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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