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Thursday, June 29, 2017

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com ARTS

By AARURAN 

CHANDRASEKHAR

 Daily Arts Writer

Underground 
French 
night 

clubs will be adding Staples to 
their rotation soon.

From inaugural major label 

EP Hell Can Wait to his most 
recent Prima Donna, No I.D. and 
ARTium label mate DJ Dahi have 
produced 90% of the tracks Vince 
Staples has released. On Big Fish 
Theory, 
Staples 
eschews 
col-

laboration with both. Instead, he 
favors electronic-heavy producers 
like Flume and SOPHIE. While 
this doesn’t spell some in-label-
under-the-table beef — the album 
was still released on No I.D.’s 
ARTium Recordings, after all — 
it highlights creative differences, 
significant differences at that.

Big Fish Theory opens with 

Justin 
Vernon-assisted 
“Crabs 

in a Bucket.” The first minute is 
spacy, thinly sliced vocals tightly 
driven between filtered, distorted 
sounds and ambient coastal noise. 
It’s hardly recognizable as a Vince 
Staples track, but when the beat 
kicks — a sweeping, garage house-
derivative kick and snare com-
posite — and when Staples spends 
two verses rapping frantically 
staccato — “put me in the MoMa 
when it’s over with / I used to look 
up to the sky, now I’m over shit” 
— it’s immediately clear that we’re 
meeting a new Vince.

Staples has long envisioned 

himself within the legion of 
hip hop’s avant-garde. On Big 
Fish Theory, he is no different. 
Yet, what he steps away from is 
the 
Lamarian 
meta-thematic, 

architectonic 
experience 
we 

saw on Summertime ’06 and 
Prima 
Donna. 
Those 
pieces 

both function and frame on the 
project-level scale: A complete 
experience calls for total con-
sumption.

Not that Big Fish Theory 

doesn’t beg to be enjoyed from 
front to back. But in those past 
projects, the music was engi-
neered around a larger motive: 
Certain emotions, certain take-
aways seemed to be demanded. 
What Big Fish Theory sees is 
Vince stepping away into much 
more amorphous territory, leav-

ing 
space 
for 
interpretation 

rather than urging the listener 
outright to some conclusion. He 
better understands that artists 
ask questions, not answer them.

On 
Big 
Fish 
Theory, 
his 

experimental tendency has con-
strained into the microscopic, 
into the minute elements of the 
single track. What’s most telling 
is his choice to release the outro 
“Rain Come Down” as a single 
more than two weeks before the 
official album drop. It’s hard to 
imagine A$AP Rocky releasing 
“Suddenly,” Danny Brown drop-
ping “Float On” or Kanye West 
surrendering “Bound 2” pre-
album. Those tracks were essen-
tial summits to the larger album 
at hand, aesthetically and emo-
tionally. It would taint the piece 
to hear it prematurely.

Not that “Rain Come Down” 

doesn’t decisively conclude the 
album. It does. The most omi-
nous bass on the album grumbles 
between sparse hi-hats, looped 
gunshots and a solemn recount 
of his hometown and emotional 
disconnect from women. Yet, 
what gets lost is this album as a 
self-contained entity.

Whether that is devolution or 

transcendence is up to the lis-
tener, I suppose.

It can’t help but seem like a 

surrender to the fact that most 
of his fans will only hear the 
singles and not 
the album. This 
comes full circle 
because beyond 
all the mention 
of 
avant-garde 

and experimen-
tation, Big Fish Theory is Vince’s 
most accessible release. For the 
first time, it seems that Staples 
has really embraced his role as 
an artist and entertainer. Not 
that he’s moved beyond social 
critique and black advocacy: 
Those ideas continue to animate 
much of this album’s lyrical con-
tent. However, the significant 
attention to money, cars and 
deviant relations with women 
does mark a major thematic shift 
in his style.

By SAM ROSENBERG

 Daily Arts Writer

When watching “Glow,” you 

can’t help but think of its sister show 
“Orange is the New Black.” In addi-
tion to sharing the same streaming 
platform, “Glow” draws several par-
allels to “OITNB,” with its diverse 
female ensemble cast and its illus-
tration of the challenges of being a 
woman in a male-dominated sys-
tem. (It’s also no coincidence that 
“OITNB” creator Jenji Kohan exec-
utive produces “Glow” and wrote 
one of the episodes).

But while both shows share simi-

lar themes and socially conscious 
undertones, comparing the two feels 
a bit too on-the-nose, especially since 
“Glow,” though not as nuanced as 
“OITNB,” offers something entirely 
different and refreshing. Created 
by Liz Flahive (“Adult Beginners”) 
and Carly Mensch (“Nurse Jack-
ie”), “Glow” treats its audience to a 
delightful, entertaining and visually 

glossy depiction of 
the female wres-
tling world, along 
with the intrica-
cies 
of 
female 

friendship 
and 

gender dynamics. 
The Netflix series 

was based on an actual syndicated 
female wrestling circuit from the 
‘80s, but thanks to some sharp dia-
logue and inventive characters, 
“Glow” works well as a fictionalized 
origin story, breathing new life into 
its defunct source material.

The show begins with its antihe-

ro protagonist Ruth Wilder (Alison 
Brie, “The Littlest Hours”), a strug-
gling Los Angeles actress who, after 
failing an audition and reaching 
near debt, joins the Gorgeous Ladies 
of Wrestling, an emerging TV show 
that involves a group of “unconven-
tional women” acting and wrestling 
one another. Despite derision and 
doubt from her fellow G.L.O.W.-

mates and the show’s scuzzy direc-
tor Sam Sylvia (a perfectly cast 
Marc Maron, “Easy”), Ruth persists 
against the odds, even if it’s mostly 
out of desperation.

Things become more compli-

cated when Sam places Ruth’s best 
friend-turned-rival Debbie Egan 
(Betty Gilpin, “True Story”) on 
G.L.O.W., making for a predictable 
albeit intriguing and heartfelt dual 
character arc. The central focus on 
their relationship is perhaps the 
most engaging and genuine part 
about “Glow.” The troubled con-
nection they work through feels 
similar to something like the vola-
tile relationship between “Orange 
is the New Black”’s Piper and Alex, 
“Riverdale”’s Veronica and Betty 
and “Insecure”’s Issa and Molly. 
Without spoiling the truth behind 
their deeply troubled friendship, 
“Glow” deftly uses literal and figu-
rative fighting ground for Ruth and 
Debbie to resolve their issues, with 
their opposite wrestling personas 
building and simultaneously reliev-
ing tension between the two. 

Despite its glee and gusto, “Glow” 

is not as incredibly unprecedented as 
it may seem. The plot is fairly conven-
tional, the jokes are raunchy but not 
gut-busting and for the most part, 
it’s more enjoyable than thought-
provoking. However, “Glow” does 
have the potential to reach heights 
of critical grandeur, especially with 
its stellar cinematography, charm-
ing costume design, makeup and 
killer New Wave soundtrack. Most 
period shows and films try too hard 
to evoke the time period in which 
they take place through obvious 
pop culture references. Luckily, 
“Glow”’s authentic portrayal of the 
‘80s evokes the decade’s social and 
aesthetic atmosphere well enough 
that it’s neither too simplistic nor 
over-the-top.

In addition to “Glow”’s artful-

ness, the show continues to break 
ground for better and more fleshed 

out representation of women on 
television. Brie makes for a compel-
ling lead, seeing that her previous 
supporting roles on NBC’s “Com-
munity” and AMC’s “Mad Men” 
have propelled her to finally playing 
a main character perfectly suited 
for her. Similarly, Gilpin brings the 
funk and humor as Debbie, play-
ing off Brie’s energy with a sub-
dued yet dynamic performance. In 
addition to Brie and Gilpin, Sydelle 
Noel (“Everybody Hates Chris”) 
and Britney Young (“Those Who 
Can’t”) give enthralling, breakout 
performances as Cherry Bang and 
Carmen Wade, respectively. The 
two each offer both comic relief 
and genuine poignancy, even if 
their roles as supporting characters 
aren’t as amplified as much as Brie 
and Gilpin’s.

“Glow” itself triumphs as a show 

primarily because of its female cast 
and how its characters deal with 
the complexities of being sexual-
ized and stereotyped as wrestlers 
for the sake of entertainment. 
The execution of “Glow”’s sub-
versiveness sometimes comes off 
a bit shaky. At times, it just seems 
like the characters are willfully 
embracing the very stereotypes 
that suppress them into one-
dimensional people. But “Glow” 
is smart enough to recognize the 
effect the male gaze has on these 
women, and how their reclaiming 
of regressive symbols of femininity 
can be liberating and empowering.

The first few episodes are a tad 

lukewarm, plot and humor-wise — 
the pilot feels like it could be lon-
ger, and the two episodes following 
it ebb and flow between intelligent 
and meandering. But much like 
“Orange is the New Black,” “Glow” 
truly shines when it gets to the 
emotional core behind each of its 
character and the kind of personas 
they’re trying to build as wrestlers 
and as women.

Glow 

Netflix

Season 1 Review

 

MUSIC REVIEW

Big Fish 
Theory 

Vince Staples

Dej Jam Recordings

‘Glow’ packs a punch 

Staples appeals 
with new sound

COURTESY OF NETFLIX

Wrestlers gather around the ring 

TV REVIEW

See full story on
 MichiganDaily.com

