3B — Thursday, January 7, 2016
the b-side
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Lyrically, the track is life-
affirming. For most, it was a
groovy, easy beat that many
matched with the windows-
down,
warm-summer
and
smooth-drinks moments of their
summer. Artistically, the track
is exceptionally accomplished.
What is more important than
the catchiness and happiness of
the track are the names attached
to it: “I Know There’s Gonna Be
(Good Times)” put Young Thug
on popular radio. Jamie xx intro-
duced Young Thug, one of the
most important rappers of this
year and, surely, the upcom-
ing, to those who had not found
him yet. Thug and his gloriously
eccentric, outwardly clever, and
quietly complex rasps were sam-
pled by the American public in
this 2015 summer jam. We were
given something a little more
strong, a little more sonically
pungent, to counter the sugary
overload of the summer’s pop
music circus. Jamie xx set the
rap weirdo free on the track, bal-
ancing out his raspy words and
screams with samples from The
Persuasions’ 1972 single, “Good
Times.” Popcaan, an up-and-
coming Jamaican dancehall art-
ist, added inventive twists and
turns to the tracks. His added
reggae undertones, pressed up
against Thug’s melodic, strange
screams, encourage that invol-
untary head and hip sway.
Jamie xx’s “I Know There’s
Gonna Be (Good Times)” is a
smooth balance of something
tangy and something sugary. It’s
the second-best banger of the
year, and it’s actually good. And
it actually introduced new, dar-
ing artists of the sometimes myo-
pic music industry. It mixed the
mainstream, Billboard Top 100
with that which is harder to find.
Jamie xx is helping you be bet-
ter. He is helping you grow. And
Young Thug is helping you get
better. Because “you don’t got to
struggle/ baby girl sit it down….”
-AMELIA ZAK
2. “Good Times”
Jamie xx Ft. Young Thug
Best Singles of 2015
Opening a TV season with a
four-minute-long take of a wed-
ding portrait session is a bold
move. For any other show, start-
ing with a static camera and
bickering family might appear
a desperate attempt to appear
cinematic — clever filmmaking
tricks have been enough to win
movies Oscars and earn shows
their fanboys for life. But Ama-
zon’s “Transparent” isn’t trying
to show off. That opening shot
is meant to reacquaint viewers
with the Pfefferman clan and
remind them just how uncom-
fortable it is to spend time with
that family.
“Kina Hora,” “Transparent”
’s second season premiere, is
full of gorgeously framed shots
and top-notch performances,
but the episode never feels like
it’s bragging. The swoops across
hotel windows and claustro-
phobic tight shots augment the
episode’s
dramatic
tension.
Writer-director
Jill
Soloway
(“United States of Tara”) pulls
out all the stops to portray the
horror show that is Sarah (Amy
Landecker, “A Serious Man”)
and Tammy’s (Melora Hardin,
“The Office”) wedding — and
imperfect wedding portraits are
only the beginning. “Kina Hora”
shatters the illusion of normalcy
and happiness for almost every
character, sending them spin-
ning on arcs that take them
through to the end of the sea-
son. Family dysfunction never
looked so good.
-CHLOE GILKE
3. (Tie) “Kina Hora”
“Transparent”
“Parks and Rec,” like “30
Rock” and “The Office,” sig-
nified the end of an era. For
seven whole seasons, we grew
along with Pawnee through
marriages, children and town
mergers.
What was most beautiful
was watching Leslie Knope’s
(Amy Poehler, “Saturday Night
Live”)
“pipeline
dreams”
become
a
tangible
reality.
Though we were left with a Lil’
Sebastian-shaped hole in our
hearts, the series finale offered
the perfect closure — even
bringing back our beloved Ann
Perkins (Rashida Jones, “The
Office”). After the finale, we
were left desperately YouTub-
ing gag reels, madly scrolling
through Tumblr GIFs — any-
thing for a little more time
with these characters. All we’d
ever wanted was a happily ever
after for each of them — and we
got that.
For so many actors — Aziz
Ansari and Nick Offerman,
to name a few — “Parks and
Rec” was their big break; for
Leslie, Pawnee was her own
big break toward her presiden-
tial dreams. But for both the
fictional characters and their
real-life actors, they will never
be “too good” for Pawnee, even
when they move on.
-KAREN HUA
4. “One Last Ride”
“Parks and Recreation”
Was there a more purely
joyful moment this year than
when the inmates of Litchfield
briefly escaped from prison
and spent the day at a nearby
beach? Everyone knows that
it’s just a temporary excursion;
soon, they’ll be rounded up
and brought back. But for now,
that’s okay.
Even forgetting about that
moment at the lake, though,
“Trust No Bitch” is full of excru-
ciatingly beautiful moments.
Black Cindy’s (“Adrienne C.
Moore, “30 Rock”) attempts to
prove her Jewish beliefs turn
from selfish to sincere in a stun-
ning monologue about faith.
Morello (Yael Stone, “Spir-
ited”) weds her frequent visi-
tor Vince (John Magaro, “Not
Fade Away”), inspiring tears
from the stoic Healy (Michael
J. Harney, “Deadwood”). In a
series that usually (and right-
fully) lingers on the injustices
of the criminal justice system,
“Trust No Bitch” is the rare epi-
sode that celebrates life, friend-
ship and love. It’s absolutely
awe-inspiring.
-BEN ROSENSTOCK
5. “Trust No Bitch”
“Orange is the New Black”
“We’ve got to wake up at a cer-
tain point and recognize what’s
going on here!”
In perhaps the most poeti-
cally ironic statement of the year,
Fox News correspondent Ger-
aldo Rivera made a resounding
appeal for the Black Lives Matter
movement when he attempted to
criticize Kendrick Lamar’s per-
formance of “Alright” on the BET
Awards. Forget that his idea of
waking up involves completely
disregarding the concerns of Black
Americans and condemning rap
music as the primary cause for
their struggles (because it’s cer-
tainly not discrimination!). Wak-
ing up to Black Americans’ reality
is what rap music — and Kendrick
Lamar’s music especially — has
always been about.
Accordingly, Lamar’s sopho-
more album, To Pimp a Butterfly,
is a masterpiece of Black protest
art. With the weight and intri-
cacy that carries this album, the
genius of “Alright,” one of its most
straightforward and commercial
tracks, could be initially missed —
it doesn’t take more than a single
play to understand what “n***a,
we gon’ be alright” means. But this
kind of blunt activism is exactly
what 2015 calls for. With its clear
message highlighting police bru-
tality and the roiling racial ten-
sions across the country, “Alright”
has become a clearly articulated
rallying cry for the fight. Dem-
onstrations across the country
have featured the infectious hook
shouted alongside speeches by Al
Sharpton and prayers for Freddie
Gray, Sandra Bland and the scores
of other Black men and women
killed by police in 2015.
“Alright” also happens to be a
fantastically well-executed hip-
hop song. The psychedelic pop
energy that opens the track sus-
tains itself from start to finish,
propelled by Lamar’s urgent deliv-
ery. It’s this energy that allows
“Alright” to function both as a
party-ready single and a protest-
ready chant. Many have listened
to this song during a pre-game or
on the way to the bar, enjoying the
beat but failing to listen to the lyr-
ics and recognize its poignancy.
The powerful music video for
the song, however, makes it clear
that this isn’t typical radio fod-
der. Ending with a police offi-
cer shooting Lamar down like a
hunter takes out a waterfowl to be
hanged on the wall, the message
of “Alright” is by no means made
quaint or complacent. Yet, even
with such a heavy burden, Lamar
manages to keep the positivity.
It’s something that we all need to
remember, whether we’re facing a
mountain of racial issues or you’re
just worried about that upcoming
test: we gon’ be alright.
-MATT GALLATIN
1. “Alright”
Kendrick Lamar
Is it R&B? Reggae? Meren-
gue? Drake drew from innu-
merable sources to synthesize
“Hotline Bling,” seeming to
anticipate
everything
con-
sumers would want as their
anthem. A mix of musical styles
just eclectic enough to be inter-
esting, but not enough to alien-
ate the mainstream listener,
with lyrics specific enough
to be believable but general
enough for everyone to get
behind and with a video from
Director X with the potential
for infinite meme adaptations:
“Hotline Bling” has exploded
into omnipresence. Drake said
himself he drew inspiration
from the creative process of
dancehall — a derivative of
reggae in which one or more
DJs improvise over the same
recorded or live beat — and the
merengue-esque rhythm (and
dance moves) are impossible
to ignore. Take it for what you
will — as a sexist anthem of a
commodity fetish, that song
you hate to love, that song you
love to love or all three — we all
know when that hotline bling.
-REGAN DETWILER
3. “Hotline Bling”
Drake
5. “Hello” Adele
I’ll never shut up about her eye-
liner, and neither should you. And
who knew sepia was still available
as a filter? Was that a flip phone?
Is that faux fur coat from Saks?
Do they have Saks in London?
These are the thoughts that cross
our minds when “Hello” starts
playing on the radio. All we have
to do is hear those fatal opening
lines in our cars, and we’re toast.
Doomed. Goners. “Hello … it’s
me.” (The ellipsis is essential.)
This instantaneous recall —
and depression — is a testament
to the strength of a signature aes-
thetic, of her music videos, her
ballads, her voice. These ingre-
dients blend into one another,
creating the acrylic-nailed, cher-
ub-voiced conglomeration that
can only inhibit one name: Adele.
Let us not forget that Adele
released this monumental tune
a mere three months ago, in
October. It quickly broke many
records, achieving over a mil-
lion digital sales and 4.79 million
online streams in a week. Its video
surpassed Miley Cyrus’ “Wreck-
ing Ball” in acquiring around 27.7
million views on YouTube within
a 24-hour span. What more is
there to say? After a painfully
One of the many excellent
aspects of AMC’s “Breaking Bad”
spinoff, “Better Call Saul,” is its
winning performances. While
Bob Odenkirk (“W/ Bob and
David”) continues to make Saul
Goodman the most charismatic
crooked lawyer of Albuquerque,
it’s Jonathan Banks’s (“Commu-
nity”) acting as the hapless Mike
Ehrmantraut that made “Better
Call Saul” such a standout this
past TV season. In the show’s
sixth episode, “Five-O,” the non-
linear plot delves into Mike’s
backstory as a Philadelphia cop
and the mystery behind his son’s
untimely murder. Though Oden-
kirk showed both comedic and
dramatic depth as Saul, viewers
got to see some raw emotion from
the usually expressionless Mike.
As both Saul and Mike grapple
with morally ambiguous deci-
sions, “Five-O” plays out like some
of “Breaking Bad” ‘s best episodes;
it’s heartbreaking, thrilling and
devastating to watch, making for
powerful television.
-SAM ROSENBERG
2. “Five-O”
“Better Call Saul”
What happens when a self-
actualizing
housewife,
her
stressed out husband and a
misogynistic criminal are con-
fined inside a small cabin? The
result is “Fargo” ’s eighth epi-
sode, “Loplop.” Fleeing from
both sides of the law, Ed and
Peggy Blumquist (Jesse Plemons,
“Breaking Bad” and Kirsten
Dunst, “Spider-Man”) hold one
pursuer, Dodd Gerhardt (Jeffrey
Donovan, “Burn Notice”), hos-
tage in a desperate bid to save
their skins. A near-perfect dis-
play of dark humor unfolds as
Ed realizes how in over his head
he is and Peggy slowly loses her
grip on reality to the detriment of
Dodd. Between stabbings, failed
extortion and cheesy Ronald
Reagan movies, cabin fever sets
in as everyone starts to go crazy.
As the couple bumbles through
their kidnapping, the terrify-
ing Gerhardt enforcer Hanzee
Dent (Zahn McClarnon, “Long-
mire”) circles closer and closer
on their location, leaving a trail
of violence in his wake. Stoically
intimidating,
Hanzee
injects
pure tension into every scene he
inhabits. The show slowly brings
his suffering to light as he lashes
out against ignorant degradation.
A large part of “Fargo” ’s suc-
cess comes from its ability to
make viewers laugh through
their gasps of horror. “Loplop”
exemplifies this tendency, setting
itself apart in a season full of stel-
lar episodes.
-MATT BARNAUSKAS
1. “Loplop”
“Fargo”
Best TV Episodes of 2015
3. (Tie) “Hardhome”
“Game of Thrones”
Season five of “Game of
Thrones” had its ups and
downs. On the one hand, it
failed to grow interest in
major
plotlines
(*cough*
Dorne *cough*) and completely
ruined the character arc for the
once strong Sansa Stark. How-
ever, there were some moments
where the show reminded me
why I loved it, and the biggest
example was “Hardhome,” an
episode of television that made
every battle that came before it
in the series look cheap. In the
hour, Jon Snow (Kit Haring-
ton, “Pompeii”) leads a group
of the Night’s Watch to a town
of Wildlings to save them from
the incoming White Walkers.
What they, and us as view-
ers, were not expecting was a
full-fledged battle between the
parties. The episode’s visuals
could compete with any from
cinema, with broad landscape
shots and brutal but beauti-
ful violence. One of the last
shots of the episode, where the
lead Walker raises his arms to
bring the battle’s dead back to
life, still sends shivers down
my spine when I think of it. It
established the White Walkers
as a real threat, forever chang-
ing the course of one of televi-
sion’s most important series.
There was nothing on TV in
2015 that matched the scale
and size of “Hardhome,” and
there will likely be nothing
that comes close, at least until
the next season of “Thrones.”
-ALEX INTNER
4. “Let It Happen” Tame
Impala
One of the most sacred respon-
sibilities in friend groups is
bestowed upon he who manages
the aux cord. In a room or car full
of people with eclectic tastes in
music, it’s crucial to select some-
thing that everyone can vibe to.
There’s always the classic rock
enthusiast, the hip-hop head, the
“whatever is on the radio” type,
and the aux cord DJ has to manage
all of these personalities by play-
ing something universally agreed
upon as “dope.”
“Let It Happen” is just that: a
certified aux cord crowd-pleaser.
Despite clocking in at damn near
eight minutes, no one ever seems
to notice its ridiculous length. The
only moment that might cause
some head-scratching is about
halfway through, when Kevin
lengthy hiatus, people wanted
Adele back. And she came to us,
finally, in 2015.
The thing is, though, it’s
not the videos, the glitz or the
glam that cemented her place
on our list. All of that helps the
situation, yes, but Adele’s funda-
mental magnetism is her voice.
Equally smoky as it is powerful,
that London-laced instrument
has spawned some of the best
ballads of the decade. Drake
couldn’t have sung the sump-
tuously
devastating
“Some-
one Like You.” Selena Gomez
wouldn’t be able to carry “Chas-
ing Pavements” past the first
verse, not in a hundred years.
Can Ellie Goulding’s pint-sized
pipes handle “Rolling in the
Deep”? Ahem.
Alas, no one could’ve said
“Hello” to us as melodiously
as our most favorite Brit, prob-
ably the finest talent to cross the
pond since Winehouse. Adele is
able to twist a phrase, a banal
word, into a mellifluous plea
that somehow taps at that little
empty space in our hearts, put
there in the first place by some
awful ex-boyfriend, girlfriend,
lover, life. And in doing so she
reassures us we’re not alone out
there, in the sepia-toned day-
light. She’s here for us.
“Hello,” she says, unapologet-
ically. “It’s me.”
And I can’t stop staring at her
eyeliner.
-MELINA GLUSAC
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Parker seems to mash his fist on a
particular excerpt that loops just
long enough for everyone to notice.
But then there’s “the drop.” Across
all genres and personalities, every-
one loves a good drop, and this one
more than delivers.
At this point in the song the
vocals return for a now-familiar
melody, but this time soaked in
a Daft Punk-esque vocoder that
makes it pleasantly indecipherable
(word to Young Thug). Countless
synths layer on top of one another
to build a tastefully pop, angelic
banger. The title alone suggests
some sort of divine advice you
already know but need to hear
from someone else. Parker almost
commands you towards the end of
the track with “Try to get through
it / Try to push through it / Take
the next ticket / Take the next
train.” Does the power of Tame
Impala compel you to fight the
current, as the vortex-shedding
album cover suggests? Or perhaps
just let it happen and see where
the tide takes you? Or maybe you
should focus on what you’re play-
ing after this? I don’t know, man.
Your call.
-SHAYAN SHAFII