I felt compelled to write this after posting the award dump where it’s revealed that my personal pick was this record, and I felt there’s kind of an explanation required.
Being absolutely clear, I didn’t read the screenplay that was released along side this album until recently, and I didn’t watch the short film that predated it. I didn’t have any faith in Donald Glover as a creator. See, my initial exposure was his work with Derrick Comedy. I had a weird phase where I watched a lot of dumb sketch comedy back in 2005 and 2006, when people were still pretty weirded out by the whole “youtube” thing. It was an innocent time, back when all you needed to do to post videos over ten minutes was just say you were a director. Anyways, that’s the first time I saw Don, and I liked that all stuff, especially “Girls Are Not To Be Trusted” and “He Really Gave It To Me.” Then my views on comedy changed peacefully and I stopped messing with that stuff.
Occasionally, he’d pop up in new places, and that’d be cool! “Oh, he’s writing on 30 Rock! Good, I’m glad he made it.” “Oh, he’s on a sitcom! Rad!” “I guess he’s a rapper now? That’s cool, maybe if someone I know makes noise about it I’ll look into it.” During one depressive phase (why lie) in which I ended up watching a bunch of comedy stand up specials, I checked out his routine that he called “Weirdo.” I hated it. I’d changed too much and it just rubbed me the wrong way, especially the way the crowd followed along with all of his setups with cheers. I felt like I was watching him give a keynote at a fan club meeting, and not a comedian. It was after that where I finally caved, and tried an episode of Community. Same result: I don’t go for that kind of comedy anymore, so it just hurt to watch. Then no one in my circles stood up for Childish Gambino and that was that.
I guess that’s where the critical response for Because the Internet is rooted in. Glover is so prolific in so many mediums that building up to the release of the album it was hard to not have had some chance to form a half-assed opinion of him. A lot of the reviews metacritic pulled read as criticisms of where the album stands in his body of work, or in his existence in pop culture. And then they just started making shit up! My favorite review was the one that insisted the main point of the record was that he was trolling everyone that was listening, which is the biggest act of projection I’ve seen from a music critic in quite a while. Meanwhile, the reviewer spent the seemingly cosmically mandated time addressing the rest of Glover’s career, holding all past boons and missteps against the record.
“Because the internet, mistakes are forever.”
Ultimately, Glover’s past work only matters to this album as far as he engages it, which is on ONE SONG. ONE. Even then, the way he addresses it is an attack on the relevance it has to his work, knocking it away as he reveals why he’s made this thing. Some critics were going into the record expecting a rebuke of internet culture, only to discover him trying to understand how these things relate to what he understands as “being alive.” Furthermore, he’s trying to make sure that his understanding of “being alive” has any weight, so he tries on a variety of attitudes between nihilism and narcissism while he tries to interface with this world he lives in.
When artists that don’t have the kind of background that Glover has try to make something as widely textured and different as Because the Internet is, that succeeds as often as Because the Internet does, these kinds of albums get high scores and praise. Lets run through a few obvious press examples. What’s the sound profile of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy? Is there a singular tonal center point? No, because the music serves the points being made, which are the album. What’s the sound profile of W H O K I L L? Of good kid, m.A.A.d city? Modern Vampires of the City? There is no law that dictates that an album has to be based in a singular sound, and it’s absurd to lament when an album civilly disobeys this nonexistent law.
Quick history: “Album” is rooted in a literal application, of flip books full of 7” records that had a physical attachment like photo albums. As time and technology moved forwards, people started experimenting with the entire idea of what an album could be a collection of. The same kind of music. The same place and it’s artists. The same artist. The same idea from the artist. The same idea from multiple artists. This structural nuance is the whole reason that the Album of Songs has been such a dominant pop art form for so long, because it’s a form that still has an alluring variety to it.
When it comes to Because the Internet the structure is filmic without being oppressive. The songs are scenes, and I don’t know what kind of movies you’ve seen, but scenes usually look pretty different! It’s like they follow in a linear succession but establish different things! Apparently when you do this on an album, you’re doing too many things and it’s empty (never mind the absurdity of calling an album with a fleshed out storyline that’s entirely outside of the album ’empty’). The only time I’d recommend reading the screenplay is if upon finishing the record, someone found the character Gambino portrays unlikable. The screenplay rebukes his attitudes and ideals constantly. The Boy is an unsympathetic character. He’s not some brave inspirational protagonist. He is just someone who brings shit onto himself, and someone who has shit brought onto him. He’s just someone.
Going back to that review I found egregious, another central point was that they found that the main reason someone wouldn’t like the record is because it wasn’t cool. I’ll paraphrase to keep them from getting the traffic or recognition. He gets trashed for the people that appear on his album and how they’re used, without ever considering why they’re used like that (if the verses are all one character’s perspective, guest verses don’t make a lot of sense). He tags him for making a punchline centered around an old sitcom, because it’s not cool and people should be embarrassed for publicly liking things that are not cool.
Second time in a week that I’ve pointed this out, but, that’s Atsushi Onita in our banner up there. He’s an old Japanese pro wrestler. He’s in there because he’s a fucking bad ass. He’s also up there because this is my website, and we own who we are around here. I don’t even understand how to be some other way, because there’s not enough time to live for anything else.
“Life’s the biggest troll, and the joke is on us.”
WINNER: “Because the Internet” by Childish Gambino
WHY: The beats are good and so are the verses, which are two things it has over Yeezus and whatever else was “cool” last year. This record got buried for shit that isn’t true about it. Check it out.
Fermata over Whole Rest 