The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Wednesday, November 22, 2017 — 5A

RCA/SONY

Two years ago he told us that Buffalo revived his career and that’s the most that city’s done
‘Oblivion’ is the comeback 
none of us asked T-Pain for

The new release finds T-Pain trying, failing to reinvent himself

Louis 
Menand, 
a 
staff 

writer for the New Yorker, 
postulated “The Iron Law of 
Stardom,” which states that a 
star can only coincide with the 
zeitgeist for three years before 
the world moves on. Someone 
needs to frame that article 
and give it to T-Pain, because 
his 
latest 
album, 
Oblivion, 

released last Thursday, Nov. 
17, feels like the efforts of a 
man struggling in vain to swim 
against a current that’s leaving 
him behind.

T-Pain, the former chart-

topper, 
now 
finds 
himself 

making lukewarm dancehall 
pop numbers (“No Rush”) and 
halfhearted 
trap 
anthems. 

How did it come to this?

The answer is that T-Pain is 

trying to be two artists at once 
on Oblivion — he is trying to 

keep up with what is currently 
popular while retaining his 
signature style, but the end 
result is a work that feels 
aimless and devoid of artistic 
meaning. In attempting to be 
both a trapper and a poppy 
R&B 
singer, 
he 
stretches 

himself much too thin, leading 
to an album that comes off as 
half-assed and derivative.

I’m 
making 
this 
album 

sound worse than it really is. 
It’s actually not half bad; “Your 
Friend” and “Second Chance 
(Don’t 
Back 
Down),” 
for 

example, are both enjoyable if 
not spectacular. In fact, there 
is nothing inherently “bad” 
about most of this album, 
as many of the songs are 
energetic, catchy and utterly 
inoffensive. 
T-Pain’s 
vocals 

are as fun as ever, and there 
is no denying that he has a 
knack for catchy melodies. The 
problem is that Oblivion just 
doesn’t have the same magic 
that T-Pain had from ’06 to ’08, 
when he was perfect for his 
time and place, and it feels like 
a hollow imitation as a result.

A 
few 
particular 
low 

points: “That Comeback” is 
an attempted pop anthem that 
lacks any form of charisma 
and is quite possibly the worst 
track T-Pain has ever released. 
Don’t listen to it. “Goal Line” is 
an attempt at an industrial trap 
sound that falls flat on its face 
from the get-go, not helped by 

an uninspiring feature from 
Blac Youngsta.

In his article Menand claims 

two exceptions to his three-
year rule: If stars reinvent 
themselves, as the Beatles and 

Kanye West have done, they 
may be able to be at one with 
the zeitgeist for an additional 
three years. It is too late for 
T-Pain to go down this path; 
he is too far removed from 
the cutting edge. The other 
exception is that stars can 
have a three-year “revival,” 
where an artist experiences 
a resurgence borne of mass 
nostalgia, 
which 
may 
yet 

happen for Pain, but likely not 
as a result of this new release.

This 
wave 
of 
nostalgia 

is the force by which we 
could conceivably see T-Pain 
restored to cultural relevancy, 
a 
society 
of 
millennials 

wishing to return to the idyllic 
days of halcyon youth through 
the crooning king of Auto-
Tune. Until then, he would 
do well to not try to catch up 
with a cultural milieu that has 
passed him by, and instead 
embrace the style that made 
him so influential in the first 
place. 

COURTESY OF CARLY YASHINKSY

This past week’s performance by the Friars
Multi-purposing venues: 
The Pink Seat Project is 
both aware & entertaining

What can a seat do?
“When people first walk in, they 

see the pink seat, the immediate 
reaction is ‘what is that?’”

It can spark a question.
“He was crying when he saw 

this pink seat.”

It can provoke a reaction.
A seat can be more than a place 

to sit and watch a performance. It 
can have philanthropic powers. 
In the seventh grade, College 
of 
Engineering 
Senior 
Adam 

Lassman had a realization when 
he saw an advertisement featuring 
Ted Williams’s red seat at Fenway. 
“It signifies that a feat was 
accomplished,” (the longest home-
run hit in Fenway), Lassman said 
in an interview with the Michigan 
Daily, “and I remember thinking 
‘That’s one seat, and that’s a sea 
of seats ... One seat could make an 
impact.’”

When he earned a service 

fellowship during his senior year of 
high school, Lassman capitalized 
on the visual and fiscal powers of 
a seat by creating the Pink Seat 
Project, “a non-profit organization 
that works to establish pink seats in 
entertainment venues, and all the 
ticket sales from those seats go to 
local breast cancer organizations.”

In the entertainment industry, 

venues are rented out by the people 
putting on the production, and thus 
the aesthetics of the space are up to 
their discretion. With permission 
from the producers, The Pink Seat 
Project temporarily installs pink 
seats at entertainment venues for 
specific performances.

During the span of the The 

Pink Seat Project’s inaugural year, 
Lassman installed nine pink seats 
in his local area of Needham, 
Massachusetts. The organization 
was born again at the University 
during 
the 
second 
semester 

of Lassman’s sophomore year, 
after joining Pi Sigma Epsilon, a 

consulting fraternity on campus.

Since its introduction at the 

University, pink seats have been 
installed 
at 
performances 
for 

MUSKET, the Friars, 58 Greene, 
and an impromptu comedy show 
organized by a group of friends. 
For this upcoming winter semester, 
the organization has established 
a partnership with Big Ticket 
Productions.

Students 
in 
entertainment 

organizations on campus have 
been eager and excited to support 
Lassman’s Pink Seat Project at 
their own performances. “It’s 
students talking with students,” 
said Carly Yashinsky, LSA Senior 
and consulting director for the 
Pink Seat Project.

“The person who recorded the 

PSE promotional video … she was 
in her own a capella group and she 
had a performance that Friday.” So 
Lassman asked, “‘Can I get a pink 
seat there?’”

“One of my friends is in a stand 

up comedy club … so I put one pink 
seat there.”

The 
Pink 
Seat’s 
reach 

throughout Lassman’s time as a 
University student has extended 
beyond this campus. “I studied 
abroad in Australia,” Lassman 
said. “One day … I walked past 
the theatre department.” He went 
inside, looked for a manager and 
was eventually directed to another 
building where he met a student 
in charge of ticket sales. Lassman 
gave his pitch, the student was on 
board and that weekend, three 
pink seats were installed at a 
student performance of “Romeo 
and Juliet” at the University of 
New South Wales.

The 
Pink 
Seat 
Project 
is 

expanding in the U.S., too. Students 
at the University of Colorado at 
Boulder and a high school student 
in Miami are seeking to install pink 
seats at performances in their local 
areas.

The Pink Seat’s success has been 

due in large part to the receptivity 
of the arts community with whom 

they create partnerships. Lassman 
began playing the trumpet when 
he was young, and at his quartet 
performances he was exposed to 
people who seemed to “generally 
enjoy being surrounded by people.” 
Lassman he said he knew when 
starting his organization that “a 
community like that would be most 
receptive to an idea like this.”

The arts community is also the 

Pink Seat’s target audience. Equally 
as important as its mission to 
fundraise is its dual purpose to raise 
awareness about the importance of 
these procedures. A cure for breast 
cancer is in the spotlight of the 
breast cancer conversation, and so 
the importance of early detection is 
often overshadowed.

A pink seat in a venue is a 

visual cue. It is an effective tool 
for awareness because it doesn’t 
explain its meaning, it sparks a 
question. Audience members can 
find the answer in their programs, 
and it’s Lassman’s hope that “it 
sparks them to do a little bit more 
digging.”

For some, it can spark more than 

a question or newfound awareness, 
it can spark a reaction and a 
connection. A MUSKET alumnus 
was the occupant of a pink seat at 
the group’s performance of ‘Big 
Fish’ in 2016. 45 years earlier, 
after a dress rehearsal for his 
performance of ‘My Fair Lady’ in 
1971, he went to the hospital with 
some fellow cast members and 
sang a rendition of ‘Wouldn’t it Be 
Loverly’ to his mother. She was sick 
from breast cancer and nodded off 
when they finished the song.

“He can come back and see 

MUSKET 
supporting 
breast 

cancer,” Lassman said. “It brought 
him to tears.” 

A seat is more than a place 

to sit, and it serves more than a 
philanthropic purpose. The Pink 
Seat creates a culture of care that 
relies on, and can strengthen, the 
connectedness of the community 
of those that enjoy arts, theatre, 
music and entertainment.

ALEX SUPPAN
Daily Arts Writer

JONAH MENDELSON

Daily Arts Writer

COMMUNITY PROFILE

A look at Lanthimos and 
the division over his films

How one director’s filmography has created divisiveness in viewers

I’m 
mainly 
writing 
this 

because I can’t figure out if I like 
Yorgos Lanthimos’s films and 
I have a feeling I’m not alone in 
this sentiment. Some think he’s 
pretentious, some think he’s a 

visionary and a genius, some 
think he’s downright crooked 
and disturbed — and some are 
probably in the middle like me.

“Dogtooth” 
(2009), 
“The 

Lobster” (2015) and the newly 
released 
“The 
Killing 
of 
a 

Sacred Deer” all follow a similar, 
authentically and distinguishably 
Lanthimosian aesthetic of a 

bizarre dystopia. “Dogtooth,” 
a film in the director’s native 
Greek, traces a controlling father 
who locks his children on their 
house grounds and brainwashes 
them. “The Lobster” gives its 
characters 45 days to find a mate 
and, if they do not succeed, they 
are turned into the animals of 
their choice — a bleak survival of 

the fittest. And in his latest film, 
“The Killing of a Sacred Deer,” a 
surgeon is forced to choose the 
fate of his children’s lives through 
the psychological mind control 
of the son of a patient who died 
during his operation. It’s the 
ultimate vendetta.

Lanthimos’s directorial vision 

and overall view of the world is 
undeniably twisted and dark. He 
attempts to critique the complex 
themes that we face as humans: 
the conditioning one’s upbringing 
forces on the individual, the 
competition to find a compatible 
partner and procreate and the 
hunt for revenge. In a way, his 
stories trace, thematically, the 
stories of his predecessors of the 
Ancient Greek classics, as they 
all explore the primal nature 
of humans. The title of “The 
Killing of a Sacred Deer” itself 
is even based on the Greek myth 
of Iphigenia who is sacrificed 

by 
her 
father, 
Agamemnon, 

who killed a sacred deer and 
then must therefore murder his 
daughter for retribution from 
the gods. An ode to his roots, 
perhaps, his vision is evidently 
imbued with an influence from 
an iconic historical period when 
the instincts of violence and 
vengeance were esteemed.

Probably 
what 
has 
made 

Lanthimos such a provocative 
director is his reliance on visceral 
elements 
and 
reactions 
that 

many claim to be outrageous 
and disturbing. His movies are 
weird; they don’t quite fit into one 
specific genre and the frequent 
violence he features can at times 
seem arbitrary. He relies on 
disorienting the audience as a 
device to reveal the greater truths 
about his films, like in “The 
Killing of a Sacred Deer” when 
the characters speak in a robotic, 
monotone speech that distances 

them from reality or when, in 
“Dogtooth,” 
the 
brainwashed 

kids are taught misnomers by 
their parents (like the word 
“telephone” to replace the word 
“salt”) to comment on how truth 
and knowledge are subjective 
and 
how 
one’s 
environment 

determines 
everything. 
This 

deliberate 
disorientation 

enters the audience into an 
uncomfortable position which 
can 
be 
overwhelming 
and 

unsettling, which is likely his 
intention.

“The Killing of a Sacred Deer” 

received the best screenplay 
award at Cannes. Though, like all 
of his films, critics and fans alike 
are bound to have polarizing 
views on the film. Some detest his 
work and some thrive off seeing 
what he’s going to release next, 
but despite this divide, his films 
are damn entertaining and worth 
a view. 

SOPHIA WHITE

Daily Arts Writer

Oblivion 

T-Pain 

RCA / Sony 

I’m making this 

album sound 
worse than it 

really is

A24

Colin Farrell is a national treasure

FILM NOTEBOOK

ALBUM REVIEW

