7

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