Drake - Thank Me Later

The much anticipated debut album of Canadian-born rapper Drake has fallen short of the aspirational allusions conjured by the Obama ‘Hope’ appropriation of his album cover. The young rapper almost sets himself up for an Icarus-style disappointment before we can even open the CD case, with a bold cover which alludes to Drake as the rap world’s Obama. Perhaps if he was presenting himself with a little more modesty, I wouldn’t have to be so scathing. But alas he hasn’t, and so I will be.

The album is uneven at best and completely self-indulgent at worst. While it begins well enough, with a stylistic and conceptually sophisticated duet with Alicia Keys, such moments of musical brilliance are short-lived and sporadic. Instead the record is flooded by a deluge of crass over-sexualisations of ‘fancy’ girls, extremely premature self-congratulatory proclamations, and the contradictory existential moments of melancholy at the cash-fuelled emptiness that is his successful rap career.

Of course, not all of it is bad. Some of the tracks are good, and it is apparent that they have been produced by some of the best in the business. But after about the fifth song, that whiney, monotone ‘lyricism’ that is Drake’s rapping really starts to grate at the ear drums.

So while this is a wholly adequate debut album, its pretence of being so much more is what prompts criticism and dramatic eye-rolling from those like myself who believe that, even if an artist is 100% sure of the brilliance of their talents, a little bit of humility and modesty would not go astray when one is trying to prove the legitimacy of such abilities to the rest of the world. Because if an artist is going to imply that they’re brilliant, and the evidence proves the contrary, then it’s fair game for consumers like me to swoop in and point the finger at such blatant and premature self-glorifications. [Image from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ThankMeLater.jpg]

Westside Story

While an interesting appropriation of Shakespeare’s infamous ‘Romeo and Juliet’, ‘Westside Story’ can, in no way, replace the original. The story tells of an American boy and Puerto-Rican immigrant girl who meet and fall in love in the mean streets of New York, where their respective ‘gangs’ are in the middle of a turf war. Obviously, the romance is doomed from the beginning as Tony and Maria struggle to legitimise their love in an intolerant world.

This is an interesting premise for an adaptation of Shakespeare’s feuding families, and one that should, like the Montague and Capulet war, resonate throughout time and geography. And yet, the version of the Broadway classic that I saw at Sydney’s Lyric Theatre, seemed dated and uneven throughout. While the dancing was superb – performed in a style that my limited dancing vocabulary could only describe as ‘contemporary ballet’ for the 21st century – the rest of the production seemed to have been left behind in the 1950s when the play debuted.

Furthermore I suspect that the leads were chosen not for their acting prowess, but rather for their abilities to hold a really high and long tune. This would be completely acceptable if they were, say, auditioning for a choir; but one would assume that a theatre production of this calibre could find two people who can sing and act equally well. Josh Piterman and Julie Goodwin’s portrayal of the ill-fated lovers was flat, apathetic and without any real passion.

The only stand-out performance was from Alinta Chidzey who plays Maria’s sassy and fully-Americanised confident Anita. Her performance was charismatic, witty and full of biting humour. In fact, she received the loudest applause at the end of the show.

Perhaps I’m being too harsh, as I’m subconsciously comparing this production with ‘Wicked’, which, in my mind, cannot be beaten. Having said that, I suspect that no-one was supposed to laugh when Maria realised that Tony was dead. Well, I did. [Image from http://www.theaustralian.com/]

Biennale of Sydney Part 3 - Cockatoo Island

My last stop at the Biennale of Sydney had much the same result as my previous visits to other venues. The only difference was that the apathy was on a much larger scale. This time it was an island full of works I found uninteresting, uninspiring or plane irrelevant. And again, it was a real trek (mentally, and this time physically) to find any works that I actually liked, or found interesting. But there were some.

Serge Spitzer’s ‘Molecular (SYDNEY)’ was a simply executed work in which small metal balls randomly covered the floor of the roofless Guard House at the top of Cockatoo Island. While you could not walk into the stone-walled structure, standing at its entrance and gazing down at these thousands of dark grey balls brings about the feeling of vertigo, of falling into and being encompassed by this work. It’s a claustrophobic feeling which starkly juxtaposes with the openness and expanse of the top of the island.

By far the most confronting work I’ve ever encountered is Shen Shaomin’s ‘Summit.’ I couldn’t even walk into this room. Upon approaching the entrance to the black-curtained room, I realised that what lay inside were four corpses and one dying body of the world’s most significant communist leaders. Now of course they were merely life-sized creations arranged in a pentagon shape, having a hypothetical meeting akin to the annual G8 Summit; but the verisimilitude of their forms and the fact that these figures were not presented as living, in their political prime, but rather deceased, relics from the past, was too much for me to handle. I stayed at the entrance, looking from afar, and silently moved on.

My favourite work in the entire biennale has to be Korean artist Choi Jeong Hwa suspended colanders hanging from the ceiling of Building 74 down by the docks of the island. This work, simple in its concept, yet majestic in execution captures the very essence of what contemporary art should be. The biennale text explains that Hwa’s “playful practice comments on the privileged environment of art institutions and questions the prized status of artworks amidst a consumer-frenzied world.” What better objects with which to make such a statement than one of the most overlooked, yet ubiquitous , pieces of the quotidian – colanders. Joined together to create strings of different-shaped balls, the colanders hang delicately from the ceiling to transform the audience from the old abandoned dock building to another, more ethereal place, if only for the briefest of moments as you walk through this enchanting forest of plastic. It’s a beautiful paradox, and one which has universal relevance. [The image show here is of the work on another site. But just imagine it in a warehouse-type setting.]

Overall, however, the over-riding theme of this biennale seems to be, not distance, but rather quantity and scale. With over 400 works, a large percentage of which were video works, this biennale was, in a practical sense, impossible to get through. And though there may be a select group of art aficionados out there with the dedication and patience to sit through all those hours of video works, there is, without a doubt, an overwhelming majority who just would not be bothered. I’m part of the latter. Even Cockatoo Island, a place that technology has long since forgotten, was swarming with video works in the most unlikely of niches and crevices. And while the installation and innovative arrangement of the videos was very unique and impressive, the awe and amazement soon subsided once the works were found. In fact, the act of exploring the island and discovering art works and the unlikely locations of video works was a whole lot more interesting than the works themselves.

This exhibition was touted on the publicity trail as the largest in the series of Sydney Biennales. And it is. But unfortunately, that’s all it has going for it. For it seems that, in the fervour and ambition of trying to create the biggest biennale, artistic director David Elliot forgot about what should have been the more important goal – to create the best compilation of contemporary art works. At this, the 17th Biennale of Sydney has failed. [Image from http://www.boudist.com/. While it is not the image of the artwork  to which I refer, this work, titled 'Hubble Bubble' was placed at the Opera House and is quite similar to the one at Cockatoo Island. It was just bigger.]

Biennale of Sydney Part 2 - Artspace & AGNSW

The Biennale of Sydney is turning out to be quite lacklustre. My second trip was to Artspace at Woolloomooloo and the Art Gallery of NSW, and in both venues I was tremendously underwhelmed.

Artspace offered little more than a disproportionately large amount of long, esoteric, uninspired video works that, let’s face it, no-one is going to sit around for hours on end to watch. One of only two points of interest was situated opposite the entrance, where visitors are confronted by a visually stunning and large scale photo montage by Lebanese artist Lara Baladi. But upon closer inspection, even this struggled to go any deeper than simple collage and pastiche. The other point of interest is the makeshift ‘bar’ setting that is an experimental performance space co-curated by Tokyo’s SuperDeluxe group. One of the main events is the weekly PechaKucha nights where people gather to present thoughts, ideas and good old conversation. It is an interesting project which harnesses the principles of Nicholas Bourriaud’s theory of Relational Aesthetics which posits that the art work only exists with the cooperation and participation of viewers.

A short drive away, the AGNSW hosts a modest display of works by seven Asian artists, all neatly placed in the entrance hall. Again, while the other works weren’t so bad, only two works here managed to really grab my attention. The first was Rabiq Shaw’s ‘The mild-eyed melancholy of the lotus eaters III’, a grand and grandiosely-decorated painting of grotesque anthropomorphic creatures portrayed with stunning vibrancy and flashy metallics. The biennale’s guide writes that, “Despite its deeply historical visual allusions, Shaw’s beautiful treatment of transmogrification in erotic desire can be read as a contemporary allegory of human greed and lust.” While I did not quite pick all this up from one viewing, I still found the violent images, arranged in such stunning fashion, to be visually mesmerising and surreal. On the other hand, Yamaguchi Akira’s sombre, monochromatic cityscapes, painted in traditional Japanese style presents a seamless amalgamation of the duality between East and West in many modern Asian cities. While lacking the brilliant colours and bold imagery of Shaw’s ‘Lotus eaters’ Akira’s paintings communicate just as clearly the intersection between tradition and urbanity with understated style.

Despite these rare gems, disappointment was, once again, the overwhelming result of another visit to the biennale. Predominately a result of vague artwork selections and too many video works. My last stop is Cockatoo Island, apparently the pièce de résistance of the biennale. Hopefully it can salvage my once high hopes for the event. [Images from http://media.biennaleofsydney.com.au/ and http://theartlife.com.au/]

Eminem - Recovery

Eminem’s new album ‘Recovery’ has brought him out of the abyss of washed-up obscurity. After years of problems, which included two mediocre and quite shallow albums, Eminem has come back with a record that is reminiscent of the success and quality of the ‘Marshall Mathers LP’.

The album is rife with the introspection, self-reflexivity and verbal acrobatics that is characteristic of Eminem’s style. Here the artist is harshly honest, to the point of self-deprecation (at one point he refers to himself as ‘the shit stain on the underwear of life’ – I couldn’t help but lol), as he reflects on the demons and absolute lows of his life in recent years, and the more positive transformation he hopes to make with the release of the album, and a new outlook on life. But don’t expect such optimism to be accompanied by happy beats and cheery lyrics. For even in expressing his hopes for the future, Eminem maintains that edgy, ‘I don’t give a shit’ attitude that we’ve come to know so well.

The second track, ‘Talkin’ 2 Myself’, is one of the best and most powerful, and sets the tone for the entire record. Like much of the album, the track is deeply confessional as it reveals Eminem’s demons and his deepest darkest thoughts as he was wallowed up in the hole of self pity. It is part internal dialogue, and part address to the public on where Eminem has been and where he intends to go. The song not only recounts the drug-fuelled struggles the artist has had over the years, but also critiques his actions. At one point Eminem admits to having considered writing a song dissing Lil’ Wayne and Kanye West out of pure jealousy, but didn’t because “I’da had my ass handed to me, and I knew it.” But Eminem emerges from the dark abyss, recalling how he finally snapped out of it and said to himself, “instead of feelin’ sorry for yourself do somethin’ ‘bout it / admit you got a problem, your brain is clouded you pouted / long enough, it isn’t them it’s you you fuckin’ baby / quit worryin’ about what they do and do Shady.” The song fittingly ends with the proclamation “to everybody else...I’m back!”

This is truly one of the great comeback albums. Not only does it contain the very necessary commercial appeal, through collaborations with some very big names, but it also has the much more important ingredients of real creativity and honest song writing that makes an artistically successful record. Some songs are uncomfortably confessional, others are outrageously hilarious in their social commentaries and inversion of the English language, and finally one is a touching tribute to the rapper’s slain friend and band mate Proof. Whatever your thoughts on Eminem and his controversial public image, one cannot deny, particularly after listening to this album, that he is one of those rare artists who can transform internal thoughts into poetic lyrics, and finally into an awesome rap.

[Check out another really good review on the album, http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/eminem-recovery-20100625-z98t.html - I think it says it better.]