2015’s era of bright, side-
swept
hair
and
Tumblr
edginess is embodied in one
famous figure: Halsey. Rising
to
extreme
stardom
with
the release of her fantastical
debut album, BADLANDS, she
became a voice that many angsty
teenagers clung to. Her music
created an alternate reality,
BADLANDS existing as a fake
universe for teenage fans to get
lost in. Her distinctive, almost
warbling vocals have garnered
both
praise
and
criticism,
especially since she has become
more “mainstream.” In 2017,
her album hopeless fountain
youth channeled more of the
radio-hit sound that she had
avoided earlier in her career.
Many fans started to lose
interest, mostly since hopeless
fountain youth was an album
that attempted to maintain that
“alternate universe” aura but
didn’t have that unique sound
that many attributed to Halsey.
With
her
2020
release,
Manic, Halsey has ditched the
mystical, imaginative concepts
for a much more raw and
grounded album. The songs
sound hardly like anything
you could find on her early
releases. The album is chock
full of ballads and deep-cuts,
the majority of songs devoid
of the heavily electronified
instrumentals that reigned on
BADLANDS. In a sense, the
album is a maturation of the
singer’s first album which she
wrote when she was 19. Now
25, Halsey has had more than
half a decade of experience in
the spotlight and the music
industry in general, all of which
is evident on Manic. While the
subject matter and the actual
sound of each individual song
shows a lot of growth, the
album as a whole doesn’t quite
hit the mark.
Unfortunately,
the
album
falls short through its lack of
unity.
Songs
like
“Without
You”,
(a
single
obviously
written for radio play) and
“I HATE EVERYBODY” just
seem so remarkably out of place
among the songs that actually
tell a story. The presence of
these uber-pop, very shallow
songs automatically discredits
so much of what was really
well-done on the record. These
types of tracks would have
worked on the singer’s earlier
work, as the entire feel of those
albums benefited from some
bouncy, easy-listening songs.
Manic’s purpose, from Halsey’s
own words, is meant to be a
personal
record,
channeling
the real person behind Halsey:
Ashley Frangipane. While her
attempts to do this are clear,
the
execution
isn’t
exactly
successful.
There are snippets of passion
and
intentful
songwriting.
Highlights
like
“Finally//
beautiful
stranger”
and
“929” show a side of her
that the world hasn’t seen
before — significantly more
introspective than her older
work, these tracks sound like
Halsey’s personal confessions.
Since her 2015 album, she
has been in two high-profile
relationships, one with rapper
G-Eazy
and
another
with
Yungblud. Many of the slower
songs show the real side of
these relationships as well as
their endings. It’s the first time
Halsey seems to have dealt with
these topics with a great sense
of maturity.
An album like this, while
flawed and a bit all over the
place, bodes well for Halsey’s
future
career.
Across
her
discography, her intellectual
growth is evident to anyone
listening. Manic may not be
Halsey’s apex, but it certainly
shows a big step in the right
direction.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Monday, January 27, 2020 — 5A
Halsey’s deep cuts are a
letdown on new release
CAPITOL RECORDS
GIGI CIULLA
Daily Arts Writer
The year is 2020 and Eminem
is still hell-bent on retroactively
tainting his musical legacy
with garbage records. The last
couple years have seen tasteless
lyrics tinged in homophobia
and sexism, immature lash-
outs against detractors and
unrelenting negativity directed
at other rappers and celebrities.
On his newest record, surprise
released
on
Jan.
17,
the
legendary best-selling rapper is
once again victimizing himself
line after unnecessarily edgy
line. And predictably so.
Music To be Murdered By
is far more tolerable than his
offensively unlistenable 2017
record Revival. Most of the
instrumentation is a lot more
palatable. “You Gon’ Learn” is
the highlight with its jittery
percussion
and
wavering,
pitched
background
vocals.
“Lock It Up” sounds kind of
like a 14-year-old’s first trap
beat cooked up on a pirated
copy of FL Studio, and it’s
almost endearing. Royce Da
5’9” is featured on three tracks,
which means three guaranteed
breaths of fresh air in which I
don’t have to listen to Eminem
whining.
When it comes down to
it though, most of the usual
modern era Marshall Mathers
missteps are in full effect. I
did a little chuckle and sigh
when I saw Ed Sheeran and
Skylar Grey on the tracklist
— oh, Eminem, will you ever
learn? — But I could not stop
laughing through album opener
“Premonition
-
Intro.”
If
someone asked me what would
be the absolute worst way to
open a hypothetical Eminem
surprise album, I would have
replied with, “An intro track
where he complains about his
ratings and attacks his critics.”
Lo and behold.
Wasting features on mediocre
tracks is a violation of the hip-
hop honor code, and Eminem
is in flagrant transgression
of the law. How does he sleep
at night after putting hip-hop
legends like Black Thought and
Q-Tip on a beat as ear-grating
as “Yah Yah”? I’m disappointed
that Busta Rhymes’s iconic ’96
single “Woo Hah!! Got You All
In Check” will now forever be
associated with the awfully
executed vocal sample on “Yah
Yah.” But that’s not his worst
offense on the tracklist.
Eminem’s greatest crime was
somehow convincing millions
of people that the speedy-
quick-rappity-rap bullshit from
the last minute of “Godzilla” is
remotely enjoyable. How it has
50 million listens on Spotify
is
beyond
me
—
syllables
per second will never be a
meaningful metric in assessing
the quality of a song. It’s a
shame because the beat has
contagious concert energy and
the late Juice WRLD’s hook is
heat. It would be playlistable
as hell if Vince Staples was
rapping over it instead.
Corny writing is a plague that
puts the album on its deathbed.
I don’t know where the idea
came from that good writing
is
equivalent
to
squeezing
multiple meanings into a shitty
metaphor. Hip hop would be a
pitiful sport if double entendres
won trophies. I think when
Eminem says “I’m coming after
you like the letter V,” he wants
my mind to be blown when I
realize he could be referring
to the order of the letters “U”
and “V” in the alphabet or the
titular character from “V For
Vendetta.” To me, that’s the
rap game equivalent of sending
your Tinder match a poem
where the first letter of each
line spells out “SEND NUDES.”
This
“multiple
interpretations”
writing style is stale throughout
the entire album, save for one
creative
application
on
the
track “Darkness.” The point-
of-view
imperceptibly
shifts
between Eminem’s own inner
hysteria before a concert, and
the perspective of Las Vegas
massacre
shooter
Stephen
Paddock. The crestfallen piano
melody is a perfectly moody
backdrop that lets Eminem’s
narrative take the spotlight,
and the hook is Eminem’s
best in years. Even the “Hello
darkness,
my
old
friend”
sample — lifted from Simon
& Garfunkel’s “The Sound of
Silence” — makes for a pretty
smooth motif, despite the line
being memed to death thanks
to Arrested Development. The
track is the closest thing to a
success Eminem has on the
whole record, but it’s not quite
there. It’s just too unsettling
and off-kilter. The long-winded
parallel between a nervous
Eminem and a mass murderer
of very recent memory leaves a
bad taste in my mouth, and the
audio clips of a mass shooting
are discomforting even in the
context of the song. The music
video may end with a call to
action for gun control, but the
rest of the song doesn’t add up
to that message.
Music To Be Murdered By
doubles down on Eminem’s
decade-long
commitment
to making bad music. His
childish insistence that he’s
“murdering” people with his
“killer” lyrics is down-right
pathetic. In a cringe-inducing
Instagram post, Eminem writes
to his critics, “These bars are
only meant for the sharpest
knives in the drawer … For the
rest of you, please listen more
closely next time.” Apparently
if you don’t like Eminem’s new
music, then this album was a big
fat roast, and if you couldn’t tell
that you just got #destroyed,
then you’re too dumb and you
just didn’t get it. His obsession
with getting positive critical
response to his music is at odds
with his persistent wailing
that his critics are unwoke and
unintelligent. Don’t even get me
started on Ebro’s embarrassing
tweet
comparing
Eminem’s
supposed lack of respect to
being Black. Please just kill me
already, because Music To Be
Murdered By doesn’t live up to
its title.
A (shitty) surprise from
Eminem: His new album
ALBUM REVIEW
ALBUM REVIEW
DYLAN YONO
Daily Arts Writer
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
“The Gimmicks” is set against
the backdrop of the Armenian
genocide; it follows the journey of
two inseparable friends — brothers,
really — who embark on two wildly
different
paths.
One
brother,
the reclusive and, frankly, one-
dimensional Ruben, is obsessed
with righting the wrongs of the
Turkish denial of the genocide,
and joins the guerilla-terrorist
organization
The
Armenian
Secret Army for the Liberation
of Armenia (ASALA). The other
brother, the massive, unibrowed
and personable Avo, leaves for
America to try to help Ruben before
he recognizes his toxicity, deciding
then to pursue a short professional
wrestling career to try to get back
to his teenage sweetheart, Mina,
in Armenia. However, the central
plot revolves around what happens
between the years that Avo leaves
for America in the late ‘70s and
the 1989 search that Avo’s former
wrestling manager, Terry Krill,
embarks on a journey to find Avo
after losing contact with him in
1980. It soon becomes apparent
that no one has heard anything
of Avo’s whereabouts for years,
and the novel’s focus is to fill in
the intervening years of Avo’s life,
slowly unraveling the truth of what
happened, why he left and where
he is now.
Using
this
framework,
McCormick
crafts
alluring
characters,
paints
a
heart-
wrenchingly vivid portrait of
the scars that history can leave
and questions the different ways
we can express our national
identities. The passages dealing
with these elements and ideas
exemplify “The Gimmicks” at its
most powerful. McCormick deftly
establishes Avo as a sympathetic
character, and by placing him at
the center of an unresolved history,
McCormick gives the reader the
fearful anticipation and curiosity
that Krill and others searching
for Avo feel. The book gradually
unravels the enigma surrounding a
character that the reader becomes
emotionally invested in, and adds
excitement to the prospect of the
tendrils of time frames stretching
to meet each other, and thus fill
in the missing history. The truth
seems painfully just out of reach,
which endears the reader to the
characters all the more so.
In contrast to Avo, Ruben and
his
juxtaposition
against
his
brother sow unease in the reader,
as the truth unravels and the reader
can be no more than a passive
spectator to the self-destructive
vortex of Ruben’s personality and
radicalism. He reminds the reader
of a family member who is always
just out of reach, slowly drifting
away and hopelessly sabotaging the
lives of those in close proximity. All
you can do is watch and shake your
head. To this capacity, Ruben is
an effective plot device. But while
the book bills Ruben as a main
character in its blurb, Ruben ends
up being relegated to the sidelines
as a sinister and abstract force that
the reader might end up loathing.
As effectively as McCormick uses
Ruben as a source of conflict and
disruption, what results is an
unlikeable caricature. Later in the
novel, when McCormick attempts
to provide insight into Ruben’s
state of mind, it is too late: His role
as a toxic influence was solidified
early on, and whatever kinship Avo
ever felt toward Ruben becomes
more elusive and confusing to the
reader.
In spite of Ruben, though,
McCormick is still able to deliver
a somber and poignant character-
focused narrative. However, he
mismanages the plot resolutions,
and the unfulfilling conclusions
bogged this novel down. The
resolution to Avo’s story arc in
particular undercut the entire
narrative that led up to it, mostly
because there was an absence
of a resolution. The reader is
presented the fundamental facts
and narrative of what happened
in
those
missing
years,
but
McCormick doesn’t explore what
these truths actually mean, and,
more importantly, why the reader
should
even
care.
Ultimately
the novel ended where it began,
with all of the damage, harm and
conflict that was revealed over the
course of the novel never being
addressed, or redressed, for that
matter.
The journey to reaching the
truth is rendered cheap, and
becomes a trivial exercise in
curiosity; especially telling are
the conclusions reached by those
trying to find Avo. For an entire
book’s worth of earnest searching
and uprooting of characters, the
truth doesn’t end up having any
significant impact, and one begins
to wonder why such an effort was
made to skirt around the solution
to begin with, aside for the sake of
narrative power.
The
plot
ends
up
feeling
unfinished,
and
the
lack
of
satisfying closure renders the 400
pages of buildup moot. Terry Krill,
whom the reader is supposed to
project themselves onto as an
outside party looking for answers,
ends up in the same place as the
reader, but somehow with even
less of a resolution. While this
can be an effective strategy to
accentuate a story’s poignancy
and bittersweetness, Krill seems
content without the resolution that
he spent a long and emotionally
draining
investigative
process
trying to find; this does not sit well
with the reader.
With such a powerful buildup,
“The
Gimmicks”
conclusion
was incredibly confusing on an
emotional level. This distress I
felt raised interesting questions,
though.
Should
a
book
that
meditates
on
the
Armenian
Genocide, extremism, obsession
and history-denial have a fulfilling
or
satisfying
ending?
More
importantly, isn’t the frustration
and futility of the novel’s resolution
emblematic of how we can do
nothing to undo the atrocities of
the past, aside from continuing
forward? I will continue to wrestle
with those questions, and as I do,
though I am ultimately dissatisfied
with the novel, I continue to ponder
the relationships we have with
history, and if “The Gimmicks” can
provide insight into the nature of
those relationships.
Novel set amid Armenian
genocide cheapens itself
TATE LEFRENIER
For the Daily
Maniac
Halsey
Capitol Records
ALBUM REVIEW
ALBUM REVIEW
Music to be
Murdered By
Eminem
Shady/Aftermath/
Interscope Records
BOOK REVIEW
The Gimmicks
Chris McCormick
Harper
Jan. 7, 2020