The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Tuesday, February 19, 2019 — 5

As the saying goes, you can’t 
always get what you want. 
It’s hard for something to be 
great every time. Sometimes, 
sights are set too high. That is 
exactly what happened with 
Buoys, the latest release from 
Noah Lennox, more widely 
known as Panda Bear. That 
is not to say that the album is 
bad. It’s actually very good, 
but something is off.
In his sixth album, Panda 
Bear, co-founding member 
of Animal Collective and 
frequent 
solo 
act, 
tries 
something new. Gone are 
the days of humongous, lush 
soundscapes and curious lead 
samples. On Buoys, he only 
utilizes his highly processed 
voice, 
swampy 
basslines, 
compressed 
synthesizers, 
an acoustic guitar and the 
occasional 
sound 
sample. 
It’s a strange combination 
of sounds, but for the most 
part, it works. The looped 
guitar 
licks 
nestle 
with 
bubbling bass while the synth 
strikes veer anywhere and 
everywhere with no regard. 
It sounds disorienting, not 
in a nauseating way, but a 
hypnotizing 
one. 
Singles 
“Dolphins” and “Token” are 
instances where this effect 
is executed flawlessly. They 
sound like the listener is 
swimming through a highly 

viscous fluid where sounds 
travel just a little too fast. 
It’s mesmerizing. In fact, it is 
almost fascinating to hear.
All of Buoys unfolds like 
this, and it’s great. However, 
it 
also 
leaves 
listeners 
wanting more. Lennox is a 
little too deep in his own zone 
with this album. It sounds 
like he found the exact sound 
he wanted for the album, 
then 
refused 
to 
explore 
other 
soundscapes. 
Album 
standout “Inner Monologue” 

is the only song to break the 
mold. The song begins with 
a vocal sample of a woman’s 
trembling 
voice, 
which 
is 
soon joined by a droning horn 
blast and a meandering guitar. 
Shortly after, Lennox’s voice 
replaces the horn blasts, and 
the song erupts into a flurry 
of sound. It is unlike any 
other song, both on the album 

and elsewhere in the industry. 
“Inner 
Monologue” 
serves 
as an example as to why it 
is so important to diversify 
within the album’s set sound. 
It yields absolutely fantastic 
results.

However, 
“Inner 

Monologue” is the exception, 
not the rule. The other songs 
on Buoys just do not live up to 
the standards that previous 
Panda Bear releases set forth. 
While 
albums 
like 
Person 
Pitch and Tomboy both alter 
and contort their sound in 
different ways with each 
subsequent 
song, 
Buoys 
allows its sound to steep to 
the point of stagnation. It is 
admirable that Lennox tried 
this new sound, that much 
is certain, but he merely 
evolves his own sound rather 
than expanding upon it.
All in all, Buoys is a 
wonderful 
collection 
of 
songs. The issue is that 
the highs are few and far 
between. Aside from the 
album’s sound as a whole, 
no individual song takes a 
step outside of the realm 
of the expected. Buoys just 
does not thrill. It doesn’t 
disappoint, but there is such 
little 
diversity 
that 
it 
is 
hard to be satisfied upon the 
album’s 
completion. 
Panda 
Bear has opened the door 
for an intriguing new sound, 
but for the most part, Buoys 
leaves listeners with a craving 
for something that isn’t there.

Panda Bear lulls listeners 
into a trance with ‘Buoys’

JIM WILSON
Daily Arts Writer

DOMINO

MUSIC REVIEW

‘Buoys’ 

Panda Bear

Domino Recording 
Company

You certainly can’t accuse 
“Happy Death Day 2U” of 
wasting its time. No sooner have 
viewers been dropped back into 
the world of the surprise 2017 
slasher hit than the story picks 
up with a new day, a new time 
loop and a new killer in a baby 
mask. Lest this all start to sound 
a little too familiar, “Happy 
Death Day 2U” 
pulls 
off 
one 
twist by signaling 
early 
on 
that 
this is no longer 
a horror movie. 
Oh, there’s still 
a 
knife-wielding 
psychopath 
on 
the 
loose, 
but 
that’s 
more 
a 
pesky annoyance 
this time around. 
Instead, 
with 
a 
story 
centering 
on 
the 
multiverse and time travel and 
a host of other pseudo-science 
mumbo jumbo, it embraces the 
silliness at the core of its premise 
and plays as an out-and-out sci-fi 
comedy.
I can respect the daringness 
it would take to genre-hop like 
that — it’s the sort of move that 
a lot of series wouldn’t even 
think of making — even if the 
movie itself never lives up to 
that initial shock to the system. 
Instead it ties itself in knots, 
layering one sci-fi trope on top 

of another and drowning an 
underdeveloped A-plot in a wash 
of underdeveloped B-plots. The 
idea at its core isn’t so much 
“less is more” as it is “no, more is 
more, stupid,” so it jettisons the 
simple efficiency of the original 
film in favor of a surprisingly 
confusing story that all too 
rarely gives you something to 
hold on to in the midst of all the 
madness. Instead, true to the 
fast-paced opening scenes, it 
never stops moving, never stops 

hitting you over the head with 
nonsense, because to stop would 
be to admit there’s no substance 
and lose your attention.
This reaches an infuriating 
extreme in the third act, which 
features enough genre-bending 
for an entire franchise, let alone 
a single film. By this point, every 
character arc has either been 
finished or dropped entirely, 
so as “Happy Death Day 2U” 
moves from the sci-fi insanity 
of the rest of the film to a heist 
sequence to the twisty finale of 
the slasher subplot with all the 

grace of a dying animal, it plays 
more as padding than anything 
else. It’s hard to care about any 
of this to begin with — especially 
the slasher stuff that the script 
seems to forget more often than 
not — but without any character 
growth to ground itself in, it 
feels especially extraneous.
The one undeniably bright 
spot is Jessica Rothe (“Forever 
My Girl”) returning as Tree. 
What few laughs are to be had 
mostly come from her righteous 
fury at having to 
relive 
Monday 
the 
18th 
again 
after 
already 
having done so 11 
times, as well as 
the general hard-
edged charm she 
exudes in every 
single scene and 
the few dramatic 
moments 
that 
work do so for 
the same reason. 
Rothe’s work is always grounded 
in something human while the 
rest of the film all too rarely 
is. Even in the movie’s worst 
moments (the aforementioned 
endless third act) it’s easy to 
return to her performance and 
find something enjoyable. If 
there were ever any doubt that 
the superstar in the making is 
the glue holding this nascent 
franchise together — and if 
you saw the original, for all its 
merits, there shouldn’t be — then 
if nothing else, “Happy Death 
Day 2U” should serve as its cure.

‘Happy Death Day’ swaps 
smartness for low sci-fi

JEREMIAH VANDERHELM
Daily Arts Writer

UNIVERSAL PICTURES

FILM REVIEW

‘Happy Death Day 2U’

Universal Pictures

Ann Arbor IMAX 20+. Goodrich Quality 16

Rolling Stone declared 2018 
“a year of nineties obsessions.” 
We’re one month into 2019, and 
our cultural fixation on the 
’90s — the clothing, the movies, 
the music — looks as though 
it’s finding its footing, not 
losing steam. This phenomenon 
is 
strongest 
among 
college 
students, I think; people who 
were born in the 1990s but have 
no memory of it. My friends and 
I take pictures of each other 
with disposable cameras; we 
part our hair down the middle 

and wear giant jackets and it 
makes us feel cool. The nineties 
happened just recently enough 
that we’re able to fetishize 
those years in a way that feels 
accurate but isn’t, and this is 
part of the appeal. It can be 
anything we want it to be.
We’re curating a version 
of the ‘90s for ourselves to 
live through, and to do so we 
punctuate the soundtrack of our 
days with the music of the era — 
Run-D.M.C., Melissa Etheridge, 
Blondie, 
the 
B-52s. 
These 
are the conditions in which 
I was first exposed to Sinéad 
O’Connor. She showed up on 
my Spotify Weekly playlist in 

early January, a decidedly non-
analog introduction. Suddenly 
it was 1990 again, the first year 
of a decade whose complexities 
I was born too late to remember, 
whose decadent simplicity is so 
very appealing.
Sinéad 
O’Connor 
is 
an 
enduring mystery. Her career 
has taken sharp turns and 
unexpected detours, her public 
persona shifting from brave 
to bizarre and back again. 
In the ‘90s she became an 
international icon with her 
shaved head, dark eyebrows 
and weird outfits. She built a 
reputation as a badass Irish 
pixie, someone who relished 

voicing unpopular opinions.
In 1992, years before abuse in 
the Catholic church was widely 
discussed, O’Connor tore up a 
picture of the Pope on Saturday 
Night Live and told a shocked 
and silent live audience 
to “fight the real enemy.” 
On tour in the United 
States, 
she 
stirred 
controversy for refusing 
to sing if the national 
anthem 
was 
played 
before 
her 
concerts. 
O’Connor 
has 
always 
embraced contradiction. 
She’s a loud feminist 
in 
baggy 
clothes, 
an 
unmarried mother, an 
angry radical, a sexy pop 
star.
“You know that I can 
thrill you,” she sings on 
“I Want Your (Hands 
on Me).” “I want you, 
call me to you / I wanna 
move, will you? I really 
wanna feel you.” She 
pivots to police brutality 
on 
“Black 
Boys 
on 
Mopeds”: 
“England’s 
not the mythical land 
of Madame George and 
roses / It’s the home of 
police who kill black 
boys on mopeds.” She 
wants sex; she wants 
a more just world; she 
wants love but forgets 
how to give it.
This is the Sinéad of 
1990’s “I Do Not Want 
What I Haven’t Got,” her 
second and most well-
known album. In the 
music video for “Nothing 
Compares 2 U,” she is beautiful 
and mad in a black turtleneck. 
Her voice rises sharply and 
then drops to a whisper: a 
wounded 
bird, 
a 
wounded 
woman. “I could put my arms 
around every boy I see / But 

they’d only remind me of you,” 
she sings, the camera zoomed 
in on her pale, angular face, and 
you believe every word she says.
Then there’s the strange, 
darker Sinéad, the one who 

cried and ran offstage at a Bob 
Dylan tribute concert, who 
wrote an open letter to Miley 
Cyrus telling her to dress more 
conservatively, who said Prince 
punched her over her cover 
of “Nothing Compares 2 U.” 

Similarly unsettling incidents 
pepper recent news coverage 
of O’Connor. In 2016, she went 
missing but was later found 
safe, riding her bicycle around 
a suburb of Chicago. She briefly 
had two face tattoos. She 
appeared on Dr. Phil for a 
televised therapy session 
about her mother. When 
she converted to Islam 
in 
2018, 
she 
legally 
changed her name to 
Shuhada’ Davitt. These 
incidents cast O’Connor 
as both vulnerable and 
volatile, an artist whose 
actions 
are 
directed 
by 
some 
unknowable 
combination of mental 
illnesses, 
childhood 
traumas and a frustrated 
excess of talent.
This is all to say that 
listening to “I Do Not 
Want What I Haven’t 
Got” 29 years after its 
release is an experience 
that cannot be divorced 
from 
the 
person 
O’Connor has become 
in the intervening time. 
Here lies the persistent 
difficulty of nostalgia: 
We know how it all 
turned out. But does 
that really matter, when 
our current infatuation 
with the ‘90s is so fun? 
It’s a relief to revisit 
the 
cultural 
artifacts 
of an era that seems far 
less dangerous than the 
current one.
“Whatever 
it 
may 
bring / I will live by my 
own policies / I will sleep with 
a clear conscience / I will sleep 
in peace,” O’Connor sings on 
“The Emperor’s New Clothes.” 
With that fuck-off attitude, her 
placid anarchy: I just want to 
keep listening.

Nostalgia, The ’90s, and 
 
O’Connor’s enduring legacy 

MIRIAM FRANCISCO
Daily Arts Writer

ENSIGN RECORDS

MUSIC NOTEBOOK

These incidents cast 
O’Connor as both 
vulnerable and volatile, 
an artist whose actions 
are directed by some 
unknowable combination 
of mental illnesses, 
childhood trauamas, and a 
frustrated excess of talent.

