Review Summary: I just wanna feel something
Say what you will about Bino’s first album,
Camp, but if there’s anything redeeming about the album, it's his provoking outro story on ‘That Power’. I still remember the first time I fully listened to the entire track. I was stoned out of my mind, driving in a car with some friends who shared my infatuation with Childish, and as we drove I was appalled by the story and instantly wondered what the meaning behind it was. That memory still sticks in my head, and I’m constantly drawn to the song to this day in relation to
Because the Internet and its 70-page screenplay. For those unfamiliar with the previously mentioned song, it is basically a story of Childish’s alter-ego, The Boy, and his bus ride back from a summer camp. During the story, The Boy confesses his love for a girl, only to be made fun of by the girl’s friends right before he exits the bus. At the end of the story, however, Childish explains that he has created a barrier between himself and the people he loves, and rapping is a way to express himself.
Maybe Childish Gambino was supposed to act, y’know, childish on
Camp. The dichotomy between his first album and BTI is impressive, seeing how mature many of the songs are and how there’s an obvious departure from his usual pun based bars. This isn’t some crazy theory though, because if you read the beginning of the 70-page screenplay he wrote to accompany this album you will see that Childish starts off with the same exact bus scene, except The Boy finally decides to get off the bus, a migration away from the immature mess of
Camp into a more introspective and surprisingly powerful side of Childish not seen by most fans. You can really tell he put everything into this album. Every song and interlude and verse are consciously placed together in a careful arrangement meant to drive home the album’s message. Even the events surrounding the release of this album are calculated and deliberate decisions made to enhance the overall impact of
Because the Internet. There’s the album teaser clips (later discovered to be meant for the screenplay), the confusing short film ‘Clapping for the Wrong Reasons’, and the interactive Deep Web Tour experience. Sure, you can chalk all of this effort up as a gimmick or a way to hype up the album, but you’d be missing the point entirely. Donald Glover wants his audience to be confused and slightly curious before listening to BTI, much like how The Boy acts in the screenplay.
The album itself is layered and sporadic. Songs range from hyped up energetic beats (‘Crawl’, ‘Worldstar’), to poppy, synth-layered ones (‘3005’, ‘Telegraph Ave’, ‘Pink Toes’). There are dark, soulful R&B influenced tracks that showcase Bino’s impressive chops (‘Urn’, ‘Shadows’), along with many other tracks that are just too weird to even be categorized. These strange songs vary from electronically cold beats and noises (‘No Exit’, ‘Zealots of Stockholm’) to spacey, alternative rock influenced songs (‘Flight of the Navigator’). This album might honestly be the most varied hip-hop album I’ve ever listened to, and yet it works in a weird, harmonious way. Even the album’s “missteps” prove to be, at the very least, interesting and even enticing, making it difficult to criticize this album for its faults.
In addition to this, what Gambino fails to do musically, he more than makes up for lyrically as this album is a dark commentary on not only his struggle with fame and fortune, but also its possible effects on today’s generation. The upbeat, cheerful sounding ‘3005’ on the surface seems to be your average pop-rap hit, yet even this track dives deep into the existential philosophy Gambino has embodied on the album. He tackles apocalyptic thoughts on ‘Earth: The Oldest Computer’, reveals the dark side of his party-every-day lifestyle on ‘The Party’, and even shares some of his suicidal thoughts on ‘No Exit’. The beauty of the lyrics is that, with the context of the screenplay, the album itself becomes a story on its own, letting the listener watch the slow, dramatic death of the “rich-kid asshole”.
Whether you consider it a concept album or not,
Because the Internet tells a story and engages the listener, clutching the audience by its throat. By the time it lets go, it leaves you cold and alone with a slight feeling of discomfort, wondering what it all means and prompting you to take the journey again. Donald Glover makes you embrace this discomfort, and while he doesn’t end the album with anything extremely profound like he did with 'That Power', he at least made you listen, and sometimes that’s half the battle with today’s music.
