Our photo editors are always missing opportunities to just use Pokémon…
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[5.43]
Anthony Easton: There is this poet named Frederick Seidel (really old money) who mostly writes about sex and capital — it’s a different context, but the formal control of his work makes the obscenity of his verses seem more transgressive, and you can’t quite figure out if he is interesting or terrible. I’ve read all of his works, and when he collapses, he does so completely, but there is something marvelous when he pulls off something truly audacious. Listening to “Wobble”, as it works out some pretty standard ideas of women over that formally objective sound, I want to re-assert the idea of “wobble” as a critical term. That poem has some fucking wobble, that song is wobbling (i.e. not falling over but not perfectly balancing, and the tension waiting for the collapse has its own masochistic power).
[9]
Alfred Soto: Finally: a wobble/gobble rhyme, with weeble-wobble chorus and percussion to match. A shame about the static verses.
[6]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Nobody is listening to a Travis Porter song for lyrical ingenuity or subtlety, right? No. You’re here for their strain of Animal House rap antics, something that oft randiness-fixated Diplo should surely understand. The group’s oft-puerile feel is best suited to more melodically-inclined club destroyers like DJ Mustard’s “Real Niggas in the Building” beat or FKi’s “Make It Rain” rather than the minimalist mush that Diplo has cooked up here. A gonzo third verse thrillingly drops the whole song on its head (“got so much pass, she thought that she was Monopoly”) but otherwise, this is purely perfunctory.
[5]
Jer Fairall: Last week, I failed to take notice of a fleeting but hilarious bit in “I’m Different” where 2 Chainz imitates the sound of a squeaky bed spring. As for karmic payback, then, how about a track based entirely on this very premise, running the joke into the ground even at a mercifully short two minutes?
[4]
Jonathan Bogart: It’s hard to be a successful meme when you don’t even allow yourself to finish your own thought. The stuttering chorus is easily the best thing about this slice of young-dumb party-rap, but it resists sticking in the mind exactly because it stutters and slices without resting in a groove. Can a hook catch on without being a hook?
[6]
Michelle Myers: A mediocre piece of album filler from the One Direction of Atlanta strip-club rap, unimaginative and drab. Travis Porter’s goofy-horny vibe only works when the music is equally fun.
[3]
Brad Shoup: Reminds me of “Wop” with all the feints toward energy. But I’ve already seen the generators in action. The casually-manipulated vocal snippet tries for Bangladesh; the dudes sound like they still think writing the one-liners is enough.
[5]