Thursady, March 26, 2020 — 5
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

SABRIYA IMAMI

Daily Arts Writer

RCA

MUSIC REVIEW

When my friend told me Donald Glover 

dropped a new album, I immediately sought it out 

on Spotify and couldn’t find it. The long-awaited 

Childish 
Gambino 

project 
materialized 

on 
a 
mysterious 

website, 
https://

donaldgloverpresents.

com, on March 15. My 

friend joked that Glover 

uploaded the album on 

accident 
before 
taking 

a nap — a very probable 

explanation, but Glover’s 

move felt very deliberate.

It’s not out of character 

for Glover to drop projects 

without warning. The very nature of the release 

(unannounced, on a less than conventional 

streaming platform that loops over and over 

again) deeply affects the listening experience. 

The traditional song markers — a tracklist, titles, 

timestamps, beginnings and endings — are 

blurred and mystified. Every song stands on its 

own, but the presentation meshes them into one 

cohesive entity. This continuity in presentation 

organically comes from the sound. Traditional 

progressions between verses, choruses and 

bridges aren’t as predictable, with each song 

progressing or stagnating sporadically. This 

album very literally chugs, squacks, vibrates, 

echoes and chirps as the bass lines play out 

over bright synths, creating a pleasant volatility 

throughout. 

There are still traditional glimmers of song 

formality on this project, but the departures take 

precedence. Most notable is the appearance of 

“Feels Like Summer,” an easygoing, upbeat 2018 

single. Ironically, this album’s artistic departure 

harkens back to “This is America,” a 2018 single 

that didn’t make the cut for this project. An 

ad-lib-heavy, satirical critique that tethers Black 

American art to Black American suffering, the 

track sent ripples across Internet communities 

that immediately dissected the thematic 

underpinnings of its video, lyrics and all the 

connections in between. Similar to “This is 

America,” Childish Gambino strives to unsettle 

his listeners with the connection between his 

music and its presentation. 

One week after its premiere and subsequent 

disappearance, the album now resides on 

traditional streaming platforms with the title 

3.15.20, named after the date it was released. 

The name of each song runs in tandem with the 

album title, each a mere timestamp of when the 

song begins. This is with the exception of songs 
 

“Algorhythm” and “Time.” My initial thinking 

for singing out these two tracks started with the 

fact that “Algorthym” was part of a two-song 

bonus collection that was randomly distributed 

alongside purchases for Glover’s “This is 

America Tour.” Yet this theory didn’t hold as I 

listened to a minimally modified “Feels Like 

Summer” that appeared as “42.26.” In terms of 

“Algorthym,” it beeps, boops and glitches like 

a cyborg and chugs with the weight of its over-

production (kind of like Muse’s Simulation 

Theory, but actually palatable). Nonetheless, 

the track is dynamic, developed and catchy 

enough to garner lasting 

attention from listeners. 

Blossoming from wispy 

synths, it grows with 

layered, 
chugging 

808s reminiscent of a 

packaging 
machine. 

The beat subsides with 

Glover’s 
oscillating 

falsettos and autotuned, 

robotic vocals. Its chorus, 

an 
interpolation 
of 

Zhane’s 1993 hit “Hey 

Mr. D.J.” is self-aware of 

what’s happening in the background; Glover 

upends the R&B Duo’s version to make the lyrics 

come off as more tongue-in-cheek, mocking the 

derivative or “algorthym-ic” nature of dance 

music: “Everybody (Everybody), move your 

body, now do it (Now do it) / Here is something 

(Ooh), that’s gonna make you move and groove.” 

The track ultimately gives way in the end to 

a catchy overlapping of falsetto and altered 

vocals the halt abruptly as the instrumentals 

malfunction — perhaps indicating a clash 

between authenticity and artificiality.

“Time” picks up from here and rebuilds the 

lost beat from the straggling, struggling beeps at 

the end. “Time” is clunky like its predecessor, but 

sweeter, more voluminous and diverse. Every 

drum beat is decipherable and synthesizers 

are faint but laser focused. The vocals are 

pumped up and bright, mingling well with the 

meditative, jangly guitar base. “Time” builds off 

of manifold genres, borrowing elements from 

’80s synth pop, gospel and funk. The Ariana 

Grande feature is uncharacteristically short 

but aesthetically sufficient for another layer of 

sweetness. Despite the leaping variations and 

textures, the song never feels overwhelming, 

developing gradually across its relatively slow 

pace. The track balances its saccharine nature 

against Glover’s contemplative and critical 

character given the stark nature of its lyrical 

commentary. “Maybe all the stars in the night 

are really dreams / Maybe this whole world ain’t 

exactly what it seems / Maybe the sky will fall 

down on tomorrow / But one thing’s for certain, 

baby / We’re running out of time,” Glover croons 

in the chorus. As he wrestles with the ulterior 

meaning of what is abundant and impermanent, 

Glover conveys the reasoning for this track’s 

merit of a title; reality and time are orderly and 

artificially constructed, much like a traditional 

album.

Algorithms and self- love in 
Gambino’s suprise album

DIANA YASSIN
Daily Arts Writer

3.15.20

Childish Gambino

RCA Records

FILM NOTEBOOK

Villians in film: The good, 
the bad and Severus Snape

A lot of people glorify heroes. They help 

people, do good and save the world. And 

that’s true; they deserve a lot of praise 

for all the good that they try to do. But in 

all honesty, would they even be heroes if 

villains didn’t exist? Someone or something 

has to cause a problem or do something 

that will make another person stand up 

and decide to become a hero, which is why 

I think villains deserved to be discussed 

and, dare I say, glorified just as much as 

heroes.

One of the most common misconceptions 

about villains is that they all fall under 

the same category: the bad guy. This 

could not be more incorrect. I think the 

best way to categorize and understand 

villains is by looking at the scale of Hero, 

Vigilante, Antihero and Villain. The term 

Hero is pretty self-explanatory: It refers 

to the person who saves the day. But the 

other terms get a little more complicated. 

A Vigilante, for example, is a person who 

decides to become something similar to 

an authority figure or a member of law 

enforcement without getting actual legal 

authority. A Vigilante tries to do good and 

fight crime, but without authority figures 

backing him, they’re often chased down 

by law enforcement. Batman is a perfect 

example of this. He risks his own life on 

multiple occasions to protect Gotham, 

but because he chooses to operate in the 

shadows and act as an intimidating figure, 

most of the Gotham City Police Department 

is after him constantly. 

The Antihero is probably the most 

complicated term of all because it’s always 

in a gray area. An Antihero is neither good 

nor bad, hero nor villain. Antiheroes are 

typically understood to be protagonists 

or central characters that don’t have 

stereotypical “good guy” qualities. I’ve 

always thought that this explanation was 

incredibly vague, so I came up with my own 

distinction for Antiheroes: characters who 

think that the ends justify the means. This 

could mean that they either do the wrong 

things for the right reasons or do the right 

things for the wrong reasons. 

An example of the former would be 

Albus Dumbledore. This might be a 

surprise to many of you, because by all 

accounts Dumbledore is the token “good 

guy” — the mentor who Harry relies on. 

But even though his end goal was to do 

the right thing by stopping Voldemort, 

Dumbledore made a lot of awful decisions. 

He constantly did the wrong thing to 

defeat Voldemort, such as keep secrets 

from Harry. Granted, he is more heroic 

than many other Antiheroes, but he did 

make mistakes that were unforgivable. 

On the other end of the Antihero falls 

Severus Snape. I’m not much of a Snape 

fan myself, but I can admit that in the 

end, he did the right thing by being a spy 

for the Order of the Phoenix and helping 

Harry defeat Voldemort. But he did none 

of these good things for the right reasons. 

He did everything in Lily Potter’s name. At 

first, that sounds like it would be okay, but 

then you remember that the only reason 

he turned to Dumbledore was for her, not 

because he actually wanted to fight for the 

good side. He had absolutely no problem 

in letting James and Harry die as long as 

Lily was saved. Not to mention that he was 

cruel to students, mere children, when he 

had no right to be. So yes, Snape may have 

been important in defeating Voldemort, 

but does that really mean he was a Hero? 

No. He did what he did for himself, not for 

anyone else.

And finally we get to the Villain. Villains 

are often known as the characters whose 

evil actions are most central to the story, 

the characters who cause problems for the 

Heroes. This is also pretty broad, but it 

makes sense. The Villain does bad things 

because he wants to. And what better 

Villain to discuss than the Joker? In my 

mind, Joker is the epitome of the Villain. 

He just likes to wreak havoc and hurt 

people and cause problems for Batman 

to solve. He also rarely gets any material 

out of his evil. In “The Dark Knight,” the 

Joker literally burns a stack of money to 

prove that, for him, doing evil isn’t for 

any material gain. For him, evil is a state 

of being that he enjoys. He likes to do evil. 

Sure, he may have a tragic backstory, but 

in the end, the Joker just likes to be bad, 

which is why he is one of the best examples 

of a Villain. 

I know that many of my examples are 

subjective, but to me, the characters that I 

mentioned embody each of these categories 

and their respective traits. Morality in 

general is a subjective concept, but that’s 

okay because it makes watching and 

talking about movies and their characters 

so much more interesting. Good and evil 

fall on a scale as well, just like the scale 

of Heroes to Villains. No one person can 

be perfectly good or perfectly bad. Even 

the most honored Heroes have dark sides, 

and the most vile Villains have soft spots. 

Obviously the scale of good and bad is 

meant to be arguable; what fun would it be 

if it weren’t? 

WARNER BROS. PICTURES

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