Anyone else hear the new Childish Gambino record?

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

I think the buy-in point is the gun firing when the chorus starts.
Anyway it’s a positive “jfc” from me

uuuh...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QW8whgmyTNU

oh my god

dying at the thumbs up/down ratio there.

https://i.imgur.com/xdIwcrr.jpg

It's terrible, obviously, but I also have no clue what she is "singing".

I browsed her youtube channel a bit and I think she may be a kind of career youtube troll, and a really boring one at that

#1 on the Hot 100.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUWq_aBiE_s

What about Gambino's version? x-post

Is this a reach?

This will largely be overlooked but it sounds like same damn song and this was released a few years prior.

Has this been discussed? https://t.co/kqTSH4fTrv

— Baby Freeway 🇧🇷🇳🇬 (@RappersRActors) June 24, 2018

Initial reaction was yeah but repeat listens has me questioning

I don't know, but it's a good track.

Great track that happens to have the same flow, same subject matter and strikingly similarly stripped down percussive trap beat with vocal chants.

Either way the artist seems to be cool with it so may as well leave it at that.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bkc_rJJg27q/?hl=en&taken-by=jaseharley

I feel like Weird Al needs to make a parody of 'This is America' (partly because the music video would be great).
What would it be titled?

I feel like he doesn't

i feel like he needn't make any more music ever again but i realize i'm in the minority on that one

This is Antarctica.

Love this is America

Love this is America Style

new video is neat

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1B9Fk_SgI0

The aesthetic is kinda simpsonswave.

track really nails the sound it's evidently aiming for but the song could be better

guy rly does have a messiah complex but i liked the cheerfully slight guava island: v deliberate leftwing fable, indulgently pretty (loved the aspect and the fake? 16mm grain, but the rounded edges were a bit much), funny, short, casually zero white people. rihanna is underused i guess but i kind of admired the willingness to underuse rihanna. chops provided by nonso anozie, whom i recognized immediately but couldn't place-- he's done lear and othello so naturally it turned out what i'd seen him in is a bit part in s1 game of thrones. anyway, just nice to watch something tropical.

the first article i found while googling around to figure out if it was actually shot on 16 was an all-hands-on-deck DONALD GLOVER DOESN'T UNDERSTAND CAPITALISM. CAPITALISM HAS LIFTED BILLIONS OUT OF POVERTY. IN 1900 THE AVERAGE WAGE WAS ONLY $3. AS JONAH GOLDBERG WRITES IN "THE DECLINE OF THE WEST", etc., so well done there.

it's Murai, right? he does so much digital grading on his other stuff that I'd assume the same here. 16mm instagram filter.

yeah. too bad imo.