,
and his flow suffers from saggy
wordplay and tired lyrical free-
association. He's got some fine
beats to play with here from a
nice array of varied producers
and collaborators, but on the
whole, Human Being feels a little
pedestrian.
Opener "Gonorrhea" features
Drake (love him or hate him) and
smells like an "A Milli" alternate,
with pipey, staccato keyboards
and a lazy hook. "I Am Not a
Human Being" is a clear Rebirth
leftover, complete with stomping
snares and metal guitar. "What's

Well then, what are you?
Wrong With Them" features
sped-up vocals and somehow
manages to make a track featur-
ing Nicki Minaj dull. These tracks
come and go.
Human Being's best moments
come from unexpected places.
Drake's producer of choice, Noah
"40" Shebib, provides two of the
album's best cuts. "With You" is a
warm slice of soul with a slick Boi-
Ida beat. On "I'm Single," which
bears the mark of another of She-
bib's 2010 highlights (Trey Songz'
druggy "Unfortunate"), Weezy
flows anemic in slow motion, and
when he says "I'm single for the
night," he doesn't sound happy. He
sounds suicidal.
The album series Tha Carter
features Wayne's undeniable shin-

ing moments, and at this point,
the hype for the fourth is astro-
nomical. First single "Right Above
It" (again with Drake) gives us a
taste, building fat, astral trumpets
on a forward-thinking beat and
melody. Here, Wayne doesn't just
feel at ease - he's empowered.
He chuckles, "Life is a beach / I'm
just playing in the sand" while we
listen to the voice of a man behind
bars.
In the end, I Am Not a Human
Being isn't the supernatural, jail-
time Innervisions we need from
pop's best rapper. But if we're one
album away from Wayne's Songs
in the Key of Life - Stevie Won-
der's masterwork after his acci-
dent - then this'll do just fine for
now.

My friend Dave smiles
when I put on Smiley
Smile. He and Itare at
least more-than-casual fans of the
Beach Boys,
and it's one - 1
of their many
albums we ..
enjoy listening
to. I tend toI
skip the first
track "Heroes
and Villains," -
going straight JOE
to "Vegeta- DIMUZIO
bles," because
the second
that songstarts it's impossible to
pay attention to anything else. But
in reality, I could play any number
of Beach Boys songs to entertain
Dave. It could be "Solar System"
from Love You or "Caroline, No"
from Pet Sounds. We get probably
the biggest kick out of "A Day in
the Life of a Tree" and "'TilI Die"
from Surf's Up, two songs writ-
ten by a man in dire artistic and
physical health.
For us, it only makes the music
better.
Behind every one of these songs,
there's a story -usually a miser-
ably sad one - and it has no clear
beginning or end. The Beach Boys
were a beautiful, timeless group
for about ten years. Or at least
that's Iaway I see it. Their early hits
are untouchable, and Pet Sounds is,
well, you should know.
By 1972, the Beach Boys had
gone from America's darlings
to the old uncle at the family
reunion who everyone avoids.
Brian Wilson - the puppy-faced
pop Mozart - had taken enough
acid and coke to ruin his body
and mind, but the Wilson Broth-
ers carried on, with diminishing
returns, both recorded and live:
touting "Brian's Back!" on tours,
dragging him into the studio, ded-
icating an embarrassingly earnest
album sleeve to his "recovery" on
Love You, etc.
Dave and I used to spend
plenty of hours with PetrSounds.
It's easy to love and even easier
to praise. I don't listen to it much
anymore, because I don't need to.
I've moved onto the Boys' records
that are a bit tougher to love. Any
Pitchfork-reading music appre-
ciator can talk miles about Pet
Sounds, butI think the real fun
comes after.
Following one of pop's most
critically acclaimed albums of all
time was, in this case, impossible,
and Brian and the boys failed
beautifully. Locked in what fans
see as his attempt to achieve pop
perfection, Brian plugged away at
his "masterpiece." Smile was to be
the greatest album ever. And after
Pet Sounds, how fucking excited
would you have been?
Instead, we got years of excus-
es, group strife and Brian's emo-
tional and physical downfall, and
some of the most inexplicable and
exciting music the group would
ever release.
Smiley Smile, the afterbirth of
Smile, sounds like an aural acid
casualty. From the batshit mus-

ings of "Vegetables" to the hor-
rifying "Wind Chimes," these
songs stun first, confuse second
and, finally, endear. They were
sparse, strange and empty. There
was room for the story to fill in
the gaps, room for our imagina-
tion to run free. Surf's Up's ending
song cycle features Brian, sound-
ing as though his vocal cords are
seconds from collapse, compar-
ing himself to a tree that wasn't
"meant to live." The Moog-laden,
childlike Love You (my current
favorite Brian production) fea-
tures songs about patting children
on their behind and going roller
skating. One night, my friend Cam
gave the best description I could
conceive for Love You and Brian:
"This is Frankenstein music!"
Brian's story is one of many.
Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim
Morrison, Sly Stone, at least two
of the Beatles - the list goes on.
It's the story of pop music, but
even more, pop stardom. It's the
moment you hear a song and won-
der, what does this person look
like or do on a Saturday night? It's
when you start looking past the
music and looking for a story to
hold onto. When journalists start
asking embarrassingly specific
questions about drug use, and my
parents glance at the TV and ask,
"Who gives a shit?"
A lot of people. A lot of people
give a shit about these stars, and
it's the same reason US Weekly
piles up in barber shops and
TMZ has a television show. It's
that unconscious desperation to
belong to something bigger than
ourselves; to be admired, or at
least paid attention to. Pop stars
Appreciating the
beauty of a
falling pop star.
from Bob Dylan to Jack White
have cultivated that mystery to
build the attention, the persona
and their egos, to astral height.
And in the end, we love to lap
it up. It's like a drug. As Prince
(one of pop's most successfully
preserved cults of personality)
said on 1999, "I'm addicted to your
pleasure. I'm addicted to your
pain."
As I finished typing this, Dave
and I caught the back half of
"(500) Days of Summer" on HBO,
the only part of the movie I've
seen, for probably the fourth time.
I don't like it, but I'm not going to
deny I've paid attention to every
frame during the last four times
it's been on. I told Dave, "I wish
I knew what happened in the
beginning of this. Everything is
so miserable." He responded auto-
matically, with a hint of sarcasm.
"Are you kidding? This is the best
part."
Dimuzio also spends hours with
literal pet sounds. If you have a dog,
e-mail him at shonenjo@umich.edu.

UMMA explores
urban sprawl as art

COURTESY OF EA SPORTS
In Soviet Russia, ball kicks you.
'FIFA 11'doesn't
merit its price tag

By TEDDY PAPES
For the Daily
EA recently released the latest
annual installment to its "FIFA"
series, add-
ing to the rep-
ertoire of the
greatest soccer FIFA11
game franchise
ever. How did For PS3,
they do it? They Xbox 360,
simply repack- WII and PC
aged the previ- EA Sports
ous best-ever
soccer game,
"FIFA 10," upgraded the graph-
ics (and according to EA, the AI),
added some minor new features
and slapped a $60 price tag on it.
Many players will be tempted by
the addition of new team infor-
mation and some minor fixes, but
such solutions are hardly worthy
of a full-price release.
The "FIFA" series has always
been a notable and innovative
member of the sports genre.
Online play sets
the soccer
standard, but it's
nothing new.
Previous versions of the game
already nailed Internet gam-
ing with the online "Be a Pro"
mode, and to this day it's still
the best feature "FIFA" has to
offer. In this mode, the user cre-
ates a player and takes him into
online matches with the realism
and intensity that any soccer fan
would recognize. Every action
the player takes is extremely
important; the gamer no longer
haphazardly controls a team of
11, but instead a single man, and
the gravity of each brief interac-
tion with the ball never ebbs. The

intensity is as high as if each ava-
tar were a real player.
The online mode makes "FIFA
11," but it's not even a new fea-
ture. It originated in its 2009
predecessor, but it's still on the
coattails of features like this that
"FIFA 11" tries to ride into gam-
ers' homes. There are simply no
revolutionary additions to be
found in this title. The most tout-
ed new feature, one that seems
to be long overdue, is the option
to be a goalkeeper. And while
it seems like a no-brainer, the
only time being a goalie is enjoy-
able is online, though it's hard to
enjoy even then. Sticking to one
position has the potential to be
See FIFA 11, Page 8A

By ADDIE SHRODES
Daily Arts Writer
Hip-hop artists, skateboarders
and break dancers have changed
the terrain of urban spaces,
Detroit
included. UMMA presents:
In col- Jakob Koling
lages that
explore Through Oct.24
modern IMMA
urban life
in areas like Detroit, Berlin-based
artist Jakob Kolding illustrates
how this emerging lifestyle cre-
ates contradictions in how city
spaces are planned and used.
Though Kolding has received
much attention and acclaim in
Europe since he began show-
ing in the late '90s, his UMMA
exhibit is his first solo display
in a North American museum.
According to UMMA associate
curator of modern and contem-
porary art, Jacob Proctor, that
makes Kolding an ideal artist
for the UMMA Projects series,
which began when the Maxine
and Stuart Frankel and the Fran-
kel Family Wing opened last year
and focuses on emerging artists
on an international level.
Kolding mixes his study of
sociology and art to comment on
urban planning and life through

collages and mixed-media sculp-
tures. His collages contain
diverse material like black-od-
white images, cityscape photos,
patterned paper cut into phrases
and his own drawings.
"Collage allows him to com-
bine different spaces, to insert
something into a space that
wouldn't normally be there,"
Proctor said of Kolding's use of
the medium to challenge the ways
people normally view cities. The
medium also acts as a cultural
sampling similar to what you find
in electronic and hip-hop music,
which are important influences
for Kolding.
Kolding grew up in a suburb of
Copenhagen, which Proctor said
Copenhagen and
Detroit converge
with Kolding.
is also a strong influence in the
artist's views toward urban use.
"Growing up in a hyper-mod-
ernist context like that, people
are still playing soccer in the
streets, skateboarding or making
See KOLDING, Page 8A

schooliof
information
Connect with SI
AN INFORMATION SESSION FOR PROSPECTIVE MASTER'S AND PH.D. STUDENTS
Noon-4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 23
Great Lakes Room, Palmer Commons
RSVP by Monday, Oct. 18 at si.umich.edulrsvp
A graduate degree from the School of Information
prepares you r an exciting array of Information Age
careers. Our Ph.D. program prepares you for teaching and
research in academia and corporate research labs. ind out.
how our flexible, multidiscplinary program wll benefit you
A Michigan MSI can lead to a career as:
Archivist, Librarian, Research Analyst, Web Marketing Manager Multimedia Consultant, Data Analyst,
Usability Engineer Information Architect, Auction DesignerManage: Computational Linguist,
Natural Language Enginee; Policy Advisor Museum Curator Community &ganizer - and many more!

Back to Top

© 2024 Regents of the University of Michigan