The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Wednesday, September 27, 2017 — 5A
Arts

With a freshly bleached 

mullet mohawk and a distinct 
nomadic-desert-hippie 
vibe, 

singer Nicholas Petricca bobs 
along to the bubbly indie pop 
that 
Walk 
The 

Moon is famous 
for, 
as 
cheery 

as 
ever 
despite 

the 
relative 

barrenness of the 
desert landscape 
behind him.

Petricca’s 

wacky 
dance 

moves 
dominate 
most 
of 

the “One Foot” music video, 
interspersed with a few shots 
of a graceful dancer, the band 
together as a whole and a few 
shots of Petricca serenading 
the sky. From the first few lines 
of the song, it’s easy to figure 
out where the inspiration for 
the setting came from. “Not 
a soul up ahead and nothing 
behind / There’s a desert in 
my blood and a storm in your 
eyes,” Petricca sings as he 

stares boldly into the camera, 
a 
geometric 
stripe 
design 

running down each of his 
cheeks.

Both the production style 

and face paint are pretty 
consistent with Walk The 
Moon’s older aesthetic, seen 
on songs like “Quesadilla” 

and 
“Anna 

Sun.” Although 
“One 
Foot” 

isn’t 
terrible, 

it isn’t exactly 
groundbreaking, 
either, 
especially when 
compared 
to 

more 
bizarre, 

story-centered 
videos 
and 

even Walk The Moon’s own 
“Shut Up and Dance.”

Although the music video 

is lackluster, the song itself 
is undeniably catchy, with 
the same tireless energy that 
pervaded 
2014’s 
uptempo, 

positive Talking is Hard. The 
track is similar to “Shut Up 
and Dance” in terms of style, 
composition 
and 
energy, 

especially with respect to the 
chorus — both tracks have a 

memorable, 
chant-like 
line 

that contains the song title — 
though “One Foot” lacks the 
harder riffs that set “Shut Up 

and Dance” apart as more of a 
party song.

With 
Walk 
The 
Moon’s 

consistent sound and release 
style, 
dependability 
might 

be the band’s greatest asset. 
In an industry where artists 
are 
continually 
redefining 

their identities, Walk The 
Moon fans at least know what 
they’re getting.

“One Foot”

Walk The 

Moon

RCA Records

SAM LU

Daily Arts Writer
NETFLIX

The surprising depth and 
meaning in adult cartoons

Cartoons 
are 
often 
a 

childish, reductive medium. 
They take the forms of people, 
animals and places, break them 
down to their bare parts, and 
illustrate them. That being said, 
plenty of cartoons are visually 
appealing and stimulating — 
but for the most part, they are 
not considered high forms of 
art. Often, cartoon programs 
are directed towards children, 
but a good deal of them are 
directed 
towards 
adults. 

These programs often air on 
Adult Swim, the nighttime 
programming block of Cartoon 
Network. While adult cartoons 
often lean towards irreverent 
or absurd comedy, in recent 
years, there has been an uptake 
in high-quality content that has 
a striking amount of purpose 
and message. Programs like 
“Rick and Morty” and “BoJack 
Horseman” are changing the 
reputation of adult comedy for 
the better.

For the past decade or so, 

adult cartoons had mostly been 
directed towards the critique 
and 
lampoon 
of 
American 

culture. The stock formula is 
a middle-class family, with 
one son, one daughter, a baby 
and a pet or two. The longest 
running thirty-minute series, 
“The Simpsons,” does just that, 
having cemented itself in the 
hall of outstanding television 
many years ago. Variations on 
on the same theme, like Seth 
McFarlane’s 
three 
shows, 

“Family 
Guy,” 
“American 

Dad” 
and 
“The 
Cleveland 

Show” have been met with 
similar acclaim. The formula 
is tried-and-true, which has 

discouraged experimentation 
and ingenuity.

Adult Swim’s “Rick and 

Morty” 
has 
inverted 
this 

formula by changing some of 
the roles. Instead of the dopey, 
dumb father, grandfather Rick 
is a genius scientist across 
galaxies, 
and 
actual-father 

Jerry is ineffectual and plain. 
Rick is often paired with Morty, 
his grandson, who is hopeful 

and naive, but not stupid. The 
duo is a reworked Stewie and 
Brian from “Family Guy,” in 
a way, working with the same 
evil 
genius 
and 
simpleton 

dynamic that is referenced 
in countless other programs. 
“Ricky and Morty” also has a 
remarkable amount of depth 
in 
narrative 
and 
subject, 

taking place across countless 
galaxies and timelines. The 
blurring between real and fake 
that takes place is thought-

provoking 
and 
poignant 

without sacrificing too much 
meaning. 
Occasionally, 

cartoons are great ways to 
make 
larger-than-life 
ideas 

digestible.

Netflix’s 
“BoJack 

Horseman” completely ignores 
the stock formula and tackles 
themes in American culture 
that have often been ignored. 
The eponymous, washed-up 
sitcom star has to deal with 
his life after fame, with his 
then-contemporaries, like Mr. 
Peanutbutter, and PR agent 
quasi-girlfriend, 
Princess 

Carolyn. The show actually 
carries 
a 
main 
storyline, 

which is a deviation from the 
irreverence of adult cartoons, 
and is not told in a linear 
fashion. The audience sees 
snippets of BoJack in the past 
that inform the narrative that 
is playing out in the present, 
which leaves them without key 
points of information. BoJack, 
voice by Will Arnett (“Arrested 
Development”), has no family 
in the main characters, and 
the show turns to the fear of 
isolation more often than not. 
The creativity and novelty of 
“BoJack Horseman” shows the 
power of streaming companies 
to make content that is original 
without being derivative as 
other series. The genre of adult 
cartoons is stepping forward 
with its assistance.

Overall, 
accessible 
pop 

culture 
hasn’t 
had 
an 

interesting adult cartoon in a 
long time. At high points in the 
arc of a television show, seasons 
three and four, respectively, 
“Rick and Morty” and “BoJack 
Horseman” provide viewers 
with an unforgettable, quasi-
trailblazing moment in the 
history of television.

JACK BRANDON

Daily Arts Writer

TV NOTEBOOK

For the past 
decade or so, 
adult cartoons 
had mostly been 
directed towards 

the critique 

and lampoon of 
American culture

RCA

Walk The Moon maintains 
consistency in new video

Petricca’s wacky 

dance moves 

dominate most of 
the “One Foot” 

music video

Many argue that Skrillex 

has not had a vital new song 
in years — since either his 
chart-topping 
collaboration 

with Diplo and Justin Bieber 
(“Where 
Are 

Ü 
Now”) 
or 

his 
similarly 

ambitious 
crossover 
effort 

with 
A$AP 

Rocky 
(“Wild 

For The Night”). 
Meanwhile, 
others 
believe 

that Skrillex never created 
vital 
music 
in 
the 
first 

place, dismissing his wholly 
American 
translations 
of 

dubstep and dance music as 
computerized noise — viral 
fodder for the iGeneraton, sure, 
but undeserving of that sacred 
title: Art.

Both of these groups, of 

course, are absolutely wrong. 
Earlier 
this 
year, 
Skrillex 

released 
his 
highest-profile 

single 
in 
years, 
finally 

returning to his electro-alias 

after an oddly long hiatus 
during which he focused on 
running his label (OWSLA). 
That single — “Would You 
Ever,” a collaboration with 
go-to pop writer Poo Bear — 
is a melodious monster that 
instantly insinuates thoughts 
of sunshine and palm trees. 

It’s also one of 
Skrillex’s 
most 

beautiful tracks 
to date, despite 
not exactly being 
representative 
of 
his 
classic 

sound. Now, as 
if to compensate 
for 
his 
recent 

deviation from hardcore, the 
mega-producer has returned 
with a speaker-rattling remix 
of the year’s biggest rap song: 
Kendrick Lamar’s “Humble.”

Perhaps 
Kendrick 
never 

needed to hear his words 
reworked into an ear-melting 
bass drop, but besides that 
point, 
Skrillex’s 
“Humble” 

slaps harder than Batman in 
that 
ever-so-perfect 
comic 

meme. For an artist whose work 
is often recognized as noisy, 
perhaps borderline obnoxious, 

he makes effortless use of 
empty space, teasing listeners 
with a brief accapella lead-
in before employing anxious 
high-keys to initiate his assault. 
Eventually, jumpy snares and 
an intense pattern of whopping 
bass kicks arrive to foreshadow 
the song’s chorus, but even 
then, gaps between their kicks 
somehow leave sufficient room 
for Kendrick.

Obviously, once the drop 

arrives, there is no secret who 
the song’s remixer is: Listening 
to Skrillex’s “Humble” can feel 
something like standing next to 
an airplane that’s mid-takeoff. 
Yet, his softer, perhaps more 
musical capabilities are still 
ever-present in the production, 
a point that’s driven home by 
his inclusion of in-character 
space-synths (think “Cinema” 
or “All I Ask Of You”) within 
Kendrick’s second verse. For 
a moment here, one might 
wonder if the song is about to 
slow down.

It does not. Cue another 

“Shut up, bitch! Be humble,” 
and another drop. That is the 
Skrillex we fell in love with in 
2010.

“Humble” 
(Remix)

Skrillex

Atlantic

SALVATORE DIGIOIA

Daily Arts Writer

ATLANTIC

Skrillex injects ‘Humble’ 
with an overdose of bass

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