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Thursday, May 12, 2016
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com ARTS
Life’s a party: Blind Pig
celebrates Prince’s music
EVENT REVIEW
Packed party honors
the life and music of
late rock star
By ADAM THEISEN
Managing Arts Editor
First of all, I had no idea this
many people liked Prince. I mean,
obviously, the outpouring of love
and grief in the days following
his death was overwhelming, but
among people my age, that I actually
talk to? We had never said much of
anything about him beyond maybe
“Kiss.” Prince was one of my mom’s
favorites, and I really only knew and
enjoyed him in that context.
But the Blind Pig’s Prince Dance
Party last Saturday was packed, and
not just with older folks. It might have
been as much as 75 percent kids in
their twenties, with the rest filled out
by middle-aged fans who were in
their teens and twenties when Purple
Rain came out. They were all excited
and ready to dance.
I don’t quite love Prince enough
where I can go at it with his music
for three hours and know every sin-
gle minute, but wow, I don’t know if
anyone can scale the heights of his
best songs. Even if I don’t know the
albums front-to-back, tracks like “I
Wanna Be Your Lover,” “Controver-
sy” and “Delirious” all killed, effort-
lessly guiding our bodies into sweaty
frenzies. There was a great moment
when the DJ spun “When Doves
Cry” and tossed in the first verse
to “Little Red Corvette” during an
instrumental
break.
As
“Doves”
concluded, it led right into that 0-to-
60 chorus of “Corvette,” blowing up
the whole room in the process.
Beyond that, “Darling Nikki” and
“Kiss” were both highlights. The
former, a song so nasty that it’s the
reason those “Parental Advisory”
stickers on CDs exist, was surpris-
ingly easy to dance to, even with its
slow, grinding tempo. “Kiss,” mean-
while, is the tightest, funkiest, most
ecstatic three minutes ever put on
tape, and it caused such a commo-
tion that my friend even hit some-
body in the face during her rush to
get back to the dancefloor (everyone
was fine).
Then there was “1999,” for my
money the best song about party-
ing ever written. Composed during
peak nuclear anxiety in the early
’80s, “1999” recasts parties not just
as mere diversions or excuses to get
crazy, but rather as the best possible
response to annihilation. The song
has a brilliant beat for dancing, but
it gets its power from the convic-
tion that parties are the natural high
point of life, not a frivolous distrac-
tion. Given that we were having so
much fun at the Blind Pig that night,
“Life is just a party / And parties
weren’t meant to last,” was a line
that hung over the whole night.
I left a little too early to hear what
surely would have been the main
closers: “Raspberry Beret,” “I Would
Die 4 U” and, of course, “Let’s Go
Crazy.” But my night ended on “Pur-
ple Rain,” which was totally fine. It’s
never been my favorite Prince track,
but in a room where everyone was a
little drunk and primed to belt it out,
it was a beautiful thing. I ended up
between two middle-aged women
who were dancing with their hus-
bands but kept reaching over to
each other and singing together.
And then one of them ran her hand
through my sweat-drenched hair.
The night was amazing, but I
must admit to having some mixed
feelings about it. It was, essentially,
a funeral. We were all gathered in
the room because an artist had died,
and we all felt this was the best way
to celebrate and remember his life.
Is it weird that we were dancing at
what’s traditionally a somber occa-
sion?
I’ve thought about it a lot, and I
don’t think so. When Bowie died
earlier this year, I spent hours
and hours listening to his music,
mostly by myself, kind of somberly
reflecting on who he was and what
he meant. In retrospect, it felt more
like dwelling than mourning. I
honestly didn’t feel like the process
was complete until I was at a party
a few months later. “Let’s Dance”
was on the playlist, which I had
helped put together, but it ended
up accidentally being the extended
dance mix version that’s seven
minutes long.
Ordinarily, putting on a remix
like that of an ’80s song would kill a
party, but that night it was perfect.
People got up on couches to dance
and bond and overcome anxiety and
just do their thing to a great beat,
even if it was long and unfamiliar. It
was caused by Bowie, and it was one
of the highlights of the night. To me,
that’s now a huge part of his legacy
— how he brought people together
with his art, not just because it was
critically beloved and legendary, but
also because he got friends cheering
on other friends dancing on couches
in a city he never set foot in.
I’ve listened to so much Prince in
the days since he passed — probably
more than I ever did when he was
alive. It has been mostly a private
experience, but the Blind Pig, I
think, is where the real truth of
the artist became clear to me. I
know nothing about Prince beyond
the music he gave to the world, so
there’s no way we can know for
sure, but I really believe he would’ve
smiled if he had seen a diverse group
of Michiganders going non-stop to
all his songs. Prince never played the
Blind Pig — I’d be surprised if he’d
ever even heard of it — but his spirit
was still in all of our movements.
Like Bowie’s legacy lives on in those
couches in that house on Ashley
Street, Prince will forever be in a
disco ball on 1st.
PAISLEY PARK RECORDS
Rest in peace, you sweet man.
Grips falls in
‘Bottomless Pit’
By SAM ROSENBERG
Daily Arts Writer
Despite having a relatively
new career, Death Grips has
already made a significant name
for
itself.
The
Sacramento trio
has
released
five
records,
two
instrumen-
tal projects, an
EP and a mix-
tape in the past
six years, com-
pleting each in
almost
rapid
succession
and
occasionally without any prior
notice to the public. Their music
has attracted the attention of
Icelandic singer Björk, Robert
Pattinson (of “Twilight” fame),
and even Adidas. Through mix-
ing genres of metal, punk, hip
hop industrial and electronic,
Death Grips has become one of
our generation’s most compelling
music phenomenons, which is
strange considering they decid-
ed to call it quits after releasing
their “final album,” The Powers
That B, in the spring of 2015.
Of course, that wasn’t the case,
as they announced late last Octo-
ber that they were embarking
on a world tour and were in the
process of creating their newest
album, Bottomless Pit. Though
they continue to showcase a tire-
less ambition and impeccable
craft, it was only a matter of
time before Death Grips’s music
became predictable. In addition
to being the band’s most chaotic
and harshest record to date, Bot-
tomless Pit lacks the captivating
hooks, hard-hitting lyrics, cohe-
sive thread and gravity-defying
heights of their previous efforts.
For a band known for having
an erratic, experimental sound,
Death Grips keeps their material
relatively polished. Yet Bottom-
less Pit feels like an unfortunate
misstep, with 13 songs piling on
top of one another and creating a
numbing, messy listening experi-
ence. Tracks like the heart-stop-
ping opener “Giving Bad People
Good Ideas,” the unnervingly
noisy “Spikes” and electro-punk
thrasher “Three Bedrooms In
a Good Neighborhood” are irk-
some compared to songs from
2012’s The Money Store and
2013’s Government Plates. Like
their past works, these tracks are
injected with a nihilistic abandon
and an abrasive sound, but they
don’t seem to push hard enough
to break Death Grips’s thematic
and sonic mold. Promotional
single “Hot Head” starts with a
promising muzzled synth loop,
which is then gradually drowned
out in a muddled heap of raucous
guitar riffs and twitchy electron-
ic blips. “BB Poison” is similarly
frustrating, building off an irri-
tating warped sample that verges
on giving a listener a migraine.
The zany “Bubbles Buried in the
Jungle” weaves in and out like a
dangerous driver on the freeway
as it changes tempos unexpect-
edly twice within the song.
However, Bottomless Pit is
not without the strengths and
creative talent of its producers,
drummer
Zach
Hill
and
instrumentalist
Andy
Morin.
With frontman Stefan “MC Ride”
Burnett’s feral roar and stream-
of-consciousness raps, the three
Death Grips members elevate
the album’s tired formula on
certain tracks. Jittery highlights
“Eh” and “Trash” finds MC Ride
voicing
his
frustrations
with
society,
the
former
thrusting
him in a sea of problems he
could care less about and the
latter venting about the negative
effects
of
consumerism.
The
album’s shortest song, “Ring a
Bell,” is also its best, exhibiting
all of Death Grips’s best qualities
while
adding
a
shimmering
guitar riff to boot.
Undoubtedly,
Death
Grips
will continue to perplex, amaze
and mystify audiences. Though
Bottomless Pit may not be the
ideal example of their current
state as artists, Death Grips
doesn’t seem to be stopping
anytime soon — unless the band
momentarily
disbands
again.
Perhaps if they shift and tweak
their conceptual focus, Death
Grips can propel forward into
much darker, more emotionally
taut territory.
MUSIC REVIEW
C+
Bottomless
Pit
Death Grips
Third World/
Harvest Records