The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com Arts Monday, October 7, 2019 — 5A “You can never publish my love,” Rogue Wave chants, in the song that the title of this series riffs on. Maybe that’s true, and we can never quite account for our love on paper or in print, but we sure can try. That’s what this series is devoted to: publishing our love. Us, the Arts section of The Michigan Daily, talking about artists and their work, some of the people and things we love the most. Perhaps these are futile approximations of love for the poet who told us we deserve to be heard, the director who changed the way we see the world, the movie with the script we’ve memorized. But who ever said futile can’t still be beautiful? In maybe the most vulnerable stage of my life, I had clear, simple mantras. Sometimes I embraced the simple truth: “I’ve got some issues that nobody can see / And all of these emotions are pouring out of me.” When I was hopeful, “One day / This will be my world.” When I was hopeless, “All along / I guess I’m meant to be alone.” My pursuit of happiness was spent in the Cudi zone. Few artists have had a footprint so large on our current era of hip hop, or an influence so quick to manifest — other sad rappers began following in his footsteps just as soon as he’d paved the path. Kanye West’s 808s & Heartbreak is often credited with ushering in an era of melancholic songwriting over glamorous production. However, A Kid Named Cudi came first — and just as it began making waves, West brought in Cudi to give creative input on the upcoming 808s. The superstardom of artists like Drake and Travis Scott were to follow. The reason I give Kid Cudi the title “Man On The Moon” is to make it clear for whom my love is published. Not the 2013 Cudi releasing the middling Indicud and disappointing my 14-year-old self when he put on an appalling performance at my first-ever concert. Not the 2015 Cudi tweeting “Poopé Fiasco” is a dweeb. Not even the 2018 Kid Cudi co-creating KIDS SEE GHOSTS with Kanye West, although I do have unpublished love for that collaboration. This is about Cudi of A Kid Named Cudi mixtape and Man On The Moon album series fame, hip hop’s heartfelt superstar in ’08, ’09 and ’10. Kid Cudi, lord of the sad and lonely. When I was in eighth grade, all was doom and gloom. My main schtick was bad posture and having no friends. Instead of other people, I made eye contact with my sneakers as I walked through school, shoulders hunched, memorizing every crease and stain. I look back on that time the same way I look at an episode of “South Park”: funny to watch and talk about, but alarming when you start to think about it. I’m happy now, all smiles and surrounded by good people. Still, there was a time when Cudi was the only voice I let in. As a lover of clever rhymes and writing, I am all about the roundabout: I could dissect the dual meaning in lyrics from MF DOOM or Del the Funky Homosapien forever. I wasn’t always like that, though. Being a troubled teenager struggling to make sense of the puzzling social dynamics at play, I wished so badly for a presence I could understand, someone to understand me. Only Kid Cudi could capture my despair and lay it bare on the mic. People confused me. Cudi didn’t. I found comfort in his clarity. “They all couldn’t see / The little bit of sadness in me” spoke to me so lucidly. Man On The Moon: The End Of Day and Man On The Moon II: The Legend Of Mr. Rager were not critically hailed on release, and some of the writing has not aged well. “Dudes who critique your clothes are most gay” and “I want to kiss you on your space below your navel at / The place that you keep neat, so moist, like a towelette” were always terrible lines. Even so, much of the lyricism on Man On The Moon will remain iconic. The direct lyrics envelop an intrinsic loneliness. For me, “I’m trapped in my mind, baby / I don’t think I’ll ever get out” resonated with my sustained sadness. But “They gon’ judge me anyway / So whatever” can also touch someone that’s just going through a low moment. Raw lyrics alone are not the key to Cudi’s charm. It’s also the work of the production talent surrounding him: Emile, Plain Pat and of course Kanye West (among others). The glitzy beats backing his voice are a key component in conjuring Cudi’s musical mood. But if there were a standout element of his sound to credit for becoming hip hop’s hero of sadness, it’s Cudi’s voice. His humming has been featured on every Kanye project since 808s for good reason: Cudi’s voice is an instrument no less powerful than a drum or a synth. Since I’ve grown older, separated by years from my eighth-grade affliction, Cudi fell out of rotation for me. Listening to his music brings back frightfully vivid memories. Tears staining my pillow every night. Staring at my phone wishing anyone would text me. The creases and stains of my sneakers over the ugly tile of my middle school hallway. The thing about mental illness, though, is that once you’ve developed one, it becomes a part of you forever — even when it’s dormant, the looming risk of relapse remains. It wasn’t until I left for college, and that soul-sucking monolith of depression began bearing over me once again, that Cudi would return to regular listening. “All along / I guess I’m meant to be alone” hit me harder the second time around. Now, feeling better than ever before but barely a year removed from my last low phase, listening to Kid Cudi feels like treading in dangerous waters. The electrifying Cudi connection clicks back nearly instantaneously when I hear “The Prayer” or “Heaven At Nite.” I’ll always have love for the Man On The Moon, gratitude for the years keeping me company when nobody else did. I’ve just accepted that love might best remain at a healthy distance. Publish Our Love: To Kid Cudi, the Man On The Moon DYLAN YONO Daily Arts Writer PUBLISH OUR LOVE The cover of Angel Olsen’s newest record All Mirrors defines its mythology well: Olsen stares at the viewer intently, against a hazy grey background swathed in dark fur. She looks like she’s about to speak, but is holding her words. There’s something in her eyes, but it’s hard to tell quite what it is. It’s like we’re looking at her through a movie camera, some blurred glass of emotion and context that isn’t easy to put a finger on. The music of All Mirrors is just as pleasantly evasive — cinematic, even. Each song seems like you’ve heard it before somewhere, as if it was playing in the background all along only to be pulled to the forefront of the listener’s mind. The album is Olsen at her best, capturing the nostalgia of a time in the past, all the while looking forward into the future. For those familiar with Olsen’s music, it’s clear she is already a luminary in the indie music scene, merging the traditions of her genre with a taste for innovative production and arrangements. All Mirrors embodies these traits at their highest function, bringing everything listeners have always loved about her to a new level, one that echoes the chaos and confusion of our time. She somehow makes the deepest sadness beautiful without watering down its importance. Olsen is a master of emotion in the purest sense. She harnesses the power and vulnerability of losing a lover, losing your grip and losing your mind with thoughtful deliberation, never allowing the listener to bask in their preoccupations for too long before turning onto another path. The two lead singles released ahead of the record are perfect examples of this attention to detail and mood. “All Mirrors,” the album’s title track, is a ballad full of phantasm and intensity, one that could easily be hummed in the darkness of a listener’s room or screamed out of a car on the freeway all the same. That duality is what makes Olsen’s music so intense in the first place; the fact that it captures the power of interiority without bringing it all the way outside, instead offering that choice to the listener themselves. It’s a reclamation of emotion as something more than weakness. No, emotion isn’t weakness in Olsen’s hands — it’s a tool to wield the utmost strength. In her eyes, in her music, feeling is the thing that makes us powerful, lets us take control of our lives and narratives in a way that plain logic never could. “Lark,” the other single, captures this reclamation in plain terms. The accompanying video shows Olsen as she leaves a relationship only to walk through the night into the sunset, a metaphor for renewal and loss all at once. With a hushed tone, the songwriter begins with an admittance of hope: “To forget you is to hide, there’s still so much left to recover.” If only we could start again, pretending we don’t know each other,” she sings, breaking the listener’s heart only to build it up again as she breaks out into a loud and triumphant chorus. “All we’ve done here is blind one another,” Olsen offers to a lover no longer there. It’s impossible to get through All Mirrors without finding lines like this scattered throughout each song, to feel her words reach inside you and twist your heart with careful hands. Both “Lark” and “All Mirrors” show the sharp intensity of Olsen’s capabilities, but she is also adept at the softer side of expression, as seen in one of the record’s closing tracks, “Endgame.” This song follows the rest of the album like a sneak attack on the already vulnerable listener, soothing them with Olsen’s soft and classically beautiful voice after the exertion of earlier tracks. “I needed more, needed more, from you,” she whispers, like a lounge singer in an old movie hidden behind curtains. You can just imagine her on a stage in a velvet gown, the strings of her arrangement playing in the background with a hazy glow. It’s the cinematic quality of each song that makes them so special, like her album cover and her approach in general. For Olsen, songs are not just songs — with each word, each lilting string, each blast of synthesized sound, she is creating an encapsulated experience for her listener. She doesn’t need to make a movie to express what she wants to with her music, because each track does it for her. Listening to All Mirrors is like watching a million little films in your head, as each note, heavy with meaning, plays on. Angel O.’s latest dream CLARA SCOTT Senior Arts Editor ALBUM REVIEW There’s a scene early on in the pilot for “Almost Family” where Julia Bechley (Brittany Snow, “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend”) meets up with some random from a dating app. The date isn’t going so well. She has to think quick. She just goes for it. She tells him she wants to have sex. It works and they do. Later on in the episode, she finds out he might actually be her brother. So, she hooks up with him again. That’s kind of all you need to know about how the pilot went. The premise of “Almost Family” is both serious and unsettling. Overworked lawyer Edie Palmer (Megalyn Echikunwoke, “House of Lies”) is having marriage problems. Former child- athlete superstar Roxy Doyle (Emily Osment, “Young & Hungry”) has anger problems. Julia is the ignored assistant to her father, the world- renowned fertility doctor, Dr. Leon Bechley (Timothy Hutton, “Leverage”). But all of those problems pale in comparison when it’s discovered that Dr. Bechley fathered hundreds of children by secretly using his own sperm to impregnate patients. At least they should. But somehow they don’t, which only makes the basis for “Almost Family” that much more disgusting. Once Dr. Bechley gets confronted, he conveniently has a heart attack and is put in the hospital. As her father’s assistant, Julia hands out hundreds of DNA test kits to calm the scandal down. Edie and Roxy both come in to get one. They quickly realize that they’re probably sisters. What’s strange is that this isn’t explicitly said, but implied. It’s as if the show forgot to confirm that the three women are sisters. Which is even more bizarre, because that’s half the plot of the show. None of the women really engage with this information. It isn’t talked about except in one scene and is bypassed quickly. What makes “Almost Family” most difficult to watch is that it seems to want to be a character- driven show. This is a huge problem because the premise is so compelling. What Dr. Bechely does is so heinous and awful that the characters ought to be more furious. But when the news breaks, Julia dismisses it as media gossip. Edie is more confused than angry when she finds out. Roxy’s parents don’t seem to be too concerned about their familial situation, but instead hire a lawyer to ensure they’ll be compensated. The characters aren’t even very interesting. Despite having a talented cast, each character feels archetypal and flat. The biggest problem the show runs into is that it’s premise is horribly revolting. A man violated the privacy of hundreds of women. He ruined families. It’s a very big deal. But the show doesn’t seem to want to engage with the problem very much. I can’t tell if it wants to be a comedy or a drama — or if it’s just a very poorly executed dramedy — but the show demonstrates a clear lack of consideration given the severity of its premise. The way the fertility scandal takes a backseat to unfulfilled character development makes me question how dedicated the show is to its plot. If the show is not committed to this plot, they probably shouldn’t be trying it at all. Each step of the way, “Almost Family” is conventional and predictable. Yet it still manages to fall short of meeting the most basic expectations. It can’t even seem to follow through on the promise of its plot. Ultimately, the show is weighed down by uninteresting characters and a confused sense of self. If the show were more self-aware — or even more organized — there may be something slavagable here. However, there’s no “almost” about any of this. “Almost Family” is most definitely off to a confounding and disappointing start. ‘Almost Family’ is banal and unfulfilling and also strange MAXWELL SCHWARZ Daily Arts Writer TV REVIEW FOX Almost Family Pilot Fox Wednesdays @ 9:00 p.m. Now, feeling better than ever before but barely a year removed from my last low phase, listening to Kid Cudi feels like treading in dangerous waters All Mirrors Angel Olsen Jagjaguwar DESIGN BY ROSEANNE CHAO