Tim: Leona’s not really been heard from since the whole Penguin/Fade Into Darkness/Collide clusterfudge last June, but hopefully everyone’s forgotten about that and can enjoy her new song about how she’s a terrible person.
Tim: Right. I am properly bored of lyric videos. They were a decent idea a couple of years ago when we all went ‘ooh, look what they’ve done with the writing, that’s fun’. Occasionally you still get ones where the people put effort in, like the Muse one or the Little Mix one, but this is not one of those. It is lazy, it is dull, and it is something anybody with a copy of PowerPoint and access to a stock video library could put together in about half an hour (and indeed have been doing on YouTube for the past six years).
Tom: To be fair, there’s a lot of subtle design work done on this one, particularly with the explosions – but unless you make motion graphics for a living, you probably wouldn’t notice them.
Tim: No. So I’d like it on record that now, I dislike them and songs we review that feature them will likely as not get me in a grumpy mood.
Tom: Well, you’re going to be grumpy for a while then, because lyric videos are here to stay. They need to get the track on YouTube, they want a cheap video that isn’t just a static image… you get a lyric video. Simple as that.
Tim: Hmm. Haven’t even mentioned the worst thing yet, though: they provide an opportunity to highlight the fact that apparently ‘tryna’ is now a word.
Tom: They could at least have put an apostrophe in there.
Tim: But…but where would it go? It’s not even a contraction, it’s just a mish-mash of letters.
ANYWAY now I’ve got that out of the way, let’s discuss the song, which is actually pretty decent. Is the rapper needed? No, and he’s most likely only there to bump up the radio & audience potential, but I suppose that’s pretty much why any element of any song is present so we shouldn’t really dock it points.
Tom: Bit of background about that rapper: “Childish Gambino” is the alter ego of Donald Glover, a comedian who’s best known for playing Troy in the brilliant TV series Community. He’s clever, he’s articulate, and he’s providing a rap that is – to borrow a phrase – “plot-relevant”. He’s not just bragging about himself. For the first time in a while: this is a rap bit that I like, and that fits.
Tim: As for her singing – it’s as raw, emotional and powerful as we’d all expect from Leona, so that’s a good thing indeed.
Tom: Agreed. Everything about this works for me: the dark tone, the rap, the backing. It’s very, very good.
Tim: I’m almost tempted to wait a few weeks until we’ve got a proper video to look at and I won’t have the anger from this bubbling away inside me, but I suppose that does at least set the scene for what the song’s about so it’s not so bad.
Tom: Try it without the video. It’s a cracking song.