3.15.20 - Childish Gambino: Review
is the long term moniker of the extraordinary multi-talented Donald Glover. He was worked as an actor, comedian, writer and producer on TV shows and even a short film of his own. But one of his most popular ventures has been the music of Childish Gambino which began in the early 2010's as a snarky wordplay heavy rap persona but evolved as Glover got older. The last Childish Gambino studio album abandoned hip hop altogether in favor of a more funk and soul inspired sound om Awaken My Love. The last time Gambino made a major splash with a release however was in 2018 with the mega hit single This Is America which fuses the worlds of hip hop with politically charged messaging and numerous instrumental switch-ups.
Review By Lavender:
Pretty much everybody my age grew up with Donald Glover. In middle school we all watched his stand-up comedy and downloaded DatPiff files of his early mixtapes and debut record Camp. In high school everyone started watching him on Community and reading the screenplay alongside his breakout hit record Because The Internet. Then next we moved on to the funk heavy Awaken My Love as Glover abandoned his hip hop style altogether, and changed pace once again with his critically acclaimed Atlanta TV show. The point is that Glover has been a constant coming of age figure for so many light 20 somethings that it felt like he would be here forever. But increased uncertainty set in as Glover disappeared from social media and noted that the upcoming record may be his last under the Childish Gambino moniker. With all of that uncertainty dropping a record with a blank cover that was livestreamed out of nowhere on your website before being replaced with a times that led up to its release on streaming services, only for most of the songs to be stripped of their titles and replaced with timestamps all honestly feels like a fitting whirlwind to get us all caught up here. If 3.15.20 really is the last Childish Gambino album then he went out with a bang, but the record is hard to judge. 80% of the album is some of the freshest most experimental and incredible music Glover has ever made, but the other 20% is some of the most tedious and nonsensical wastes of time I've heard all year.
Let's start with the good, because when this album is good, its fucking great. Algorhythm is the records first real track and it absolutely rules. The tight driving jungle drums are awesome and interpolate a killer sample of the Nine Inch Nails song Closer that goes hard as fuck. The deep electronically manipulated vocals from Donald are harsh and insane in a way that perfectly fits the song. Yet he switches up to perfectly to do some breezy and beautiful singing on the hook. The track also has some strong lyrical highlights and a manic breakdown at the end that mirrors the tracks insane build-up and gets the record off to a killer start. 12:38 kicks off with a long but incredibly charming verse from Donald that lets his personality really shine through. He delivers some beautiful vocal harmonies through a surprisingly detailed story about his encounter with a woman that is all incredibly well written and flat out hilarious at times. I'm pretty sure 21 Savage already had my favorite feature of 2020 so far with his performance on that second Lil Uzi record but his feature on this track absolutely blows that one out of the water. He somehow manages to be as charming as Donald which I though was impossible. He rides the beat perfectly while dropping some more hilarious, creative and totally cutthroat bars. Ink is also fantastic on the tracks outro making the song worth pretty much every second of its six minute runtime
19.10 followsthis up with some more excellent singing and lyrics this time paired with punchy two-step percussion and a quiet but strong bassline. The chorus to the track is a real treat not only is the lyricism thematically relevant in a really interesting way but it is one of the catchiest and most swagger filled hooks I've ever heard Gambino deliver. 32.22 is a song that gets off to a little bit of a slow start with its whispered singing but develops into one of the records wildest moments. All of the wild and manic singing leads up to a crazy breakdown with distant exposive jungle percussion and some absolutely insane vocal effects over Glover's singing. The track feels like the soundtrack to a possessive mental breakdown and I am absolutely living for it.
39.28 is a short but sweet piano ballad that I really like. It's got a killer hook that Donald delivers with some slightly manipulated but still very beautiful lead vocals. Not many artists could hold up so well being put on the spot like this but Glover kills it. 42.26 is just Feels Like Summer a song that is now over a year and a half old. I'm warmer on it now than I was when it first came out and while I wouldn't necessarily consider it a highlight I do think there is a version of this tracklist where it could have made a lot of sense given some similar sounding tracks that appear on other places on the record.
The strongest part of the record is the final quarter of its runtime, and the final two tracks are among the best of the bunch. 47.48 is a groove heavy slow burner of a funk tune that I really enjoy. Donald once again executes a formula of quieter verses paired with a grand falsetto chorus and it works wonders once again. I also have to give a ton of credit to the instrumental as the song is a relatively reserved moment but still manages to groove so incredibly hard while also being exceptionally pretty. I haven't addressed my problem with the outros of many of these songs yet but this track is definitely the exception. Donald has his child come on and does a short Q&A with him that is not only incredibly cute but actually thematically relevant to the ideas of family and identity that pop up all over this record. The closing song 53.49 also absolutely rules and features a wild performance from Gambino that sees him bouncing between manic rapping and beautiful singing time and time again. It isn't y favorite hook on the album but the insane verses and instrumental combo of punchy drums and fluttering keys is a real treat.
Despite all of the good here, and there is even more of it to come, there are numerous moments on the record that have me wondering what Donald could have possibly been thinking when putting them together. The biggest one being 24.19 a song that gets off to a really solid start with a funky instrumental that sounds straight out of Awaken My Love. The singing could be better to start off but it does really get going once the backing vocals kick in around the two minute mark and stays really interesting as the hook comes around the second time. The track basically ends any meaningful moments or progression at around the 4 and a half minute mark, but if you can believe it the song continues on until it hits almost 8 minutes. Gambino finishes his painfully long and pointless extended outro at around 5 and a half minutes before there is an instrumental changes of pace, then quiet wandering chorus humming and ending with some slow rising heartbeat style percussion that has nothing to do with the next song on the album. Given that the interesting parts of the song add up to about 2 and a half minutes the nearly 8 minute runtime is a major glaring flaw right in the middle of the album.
Speaking of glaring flaws the track Time is one I anticipated liking. Not only because it features Ariana Grande who has been incredibly consistent over the past few years but also because it gets off to a pretty good start with a breezy summer instrumental and some wonderful singing. The big issue with this track is its flat out broken chorus that sees Donald singing with manipulated vocals that painfully clash with the songs otherwise summery aesthetic. Not only that but they are mixed way too low in the mix and the effect that comes off it Donald's strained singing that can still only barely be made out through the effects and instrumental. The song isn't terrible and effectively captures a vibe and holds it but the hook is just a massive question mark. Not to be overlooked this song also has an absolutely dreadful fade out that lasts over two minutes. The instrumental very slowly fades out and becomes replaced with some field recording like natural soundscape that takes up way too much time and does absolutely nothing to set up for the next song.
There are two tracks on the record that I am comfortable skipping entirely. The intro track 0.00 is so obviously an attempt to make this record sound deep or experimental but it falls flat on its face. It is slow, uneventful and ultimately completely unnecessary as it doesn't set up anything meaningful or thematic to the record and doesn't even really have any kind of build up of momentum so it serves no purpose to the track directly after it either. This track and the heartbeat on 24.19 sound like they are lost parts of a concept album that was either scrapped or Donald simply forgot to finish, and the result is a good bit of wasted time on the record. 35.31 is a track that I see being popular given how accessible it is but I cannot stand it. The songwriting isn't terrible and I could see a version of this song that may be kind of catchy, but Gambino absolutely does not sound good singing like this. He attempts to try and sound country through really cringey vocalizing that is incredibly hard to sit through for the first half of the track. Thankfully the second half of the song is better as after a slick beat switch-up the track changes to a more group vocal oriented approach and it helps cover up Donald's vocal shortcomings better, but still is tough to get through entirely.
The final issue I have with 3.15.20 is the seemingly arbitrary and random arrangement of tracks. The songs have a huge variety of sound palettes and thematic focus but they are placed in an order that does nothing for the records momentum. The album could have been organized through the rise and swell in the energy of its various tracks for an extremely cohesive listen, or it could have been arranged to follow some sort of natural thematic progression given how many themes or race as well as self and grander identity pop up on songs in random places across the album.
With a shortened and re-arranged tracklist I think this record could have been an all time classic, but with boring fake deep musical diatribes and totally random stop and start momentum the record falls just short of being incredible. So much of this album is exhilarating from the blend of funk and hip hop that makes for the most fiery and most beautiful instrumentals on the album. To Childish Gambino's ability to seamlessly bounce between explosive manic verses and shiny beautiful hooks, his experience with multiple alter egos is clearly shining through. The creativity across this album is palpable and fascinating, which is what makes it such a shame that the one thing holding this record back from perfection was Glover getting in his own way. Regardless numerous tracks from the record are among my favorite I've heard all year and some of the most fascinating and well performed I've ever heard from Donald. The Childish Gambino moniker may have just gone out on an absolute treat. 8/10
