The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com Arts Thursday, September 5, 2019 — 5 Somewhere on a dingy, pale- blue sofa in a poorly lit room, BROCKHAMPTON is situated before your screen in silvery jumpsuits. Their quintessential Cheeto-dust orange garb and cheesy smiles are supplanted by somber, subdued semi-dancemoves and emotionally raw lyricism. This is their latest album GINGER at its overarching emotional core, “Dearly Departed.” An obvious sly at former vocalist Ameer Vann’s departure from the band in May 2018, the video depicts current members breaking the fourth wall as though speaking to a particular person. Kevin Abstract kicks off this intervention deadpan, staring into the eyes of the viewer as he spits his verse about betrayal and backstabbing, only to leave the scene immediately after he’s finished. From that point on, the music video centers on every member in the scene as they bare their heartbreak and pain from a different point of view. It pans out as Joba belts out the high notes in the chorus and collapses. It zooms in on Matt as he reads his verse from notecards only to tear them apart and abandon the track that’s still playing — Merlyn is in this cut but says absolutely nothing, sobered. And Dom gets up close and personal, punching the camera as he describes a situation in which a “friend” of his set up another friend to get robbed. Conducted in a single take, the nuances of the video stand out, from the panning in and out of the camera to the eye contact of the members to the actions they take as they sing their verses. The art of this video pins itself in symbolism, every action directed towards the camera as though it’s an actual person. This emphasizes that any beef in the room is not among the bandmates but between the group and someone else in the room. They’re together in the emotional battle between BROCKHAMPTON and this other person. Ameer Vann is never explicitly brought up, but given the lyrical content, the unity of the members and the emotionally unhinged gestures, BROCKHAMPTON makes it clear that Vann is no longer welcome and has left deep, vulnerable scars in their lives. ‘Dearly Departed’: A sobering group message to Ameer Van Post Malone released the fourth single, “Circles,” from his upcoming album Hollywood Bleeding on Aug. 30, following in the footsteps of the wildly successful “Sunflower” and the regularly successful “Wow.” and “Goodbyes.” In many respects, “Circles” is the same old Post. His vocals are lovelorn, shot through with powerful vibrato. The chorus is an instant earworm, the type upon which Post built and maintained his fame. The structure is about as straightforward as it gets, and there’s not much in the way of experimentation or risk in any respect. However, Post makes some interesting departures from his traditional sound. The use of a bright round-string bass line (a great one, at that) as opposed to his typical electronic 808s is perhaps the most notable. The sonic palette as a whole seems to be heavily influenced by psychedelic pop (e.g. Currents), a sound that suits Post surprisingly well. “Circles” is profoundly catchy, tastefully upbeat and well-arranged. The bridge is on the weak side, a little too harmonically dependent upon the preceding section. Other than that, it’s hard to find any real problem with this song other than the fact that it plays it safe. I continue to be astounded by Post’s ability to churn out hit after hit — his sense of catchiness in melody is nonpareil in pop music today. Hopefully Hollywood Bleeding finds him continuing his hot streak. Malone’s ‘Circles’ is trippy, but plays it safe JONAH MENDELSON Daily Arts Writer One of the first exercises I did in my 16th-century counterpoint class this semester was an identification game. Our professor took a famous theme from a Mozart piano piece and set it in six different styles. After playing each variation, he asked us to name the style we thought he was trying to imitate or the specific composer. Going into the exercise, I thought I’d have a lot of trouble hearing an imitation of a famous composer from a short eight- bar variation. I thought we might be able to guess the style or period of the music, maybe even the specific sub-period or nationality of the music, but never the specific composer. Yet for five of the six styles, my three-person class was able to guess not only the style, but the specific composer our professor had sought to emulate. In eight bars of music based on a theme by an already famous composer, our professor was able to adapt the stylistic nuances and notational idiosyncrasies that define specific famous composers. And he was able to so decisively. This got me thinking about artistic voice and artistic style. Is it possible to distinguish an artist’s “voice” from their “style”? Given that everyone probably defines these two concepts differently, I should clarify that I take “voice” to be an artist’s small technical habits that define their artistic output within the larger “style” of cultural context, genre and subgenre of art that these artists are usually defined with. The best artists, I believe, are those whose artistic voices are immediately recognizable. The composers that we were talking about in class, for example, are some of the most prolific and ground-breaking composers within the classical music tradition that have ever lived. They’ve succeeded in cultivating voices that are distinctly their own even as they pushed the boundaries of their style. One artist that I think best embodies this concept of a well- defined voice is Kurt Vonnegut. I am a huge fan of Vonnegut, having first been introduced to him through his relatively comedic and light novel “The Sirens of Titan.” When we talk about Vonnegut’s style, we think of his background and the larger cultural context surrounding his work. The modern and postmodern periods, for example, and the World War II generation. But when we talk about Vonnegut’s voice we have very few words or larger concepts to compare him to. Though I can’t articulate how I know this, I can almost always tell if I am reading a play, novel or short story by him. I might use some fancy-sounding descriptors to identify specific aspects of this voice — nonlinearity in time and plot, randomization surfaces with hidden patterns beneath them, dark humour as a means of expressing larger concepts — but none of these descriptors in sum or part capture everything that makes up his voice. Even within his chapters and titles, for example, one can get a clear sense of his artistic voice. Vonnegut’s extremely well-defined artistic voice had a positive effect on his career and the perpetual success of his estate. A performance of “Happy Birthday, Wanda June”in New York City this past year, for example, garnered many more positive reviews than one would expect from a rarely performed work. Audience members and critics couldn’t help but compare the play to other Vonnegut works. For many, myself included, it was the transference of this artistic voice onto the stage, and not the contents of the play itself, that made the performance such an interesting experience. On the other hand, as was made quite obvious in many of the artistic reviews this past month, a strongly-defined artistic voice can quickly become a liability for successful artists. Take for example Taylor Swift and her recent album, “Lover.” I should start with a disclaimer that I am far from being well-versed in Swift’s music. But in reading some of the reviews of her most recent album, however, I couldn’t help but notice the complaint that many critics have. Her new album, while effectively mimicking her voice, has nothing new to offer. It exhibits no new ideas, no new iterations on this voice. I can think of many other artists that have become weighed down by their voices. Many successful artists become constrained by their voice, their pathway to success. It’s not just a unique voice, I’ve come to realize, that marks a successful artist. It’s also an ability to bend style to match this artistic voice. It’s the ability to not only be informed by the cultural context in which the artist creates, it’s the ability to bring this context and artistic voice together and allow them to influence each other. The best artists are those whose artistic voices are influential enough to bend the stylistic realm that they occupy. And that, I realized, is how my class was able to so easily identify the composers my professor was imitating. In a world where Beethoven’s name is virtually synonymous with early German Romanticism, a piece that is distinctly early German Romantic is assumedly by Beethoven. And thus, in a paradoxical way, artistic voices are perhaps best defined when they lose all sense of definition, when they become so embedded in their larger cultural context that they can no longer be pointed to as a specific artist’s voice at all. Sammy Sussman: An exploration of the strange concurrence between an artist’s voice and style COMMUNITY CULTURE COLUMN It’s not just a unique voice, I’ve come to realize, that marks a successful artist. It’s also an ability to bend style to match this artistic voice. It’s the ability to bring this context and artistic voice together and allow them to influence each other. This got me thinking about artistic voice and artistic style. Is it possible to distinguish an artist’s “voice” from their “style”? SINGLE REVIEW MUSIC VIDEO REVIEW ‘Circles’ Post Malone Republic Records From that point on, the music video centers on every member in the scene as they bare their heartbreak and pain from a different point of view. SAMMY SUSSMAN Daily Community Culture Columnist BROCKHAMPTON REPUBLIC RECORDS DIANA YASSIN Daily Arts Writer