ADAM 

THEISEN

MUSIC COLUMN

Songs for summer 

These aren’t songs that will 

directly help you get an internship 
or figure out what your true passion 
is. Conversely, I hope this list still 
has value even if you already know 
yourself and what you’re going to 
be doing when school takes a break. 
But as the end of the semester 

comes and shit gets (more) stressful 
and the unknown quantity of these 
next four months looms large in my 
life, I’m just taking stock of some 
songs that I really enjoy.

1. “Work From Home” by 

Fifth Harmony ft. Ty Dolla $ign

Don’t have a job lined up yet? 

There’s more than one way to work. 
As Fifth Harmony proves in this 
song, you can always go to work 
even if you’re not in an office. And 
they make putting in hours at home 
sound way more appealing.

In all honesty, though, this is the 

kind of song that holds me hostage. 

Just writing these few sentences 
right now has required a Herculean 
effort on my part (you’re welcome). 
This beat just opens up a vacuum 
in my brain and eliminates all 
thoughts 
(including 
how to spell 
“vacuum”). 
That’s 
not 

always a bad 
feeling, and 
“Work From 
Home” is a 
nice way to 
kill 
three 

minutes.

But really, 

I just wanted an excuse to make 
you watch the “Work From Home” 
video, which serves as undeniable 
proof that the next “Magic Mike” 
needs a construction site setpiece. 
(Also, how the hell was this director 
able to sexualize cement?)

2. “The Knock” by Hop Along
I feel like I’ve been drowning in 

new music lately. I’ve been chasing 
every offhand recommendation on 
Twitter, obsessively exploring any 
band that gets interviewed by a 
writer I like and trying really hard 
to actually listen to songs when my 
friends tell me “you should listen to 
this song.” I have musical FOMO, 
and it’s a problem.

But Hop Along has been a 

brilliant reward for this slight 
insanity. 
The 
band’s 
Painted 

Shut, which came out in 2015, 
is one of the best rock records 
I’ve heard in the last few years 
— this really thoughtful brand 
of punk punctuated by the gruff 
yet breathlessly pretty vocals of 
Francis Quinlan. Maybe picking 
the opening track as the best feels 
like a cop-out, but the lyrics are 
hypnotically inscrutable and even 
though it doesn’t even have a chorus 
there’s a secret catchiness in the 
chaos. “The Knock” is a song that 
motivates me to keep searching for 
more, to look up all the unfamiliar 
band names I see each day. Hustle 
gets results.

3. “These Days” by Drake
In what’s probably the first ever 

intersection of Drake and Wes 
Anderson, this Drizzy cover of a 
track you probably best know from 
“The Royal Tenenbaums” hit the 
Internet a couple weeks ago. It’s 
weird, and it’s not especially great. 
Drake competently handles himself 
on the verses, but his straining voice 
when he tries to sing the title phrase 
feels awkward and out of place. It’s 
hard to fault the singer of a Nico 
song for having a bad voice, because 
Nico herself usually sounded like 
she was singing from bed with a 
major cold and giant headphones 
playing a different song in her ears, 
but her ugly German vocals owned 
this song.

When the Drake cover came 

out, I also made the unfortunate 

discovery that Nico was maybe kind 
of a Nazi according to Wikipedia. 
This sucks for me, if I’m allowed to 
make someone’s hardcore racism 
about myself for a minute, because 
“These Days” was a revelation for 
me when I first heard it. Jackson 
Browne’s expert guitar picking and 
Nico’s terrible, bitter-trying-to-be-
sweet voice somehow combined 
to make a stunningly beautiful 
track unlike anything I’ve ever 
heard since. I listened to it over 
and over again when I was like 15, 
to the point where I almost became 
depressed that I’d never hear 
another track that hit me for the 
first time in the same way “These 
Days” did (I’ve been proven false on 
that point multiple times since).

I like, then, that Drake’s version 

carries the torch of “These Days” 
while also being kind of a middle 
finger to an artist who once to 
quote 
Wikipedia, 
“attacked 
a 

mixed-race woman in a restaurant 
with a smashed wineglass, saying 
‘I hate black people.’” I like how 
unexpected it was, that it was this 
risky music that surprised me, and 
that it twists the legacy of Nico 
and this song into something more 
playful and loose. I’d pay good 
money to hear him do Bridgette 
Bardot.

4. “Come On a Cone” by Nicki 

Minaj

I sometimes wonder if I listen 

to too much music. I’m almost 
never not putting songs in my ears, 
whether it’s earbuds when I walk 
to class or blasting songs out of the 
speakers of The Michigan Daily 
Arts computer or even putting 
on jazz when I need to read in 
concentrate. The amount of silence 
in my life is practically zero.

Sometimes, then, I worry that all 

the music I listen to just blurs into 
one big hulk of noise, like this single 
static note that I can’t appreciate 
because I’ve forgotten what life is 
like without it.

But then I hear something like 

the unapologetic mania of Nicki 
Minaj’s “Come On a Cone” and I 
get so excited because I know that 
no matter how many times I hear 
it, I will always be equal parts 
perplexed and thrilled by how a 
world-famous pop star was able to 
put this song together.

With a beat set in what sounds 

like an ’80s space arcade game, 
Minaj roleplays a whole soap 
opera’s worth of characters, from 
the angry rapper doing the verses 
to the hysterical voice repeating 
the title phrase to the aspiring 
American Idol contestant belting 
“dick in your face!” like it’s “God 
Bless America.” No matter how 
weird and abrasive future music 
gets, nobody will ever be able to sit 
and listen and just calmly accept 
this song, and it makes me crack up 
and smile every time.

5. “Please Do Not Go” by 

Violent Femmes

I have no idea how the Violent 

Femmes happened. Their self-
titled debut is one of the most 
underrated records of the ’80s, and 
while everybody knows “Blister in 
the Sun,” there’s a whole spectrum 
of emotion and experience on just 
these ten songs.

The most fascinating part of 

this record is how “Please Do Not 
Go” and “Add It Up” sit right next 
to each other on the track list. You 
might know “Add It Up” if you’ve 
seen “Reality Bites” — it’s the song 
Ethan Hawke sings that’s like, 
“Why can’t I get just one kiss? Why 
can’t I get just one screw,” et cetera.

That song is obviously a lot 

over overly aggressive nonsense, 
but it works so well because it’s 
preceded by its ultimate contrast 
in “Please Do Not Go.” One of the 
most sensitive and vulnerable 
songs you’ll ever hear, “Please Do 
Not Go,” is singer Graham Gano 
begging at the doorstep of this girl 
he loves, sounding way too drunk 
with the way his voice warbles and 
cracks. Somehow, these folk-punk 
malcontents find a way to break 
your heart on this track, but “Please 
Do Not Go” is especially incredible 
because it’s just one part of what 
feels like a single record’s attempt 
to capture every emotion of the 
human experience. It also has a 
killer bass solo.

6. “Beauty School Dropout” 

by Frankie Avalon

I just love how in “Grease” 

they decide to stop the whole 
storyline for four minutes and let 
this Frankie Avalon hallucination 
steal the entire show. And don’t 
be misguided: “Beauty School 
Dropout” is the best song in 
“Grease,” neither overly cheesy nor 
rape-y nor lacking actual words 
like its most popular numbers. 
Hilarious and wonderfully sung, 
Avalon is simultaneously fatherly, 
cool and heavenly, which is a 
combination I think only John 
Legend has pulled off since.

Can anyone confirm if pink-

haired Frenchy actually goes back 
to high school after hearing this 
song? I can’t figure it out. If I was 
alone at Hunter House and Aaron 
Carter showed up to give me catchy 
advice, I’d probably just go home 
and never tell a soul what I saw. 
But then again, I never flunked 
shampoo.

Anyway, this song is a classic, and 

it just narrowly beats out Andrew 
Rannells doing the ridiculous 
conviction of “I Believe” in “The 
Book of Mormon” as the musical 
song that inexplicably inspires me 
in this moment.

Confused about what these 

songs have to do with summer? 

Look out for part two, same time 

next week. In the meantime, email 

Theisen at ajtheis@umich.edu.

6A — Monday, April 11, 2016
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

How DC Comics TV 
outshines DC movies

By ALEX INTNER

Daily Arts Writer

When “Batman v. Superman” 

opened to $166 million, Warner 
Bros. was celebrating. No matter 
what the critics said, their movie 
was a hit. It was making them boat-
loads of money which would allow 
them to call the movie a win, ignor-
ing the B CinemaScore. And then 
the next weekend happened. The 
film dropped 69 percent from its 
first week to its second, the worst 
for a superhero movie since “Hulk” 
in 2003. While the movie will likely 
make a good amount of money, 
it might not reach the $1 billion 
threshold WB was hoping for.

There’s many lessons DC Films 

and Warner Bros. can learn from 
the experience, and to learn them 
they can turn to the television uni-
verse. DC TV series are outshining 
the films in pretty much every way 
right now.

One of the most important les-

sons, which might seem simple at 
first, is to have your character’s 
motivations be clear and meaning-
ful. It sounds like something from 
Screenwriting 101, but it makes a 
huge impact if it’s not there. “Bat-
man v. Superman” manipulates its 
characters into the titular fight and 
portrays Lois Lane (Amy Adams, 
“Enchanted”) making stupid deci-
sions (remember the spear and 
the fountain, anyone?) based on 
what the plot needs them to do. 
In contrast, “The Flash” based its 
entire first season on the inter-

play between a villain and hero, 
giving Barry Allen (Grant Gustin, 
“Glee”) a reason to fight Harrison 
Wells (Tom Cavanagh, “Scrubs”). It 
makes the payoff that much stron-
ger when you drive a conflict based 
on character instead of plot.

The DC TV universe isn’t afraid 

to go to dark places, but that doesn’t 
mean there needs to be an over-
bearing feeling of dread overpow-
ering everything else in the movie. 
Both “Arrow” and “The Flash” push 
their titular heroes into dark places 
where they feel the weight of the 
world on their shoulders. (“Arrow” 
has been especially guilty of this, 
but the show tends to recover when 
it becomes overbearing.) Yet, they 
never let this sense of darkness 
overwhelm the overall tone of the 
characters. On “The Flash,” there’s 
always someone to bring Barry 
back, and make him know that he’s 
not alone. Jesse L. Martin (“Rent”) 
as Barry’s surrogate father, Joe 
West, is especially good at bring-
ing pathos to the darkness, some-
thing “Batman v. Superman” sorely 
lacked.

Still, “The Flash” ’s crossover 

episode with “Supergirl” should be 
the model for what’s possible when 
you mash up DC characters. While 
The Flash is a natural fit in the 
light (and slightly cheesy) tone of 
“Supergirl,” the hour still integrat-
ed Gustin well. It was genuinely fun 
to see the two heroes fight off some 
villains and then race at the end. 
While I understand the DC Film 
universe wants to match the tone of 

the “Dark Knight” series, “World’s 
Finest” gives them a template for 
what they can do if they just lighten 
up.

In addition, while the legwork 

“The Flash” and “Arrow” did to 
introduce new characters for 
“Legends of Tomorrow” is not 
a perfect template, it was surely 
better than anything “Batman v. 
Superman” did to set up the DC 
cinematic universe. When “The 
Flash” and “Arrow” did their 
crossover episode this season, 
bringing together Hawkman (Falk 
Hentschel, “Transcendence”) and 
Hawkgirl (Ciara Renee, Broad-
way’s “Pippin”), they layered in 
the exposition with the ongo-
ing story by introducing Renee’s 
character early and integrating 
her into “The Flash” ’s ongoing 
arc. Though films don’t have the 
advantage of having weekly con-
tent to work with, “Batman v. 
Superman” decided to pause the 
movie for a few minutes while 
Wonder 
Woman 
(Gal 
Gadot, 

“Furious 6”) looked at sneak pre-
views of upcoming movies. There 
has to be a better way of integrat-
ing these previews by introducing 
new characters for the new story.

In the end, “Batman v. Super-

man” serves as a launching pad 
for a massive franchise of films, 
whether we like it or not. Still, 
though, there are lessons director 
Zack Snyder (“Sucker Punch”) and 
the rest of the drivers of the uni-
verse could learn, and TV is a good 
place for them to start. 

TV NOTEBOOK

