Monday, June 26, 2017

album review: 'saturation' by BROCKHAMPTON

So I think it's safe to say that music criticism is heading into a new era - and no, I'm not talking about the poptimism movement or the rise of awful thinkpiece criticism, I'm looking more at a shift in influence and power. Because if you go back to the mid-60s, there were names of music critics that stood out and helped to break acts, at least before the rise of major zines and music publications, where the individual critic got subsumed or in some cases actively de-emphasized.

That seems to be changing, and to be fair with the rise of the blogosphere you could have seen it coming. The Internet led to the democratization of music criticism but with the rise of YouTube and the critical personality it almost seems like we've come full circle. But whereas plenty of people can make an album review and a much smaller group can develop with the right persistence to make it something lucrative, we're now seeing the rise of critics with enough of a following that they can break acts through their reviews much in the way Pitchfork or the Village Voice or Rolling Stone used to.

Because let's be brutally honest: you guys wouldn't have asked for me to cover Saturation by BROCKHAMPTON, this Texas hip-hop collective with only one mixtape dropped last year that flew under the majority of radars, if it hadn't been for Anthony Fantano's effusive praise. Now to me that's not a bad thing - beyond the whole #TeamInternet thing it's a really great thing to see Anthony succeed and set benchmarks for where music critics can be on YouTube, but it's also good because we tend to share somewhat similar tastes in hip-hop. And while I wasn't really all that impressed by what I heard from BROCKHAMPTON's first project All-American Trash last year, I found their structure as a 'boy band collective' - their words not mine - to be at least interesting, so I figured I'd give Saturation a listen. What did I find?

Okay, so here's the thing: I was planning on putting out this review on Saturday, Sunday at the latest - I'd given the album over a dozen listens, I felt confident in what I was going to say. And while some of this I can blame on marathoning G.L.O.W. on Netflix - which you should all do beyond Alison Brie or Marc Maron-related reasons - the larger part is that I think Saturation is pretty good but not great. And that's incredibly frustrating for me, as hip-hop has had a pretty rough 2017 thus far, and I was hoping this could be a breakthrough I could really get behind... truth is while I see the hype, I can't really support it as much as I'd like.

So for a change of pace, I want to start with the reasons I definitely respect and appreciate a lot of this record, and the majority of it is conceptual. Considering how many styles and sounds this record leaps across, the fact that it's cohesive at all means a lot of credit is due for track sequencing and production. And there is a defined arc to this record - the boy band has uprooted themselves from their native Houston to southern California, and as you peel through the tracks you get the impression that you're breaking through walls of artistic identity these kids have intentionally built up, both to hide insecurities and an attempt to assemble a more defined artistic persona, not quite knowing what they want yet. It's how you get the trunk knocking pummel of the drums and bass on 'Heat' that's borderline noisy rap rock that's followed by the glossy squonk of 'Star' which with its string of references manages to perfectly split the line between goofy and kind of awesome... and then a few songs later we have a melancholic, heavily pitch-shifted interlude that will continue to run through the entire song of 'Fake' that will definitely take some getting used to. But a few songs later you get 'Swim' with a watery guitar tone that wouldn't be out of place on a Frank Ocean project - except with brighter synth accents that I actually really love, or the even more brittle 'Cash' with its blur of twangy tones and outro of horns that gets even darker on the more discordant 'Milk' that actually really worked for me. And 'Milk' really is the point where this album's thematic arc crystallizes for me - once you peel through all these layers, this is the point where there's acceptance of the past angst, acknowledgement of how it has shaped your story, and the willingness to move forward... which yes, split out of context from the record's beginning of making girls deep-throat pistols can ring as hard to swallow - in a matter of speaking - but again, this is a record about forging artistic identity, with all of the cracks and weird shifts that come with it. The album probably could have ended there, and if I have any criticisms of the flow, it'd be putting both the dirty, downbeat, pseudo-R&B presentation of 'Face' and the more soulful rock vibe on 'Waste' featuring Bear//Face maybe deeper in the track listening and let 'Milk' be the final summary track - I don't think either song is bad by any stretch and especially 'Waste' works as a closing song, but I think 'Milk' might have been better

And look, I'm not going to deny that some of these hooks do stick in your head - if BROCKHAMPTON deserves credit for anything, they make some catchy music that if it got the right meme I could easily crossing over - but that's saying I like these hooks especially, and the problem starts as early as 'Gold' - I get the M.I.A. homage, but I'm considering as you all know I'm no big M.I.A. fan that the heavy repetition and barebones writing can get grating, especially with some of the vocal effects and tones used. Take the watery vocal layering over the hook of 'Boys' which hits me at exactly the wrong frequency, or how all of 'Fake' is pitched up, or the squawking behind the autotuned hook of 'Bank', or the whiplash transitions from Soundcloud rap distortion to a stripped back guitar-line and really kind of grating hook on 'Bump', even if, yes, I get why they did it. In fact, there's a lot of autotune on this project, to the point where songs like 'Fake' and 'Trip' could almost convince you they're completely different people on this project if you're not paying attention to the words being said... and even then, it'll only take you so far. Now upon a lot of relistens, you can start to tell them apart - Kevin Abstract with his confident bisexuality and taking most of the hooks with pretty decent vocals, Ameer Vann handling the more aggressive bars, Merlyn Wood seeming more flamboyant, JOBA and Matt Champion taking more hype-men roles - honest I wasn't all that impressed by either of these two - and finally Don McLennon, who I think by a considerable margin is the best MC with the sharpest flows and most introspective and layered content. There's a reason why on 'Milk' while we do get introspection from Kevin and Merlyn, Dom handles the most cerebral monologue that closes out the track, and while a more cynical part of me would highlight how much this is just teenage melodrama, I think previous reviews have proven there's value in deconstructing that.

And yet with all of that being said... it's hard for me not to notice that outside of Dom's verses, a lot of the rapping here is not great, or in the case of Matt Champion barely passable. Bars can feel increasingly disconnected and not rhyme - even on a few points where it could be excused, flows can feel a little sloppy, I'm not wild at all about how much autotune and pitch-shifting is being used... let's just say that I'm a lot more comfortable calling them a 'boy band' than a rap collective like Odd Future. And that's the other elephant in the room - putting aside the fact that BROCKHAMPTON is now being managed by the duo that made Odd Future so huge in the early 2010s, it's hard not to see a lot of parallels between the groups in their blend of violent imagery with a more sensitive introspection. And while I'll give BROCKHAMPTON points for not having some of the same raging hypocrisies that would eventually tie back to why so many former members have distanced themselves from it, at the same time in terms of rapping ability and bars and especially descriptive content, I don't see BROCKHAMPTON being there yet, or with the exception of Dom not having the sharply incisive wordplay that could really elevate the concept, or even a roughly equivalent talent level between members, which could prove to be problematic in the future.

But as a whole... look, I will freely admit I come down hard on a lot of rap groups, mostly because there's a subconscious part of my mind that will inevitably circle back to Wu Tang or Three 6 Mafia or Doomtree. But moving beyond that, while I'm mostly just lukewarm on this, I definitely see a lot of potential here and I definitely see the appeal, which is why I'm giving this a very light 7/10. If you were an Odd Future fan that was there for more than the controversy and dank misery that came out of it, you'll probably really like this, or if you're just looking for some colourful, distinctly unique-feeling hip-hop that I give YouTube more of a credit for breaking than most 'mainstream' music critics. It's not quite my thing, but I totally get why people will love it, so check it out - fascinating stuff.

No comments:

Post a Comment