Awaken my love9/22/2023 ![]() Instead, “Awaken, My Love!” is a miscalculation, an anticlimactic coda to a year that saw him making the best, most vital work of his career with the TV series Atlanta. That would’ve been the best case scenario here. It’s possible to roll your eyes at an artist’s articulated intentions and marvel at the finished work all the same. He referred to it as “a shared vibration for human progress.” He told Billboard that he’d been pondering the contemporary moment, specifically, “How do you start a global revolution, really? Is that possible with the systems we’ve set up?” Glover debuted songs from “Awaken, My Love!” at a multi-day musical event he dubbed Pharos at Joshua Tree in California. D'Angelo didn't suddenly try to fit his protest music into the context of a disco album. The album sounds like it wants to do some of the hard, sincere work of artists like D'Angelo and Kendrick Lamar, but both of them put out their finest political art after years spent sharpening their abilities in their respective genres. Glover explained to Billboard that these 11 songs are “an exercise in just feeling and tone.” The lyrics, sung by Glover in as many voices as there are tracks, gesture broadly in the direction of parenthood, white fear of blackness, and the complexity of love, romantic and brotherly. It’s called “Awaken, My Love!” (all punctuation is Glover’s), and if we take the artist at his word, this is an earnest offering. Maybe he’ll figure out how to smuggle Donald Glover’s heart into Childish Gambino’s brain eventually, but if he hasn’t figured out what he wants out of Childish Gambino yet, it’s increasingly rewarding watching him try.On Thursday night, Donald Glover-as Childish Gambino-released a community theater production of a funk album. There are times, however, when that nodding feels more like mimicry than anything else. That same on-paper ability is what makes “Awaken, My Love!” a well-executed project: He has clearly absorbed a great deal of musical history, as the album nods to Parliament-Funkadelic, Sly and the Family Stone, Rick James, Prince, and more. (“Fandango my mandingo, we should do a movie” from a 2012 track with Danny Brown, for example.) ![]() Rarely did he make a song about anything, and those zingers were plain obnoxious. As a rapper, he almost sounded the part: Take a step back, and there he was, rapping fast, switching up flows, delivering (too many) punchlines. He’s skilled enough to figure out how to excel at something, and, for the most part, look like he knows what he’s doing. It sounds like “Kokomo” for the “ Hotline Bling” era, or maybe Ween covering Sublime’s “Caress Me Down,” and its inclusion is entirely baffling, considering the sonic cohesion of the rest of the project.ĭonald Glover’s greatest talents remain his tragicomic touch as a screenwriter and his ease with performance. ![]() “California,” a cringey tropical parody complete with fake patois, sticks out for the wrong reasons. There are also a few indistinguishable tracks that feel like funk retreads “Have Some Love” sounds uncomfortably close to “ Can You Get to That” from Funkadelic’s Maggot Brain. On “Have Some Love,” he limply advises the audience to “really love one another.” The song called “Riot” isn’t exactly riotous: He screams a little, but only for the sake of fulfilling a pre-ordained funk yelp quota-nothing in the song seems to have moved him to shrieking. ![]() Too much of the rest, though, simply nods to sentiment without producing any. ![]() It’s a love song, which has always been Glover’s forte, whether on Because the Internet’s “ 3005,” “ Telegraph Ave,” or Camp’s “ L.E.S.” The same goes for the open-hearted “Baby Boy,” possibly inspired by the birth of his son. These songs dig into something that feels unique to Glover’s heart, not just his record collection. The tracks are embellished with intricate details throughout, like the delicate xylophone on “Terrified.” “ Redbone” builds from a slow jam into a peak of futuristic guitar and forceful staccato piano chords. Its imagery (“This is the end of us/Sleeping with the moon and the stars”) might be vapid, but the intensity of Glover’s singing compensates, as does the ripping electric guitar. The album’s first track and lead single, “Me and Your Mama,” is a satisfying slow burn that shows off Glover’s impressive falsetto. Like the cosmic soul it emulates, the atmosphere is lush, full of period ambiance worthy of a high-end television set. The album’s production is majestic, aiming squarely for the cosmos depicted on its striking cover artwork. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |