Anyone else hear the new Childish Gambino record?

I keep re-reading sterling's criticism of the video trying to find something I agree with. Nope.

I was all set to start arguing with Whiney and then people started saying Childish Gambino does Bruno Mars better than Bruno Mars so now I just want to delete this entire thread

And the degree to which this is has been singled out as somehow above-and-beyond typical rap and r&b rather than a sort of clever-clever pastiche of it is has been getting to me.

i haven't seen takes along those lines floating around yet but maybe i'm not tuned in to the right places.

i find it difficult to read "this is america" as any kind of 'pastiche' or overly-studied intellectual performance piece as much as something that seems to emerge pretty seamlessly from where contemporary black music is as an idiom right now! like, childish gambino is now a very successful mainstream recording artist with bona fide hits under his belt. even though yes, his most recent and biggest to date clearly *was* pastiche of a bygone musical era, that his next hit (as "america" very obviously will be) would bear the aesthetics of today's mainstream rap should not be even remotely surprising, even considering his past as a niche, hokey punchline-rapper (which apparently many of us can't let go of).

it's certainly presented in a manner, with the video especially, where it's meant to be read as overt commentary, even if the listener doesn't immediately know what to make of it and only has a vague sense of each line or shot's specific poetic 'meaning'. but it's a mistake to assume that the political messages it wears on its sleeve are substantially different from the subtext of many contemporary hits that have been percolating through the ether at any given moment over the past few years.

another thing. through much of the history of pop music, there's been a strong tendency for (white) americans, however much they enjoy or dislike it, to view contemporary black music (celebratory and despondent alike) merely as raw, unpracticed and unrefined expression that almost-accidentally happens to resonate in the wider culture rather than as art that takes skill to create and finely honed intuition to connect to its audience. young thug, quavo and 21 savage are among the several other contemporary artists peppering contributions here-n-there throughout the track. is gambino's supposedly intellectualized, studied 'pastiche' inadvertently making a mockery of these artists and the idiom they operate within? does anyone believe none of those other artists included would be capable of creating or performing this himself, or that none could do it 'authentically'? is this just another lil dicky getting fetty wap to sing "we're gonna save that money!" on "thrift shop" version 0.6?

for me it's not, but ymmv.

anyway i'm going to stop thinking now and just say that bruno mars is good but not that good, and the same is true of mr. glover.

I still get emotional each time I watch the video. I find it highly thoughtful for this moment in time.

OTM. Sometimes it's okay to just leave the chins unstroked.

Not to take anything away from DG, but I feel like Ludwig Goransson has been underrated as a producer (even having done Black Panther)

I don't think anyone seriously thinks that childish gambino does bruno mars better than bruno mars. I also don't think bruno mars does anything so singular that it must be described as bruno marsing, though. Anyway, it's easy to locate a perceived "upgrade" over bruno mars within the obvious ways that the two artists are different instead of the imagined idea that CG is somehow beating BM at his own game.

Extremely weird to me to even compare the two. They're so different!

Bruno's last record was a semi-effective pastiche of 80s R&B. Donald's last record was a semi-effective pastiche of 70s R&B.

Personally I don’t see why rappers can’t be theater-school kids (& vice-versa). Though I suppose dyl kind of gets at that up above.

Rappers can mostly do whatever they want but if you go out of your way to present yourself as "apart" from what it is you're doing, like he did in his earlier work, people inevitably start talking about your artistic credibility. This whole conversation is an extension of that.

Can't put my finger on why Mars falls in for a similar kind of flack other than maybe being too calculated in his approach or something.

it's a mistake to assume that the political messages it wears on its sleeve are substantially different from the subtext of many contemporary hits that have been percolating through the ether at any given moment over the past few years

― dyl, Monday, May 7, 2018 9:33 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'd agree with this. except that i think that gambino's is delivered with a wink and a nod, an ironic distance that says "look when i'm talking about materialism i don't mean it, i'm criticizing that people talk about guns and money as the problem, as the distraction while the real stuff is happening elsewhere," which is precisely what's denying that these same themes and issues are elsewhere, but presented without that sort of dimestore brechtian distancing, and often more genuinely and sharply, while this is all reflected through so much artifice that it doesn't feel like it connects to me -- it represents connecting, and it simulates making a statement. moves right past brecht to baudrillard.

this really isn't coming on my part on any relationship to the prior gambino stuff, which i didn't feel much about either way -- it's all right on the surface of the This is America video.

This is America is so good

xp once more with coherence

I guess I'm that guy but this song sounds just like the Cashmeoutside girl's song and the video is directed in the same style idk maybe that's the point.

YOU GUYS THIS SONG IS SO GOOD

naw I understand what you're saying, Sterl, but you're just wrong. I'd argue that there's no such thing as dimestore brechtian distancing, just brechtian distancing, & that this is something the video does well. the dancing, gestures, expressions, and staging bitterly & ironically
& distortedly reflect jump jim crow past & present, and the suddenness of the violence is effectively jolting, and the discomfort and confusion of both of those instances of brechtian distancing do their job, which is to get a mass audience talking about the social and political issues presented in the song & video.

the lyrics themselves might offer "dimestore" pop ironies about violence & materialism but you're also wrong to use dimestore as a pejorative, just because. I won't argue this point on ilx of all places. & please note that these lyrics, whether their irony is facile or not, are anchored by the spookiest, most profound line in the song, "Don't catch you slippin up," the line that pins a much too corporeal reality to lines that otherwise seem ephemeral and light and scattershot, as if those are inherently bad things (they're not).

& whether the talk of materialism & gun violence are ironic feints or not, your arguing that you know where the glass bead game of popular art - or any art - should start & stop to be sincere & effective & uh artful is like the libertarian knowing where the law & government regulations should start & stop to be just & productive & useful. your quibbling is a point-missing calculus and, like, remind me not to be a 10 year old kid showing you my truly excellent & weird refrigerator-worthy drawing because you'd say it's derivative of the most mawkish efforts of a lesser CalArts grad or something.

& whether the talk of materialism & gun violence are ironic feints or not (slight reprise), you don't argue convincingly how that's a bad thing. you jump straight to your own garbled idea of what you think it really means and how your words in Glover's mouth must make "This Is America" bad art.

Video is equally striking but it holds up something fierce on its own

swagger jacking sada baby is it

Thewufs otm

bamcquern -- the idea that "Don't catch you slippin up" is somehow a profound line is the sort of thing that gets me here. This sentiment is expressed all the time in rap tracks in almost those exact words. its almost a cliche. And those tracks sound equally if not more intense, claustrophobic, and are narratively more rich because there's things going on besides just the play and juxtaposition of phrases. You can't just take this cliche that expresses something both common but also, yes, intense, and then say that it became profound because glover made a funny face while saying it and was in a carpark instead of on a streetcorner or something.

you say that the "job" of these devices is to "get a mass audience talking about the social and political issues presented in the song & video" but i don't see that happening. people see what they want in the video -- but seriously, cities have been erupting in protests for some years now, the news cycle has been dominated by all sorts of issues. like... what _actually_ is this video going to get people to "talk" about that wasn't already there? The response I've seen thus far has been outlets just praising the mere reference to the _existence_ of issues, paired with like a rundown of various scenes in the background and what they're supposed to represent like captain midnight's secret decoder ring. honestly it feels like a big-budget version of SNL's "high school theater" sketch.

I don't see distancing to the song or video - a lot of what's compelling to me is the way the elements are presented without being commented on, Glover implicating himself in everything he's rapping about.

Presuming intentional Profundity then judging on that basis can lead one down some bad paths.

I'm trying hard to make the connection between the artist who created this song/video/performance and the Super Bowl Halftime guy who did "Moves Like Jagger".

I need to go back to the M.I.A. thread and see who compared her to Katy Perry.

TBF above it looks like that Bruno Mars comparison was originally just about the song Saturday.

This song is flat out awesome and the video only made it better for me.

So much of hip-hop (all of it?) is politically charged anyway, it's amusing to me why people are latching on to to the political element of this video so much.

I don't know why I did it, knowing the likely outcome, but I just read Armond White's take on it. He makes some points that I think Sterling was alluding to above. I should use this frustration and go exercise now.

This thread has been awaiting Armond White's response, especially if NRO ran it.

tbh I'd like to know your response too Al

TBF above it looks like that Bruno Mars comparison was originally just about the song Saturday.

This. But, y'know, ilm threads will always be about 80% people purposely misreading someone's opinion in order to prove a different point.

Only for my own sake of clarity, all I was saying is that, to me, "Saturday" was a more effective 80s pastiche than Bruno's 80s pastiche songs. That's it. In no way whatsoever was I claiming that "Childish Gambino does Bruno Mars better than Bruno Mars".

Give examples, sterl. which songs use this line? and do they have the same context? ie, I believe, simply being Black in America?

the devices do their "job" successfully because people are talking about the song and it's social and political import. like we are now. you want them to talk about it in a different way?

the secret decoder ring exegesis seems to be your preferred way of engaging with art, which is maybe why you're dissatisfied with the song. most people aren't taking this positivist add-it-up approach because it's art and they tacitly understand art isn't a math problem of sufficient or insufficient quantities.

I dunno I'm on ilx so I should expect greater than/lesser than crit. "there's another unspecified song that does this better." "there's another specified song that does it better and its aims are exactly the same and btw music is so strictly quantitative that this is a valuable way to talk about it."

https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/08/entertainment/trayvon-martin-father-this-america/index.html

people just believe any goddamned thing they see on twitter apparently

bamcquern you have literally misread every word i wrote.

cool cool cool. except I haven't.

you said the brechtian distancing isn't doing its job. I said it is. thousands of people are having conversations about the song & its message & its politics just like we're having. people talking about themes within and adjacent to the song before the song existed is not some deficiency of the song's.

it's true, you said the sentiment of the line is trite, which to me is a very broad complaint and completely elides the poetry and placement of the line, but you also said "in almost those exact words." Which exact words? And I'd argue that, yes, the line is forceful (not necessarily "more" forceful) embedded in the "play and juxtaposition of phrases." the specific words are important because poetry isn't horseshoes.

his face has nothing to do with whether the line is good or not.

except that i think that gambino's is delivered with a wink and a nod, an ironic distance that says "look when i'm talking about materialism i don't mean it, i'm criticizing that people talk about guns and money as the problem, as the distraction while the real stuff is happening elsewhere," which is precisely what's denying that these same themes and issues are elsewhere, but presented without that sort of dimestore brechtian distancing, and often more genuinely and sharply, while this is all reflected through so much artifice that it doesn't feel like it connects to me -- it represents connecting, and it simulates making a statement. moves right past brecht to baudrillard.

this is the decoder ring shit - your own, not unnamed critics. this is what I mean by a calculus & you're the one that brought this mode of criticism & appreciation (or lack of) to the thread. you've made yourself the arbiter of when gambino is being ironic & how ironical he's being; you're putting words in gambino's mouth and evaluating how sincere he is or isn't being; you're talking about themes like they're manipulable units, as if identifying what's being talked about in art robs it of its power.

& you clearly make comparative mentions not only to other rap tracks.

remove "not only" bc I don't need to get into it

"you've made yourself the arbiter of when gambino is being ironic"

you mean i've attempted to perform a critical reading of a text? go home.

https://media2.giphy.com/media/xTiTnJ3BooiDs8dL7W/giphy.gif

^^ new borad description tbf

The video is so good. Wish the lyrics were as powerful but I’m all in for this new phase of CG after not being a fan of his previous works.

Like the song but Glover seems like a bit of an egotist

https://78.media.tumblr.com/12b64ae950e7310945e9941ae07863be/tumblr_ncc65lyqzQ1s2wio8o1_500.gif

This is America vid feels very Kendrick-lite to me

nothing wrong with Kendrick being an influencer IMO particularly for songs and/or videos that have this kind of wide viewership

"dimestore brechtian distancing"

as opposed to threepenny brechtian distancing?

Xpost: agreed. Idk if Kendrick-lite is meant as an insult but more rappers emulating him is desirable imho.

this is all reflected through so much artifice that it doesn't feel like it connects to me -- it represents connecting, and it simulates making a statement.

I guess this was my takeaway, too; the video had me thinking more about its production and technical aspects than it “connected” emotionally or intellectually (but seems I’m in the minority, and it’s not a hill I’ll die on). There certainly are a lot of “decoder rings” all over YouTube, etc. I’m sure that’s part of the point with all the signifiers, to get people learning about things they maybe weren’t aware of.

jfc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUWq_aBiE_s&feature=youtu.be

link doesn't work for me

doesn’t even sync up that well