In my attempts to
catch up with 2016’s busy bombardment of albums, I give you this two-in-one
r&b special review of The Weeknd’s Starboy
and Childish Gambino’s Awaken! My Love.
Truth be told, I always wanted the The Weeknd to sell out. ‘I
Can’t Feel My Face’ showed us that the palm-tree-haired Canadian could make a mean
dancefloor filler, and seeing it’s success, the singer has returned with a gauntlet
of catchy pop tunes – although he probably should have kept the palm tree.
Admittedly, he’s still whining about how much non-committal
sex he’s getting. I guess when a gold-digger wants to bury you ‘six feet under’
or when a chick is sleep-talking about bedding other guys, that’s a valid
reason not to commit. I’d almost thought he’d lost trust in women altogether if
it wasn’t for the penultimate track ‘Die For You’ in which I’m relieved to see
him getting sappy. At least, he does it with more conviction than Drake.
Of course, it’s not really the lyrics that matter – hearing Abel
get his newfound MJ croon on over some exciting electro-pop makes it all fun
and feelgood. ‘False Alarm’ serves as a particularly creative surprise banger,
and ‘Stargirl Interlude’ is the duo between pop’s two lost souls we’ve all been
waiting for with some surprisingly emotive vocals from Lana Del Rey. And of
course there are the two slick radio hits bookending the album, featuring guest
robo-vocals from Daft Punk. It’s certainly a more refined album than its
predecessor, managing to make sex-themed pop anthems sophisticated (I’m
dismissing that Future feature) and showing off the singer’s sense of groove.
Childish Gambino’s Awaken!
My Love is similarly an alteration in style for the rapper/singer, except
more alternative as opposed to poppier. Whilst Gambino showed us he could offer
some soul singing on his previous EP Kauai,
a full-on Blaxploitation-era funk throwback was not what anyone expected. I’m
still recovering from almighty opener ‘Me and Your Mama’, which segues
gospel harmonies and 808s into some Hendrix-like guitars and impassioned Prince-esque
screeches in a move that had my jaw on the floor. This turns out to be only one
of Gambino’s impressive vocal impersonations, later tracks witnessing the singer braying
like George Clinton and cooing like Macy Gray. I thought Donald Glover’s
talents could stretch no further. Now I’m just waiting for him to walk on
water.
Awaken! My Love might
have been a flawless album if it was a little less messy at points, and perhaps
if ‘California’ had been cut out the tracklist entirely – an out-of-place auto-tuned
goofball that feels like it was put in there to troll us. Otherwise the record
is a wackily fun and very authentic piece of retro funk. And whilst its campy
horror themes may make some regard the lyrics as unimportant, there are signs that Glover may be hinting something deeper about African Americans with lines
like: ‘but if he’s scared of me, how can
we be free?’.
Starboy:★★★★☆
Awaken! My Love:★★★★☆