Our weekly dose of CanCon requirements…
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[2.89]
Alfred Soto: Fifteen years after RZA found a ghetto correlative for the ninja ethos, here’s a fellow reifying it into self-help twaddle for adults who use “impact” as a verb.
[2]
Iain Mew: I’m not saying that a song called “Inner Ninja” is a great idea to begin with, but if you’re going to do one then at least have the decency to put something about ninjas in it, and not just generic motivational tropes over some kind of syruped-up Vampire Weekend imitation. That’s a terrible cop-out.
[2]
Josh Langhoff: The true ninja does not do a lot of things, chief among them make songs telegraphing said ninjaness, so really these guys are harnessing their inner twerps. Someday a real ninja will come and slice all these memes off the web.
[4]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: If anything, I will give the professional goofballs behind this song the benefit of the doubt that they believed a clan of ninjitsu would consider this a warm tribute. Who knows, perhaps they just wanted to create the most earnest hip-hop song of all time, to out Macklemore the Macklemores at their most Macklemorian. However, I will not, stand for excuses regarding Classified’s uttering of “bounce” before the first verse, the use of which immediately turns “Inner Ninja” into the least bouncy song of all time. There are national anthems that are more appropriate to bounce to. The theme to Scrubs is more appropriate to bounce to than this. Somewhere, Big Freedia shakes her head in grave solemnity: the bounce has forever been tainted.
[0]
Anthony Easton: I love the sung choruses of this, and the message of freedom through containment has a discipline that works as an appreciated corrective. Extra point for the first sample, and another point for the snaps. Minus a couple of points for its smugness.
[6]
Sabina Tang: White Ninja: Only Works On Snow. (Related observations — “Princess of China” at least had the merit of being a good song. The children’s chorus, too, has taken a wrong turn on its way to a parallel universe where the words “inner” and “ninja” are never heard in combination, and if a courtesy point will expedite its passage it is welcome to it.)
[1]
Patrick St. Michel: Enter the Ninja reimagined for a Spongebob Squarepants movie, complete with dippy Jack-Johnson wannabe sidekick.
[1]
Brad Shoup: “Inner Ninja” makes me think of children’s music. It makes me think of Zooglobble‘s Stefan Shepherd, who swooped into Pazz & Jop one year to make an implicit argument that music for our sons and daughters is just as worthy as records from arrested egomaniacs who many never (earmuffs!) get their shit together. “Inner Ninja” isn’t for all ages, but that’s just a matter of tweaking. Thoughtlessly catchy, with a brisk piano progression and judicious kid-choir cameos that belie Classified’s attempts to “go hard”. Kids’ music is (if I remember right) shrewdly generalist, and so it is here. Myles sounds so much like Arthur Russell it’s freaking me out, and you could probably cobble together an ace Arto anthology for little ones. I like this, but an extended hearing in a minivan would drive me fucking nuts. (Earmuffs off!)
[7]
Katherine St Asaph: I prefer my inner pirate.
[3]