Once again I wake, slowly at first and then with keen intent. It is I, Rich Shapero. The haze of existence drips into life, a broad blue vista spiralling from the firmament to the dusty deeps. It seems I have returned, called again. I focus on the waterlogged floor of my little boat; if I could just… Yes, that way. I become fluid, melting and passing through the knotty knot knots, becoming one with the ocean, running with the deep currents, oblivious to the pressure. Here! Here is the mainstream that surrounds us all. I pass through The Polyps eye and he begins to explain…
Banx & Ranx + Ella Eyre – Answerphone ft Yxng Bane
Why have these songs become so convoluted in their description? I mean look at that thing above. How do you pronounce ‘Yxng’? How can a song title feature someone (thing)? Hmmm. No, still don’t get it. My best guess is that ‘Yxng Bane’ is slang for red paper coffee cups because everyone in the video is waving one about in the ‘club’. I’d estimate it took about 20 minutes to write the song, 10 minutes to record the vocals and minus 50 minutes to come up with the video. It’s just awful. Ella Eyre gives it her all, which isn’t much. Apparently someone is avoiding her calls. Understandable as she does look quite annoying.
Childish Gambino – This is America
The exception that proves the rule. From the moment Donald Glover executes the hooded and bound man this song kicks. The video is a bewildering forest of symbolism, the ambiguous figure of Glover twists, smiles and grimaces while violence and running chaos unfolds around him. The music is similarly schizophrenic; lighter passages contrast the rumbling menace of the verses. You see Drake, THIS is how it’s done. Pretending to give away money to poor people represents defeat, an acquiescence to the status quo. Anger is what is needed and a recognition of the true class enemy. All will be trampled underfoot unless the reality is faced.
Justin Timberlake – Say Something ft Chris Stapleton
I don’t hate Justin Timberlake, he’s done good work in the past. The word ‘Something’ appears a lot in this song and renders it directionless. He’s looking for ‘something’, he can’t help himself, he’s caught up in the middle of ‘it’. If only someone would say ‘something’. Ah, it’s the old Coldplay trick of projecting profundity while saying NOTHING. I suppose as a song it’s not objectionable, it’s lush and well produced. It’s nice. But it’s nothing more. Between the uppermost reaches of the sky and the depths of the ocean lies the surface. This song is all surface. It twinkles, it moves, it sometimes shimmers but it is, after all, just the surface.
And it is towards the surface we must rise, lest our form become permanently dissolved in the watery vastness that surrounds. Goodbye sweet and terrible Polyp, your arms must rest empty once again until the next time we meet. And I, waterlogged; always waterlogged, must rest and dream again under the arid sky and the lonely moon.
