#You know those medias that are just god awful but they occasionally have a glimmer of SOMETHING and just makes you want to explode
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What's inanimate insanity? Should I watch it?
God no. Absolutely not.
#This is a curse I wouldnt inflict on my worst enemy#Its an competition show think Survivor/total drama but with objects and lets just say its uhhhhhhhh. Rough.#The first season is borderline unwatchable from of visual quality cringe jokes and poorly aged opinions/plotpoints#They do try to get better at rep as the series goes on but it is still eghhhhhh#You know those medias that are just god awful but they occasionally have a glimmer of SOMETHING and just makes you want to explode#its fun to go insane about with other people who already know#but I could never in good consciousness suggest it to someone
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TĆP Weekly Update #57: Thanks, Jay Z (8/9/2018)
Turns out last week was a pretty good one to take off. Very little of major note happened in the Twenty One Pilots sphere while I vacationed in the Canadian wilderness. This week, however... thatās a whole other story.Ā
New music. New music video. New track list. New merch. Letās get into it.Ā
This Weekās TĆPics:
āLevitateā and Trench Track List Leak, and Then...
āLevitateā Video and Trench Track List Released
āJumpsuitā Drops Off the Hot 100 (But Still Gains At Radio...)
Mark Goes Off
AND MORE
Major News and Announcements:
On Tuesday, the streaming service Tidal briefly posted the third promotional track forĀ Trench before realizing their mistake and taking it down. This still provided the Clique with plenty of time to record and post it in so many places across the Interwebs that Warner Music Groupās copyright bots couldnāt hope to catch up. The likelihood that Tyler and Josh leaked it themselves is honestly pretty low extremely high.
The track, entitled āLevitateā, is the most unmistakable hip-hop track in the bandās discography thus far. Running at a tight 2:20, Tyler delivers some truly impressive bars in what is essentially a single extended verse, constantly mixing up his flow against a slick trap drum beat and the eerie synth that was hinted at in the end of āJumpsuitā (if the entire album flows from song to song like this... automatic 10/10).Ā
Lyrically, āLevitateā sees Tyler discussing the role of songwriting in his life, a form of expression that allows him toĀ āfire-breatheā andĀ ālevitateā beyond his problems. The song is littered with gems (āwe are not just graffiti on a passing trainā) and jabs against the music industry for trying to rein him in or make him into something heās not (āthis culture is a poacher of overexposure, donāt feed me to the vulturesā,Ā āyouāre the worst; your structure compensates, but compensation feels a lot like rising up to dominateā). The reference to Tyler getting back āwhat I once bought back in that slot, I wonāt need to replaceā is perfect, and Iām still emotional about it.
I do have a few minor quibbles with the song. I think the looped instrumental is a little too minimalistic to justify the length of the outro.Ā āAt least they all know what they hear comes from a placeā andĀ āyou can levitate with just a little helpā lack specificity and fall a little flat for me. And Iāve expressed before that Iām not overly interested in songs about the music industry that arenāt directly applicable to most peopleās experience (sorry, "Fairly Localā and āLane Boyā).Ā
All that said, the production and presentation is so slick. Plus, Tyler grounds the song in enough personal experience and relatable struggles that it succeeds in crossing over that gap of fame and success to actually hit home. Lines likeĀ ādanger in the fabric of this thing I made,ā āI thought I could depend on my weekends on the freezing ground,ā andĀ ādonāt feed me to the vultures, I am a vulture who feeds on painā show the same vulnerability and self-aware introspection that attracted me to the band in the first place.
āLevitateā wasnāt all we got from the leak. An updated version without the yellow duct tape over the track list was included as the background, revealing the names of the other eleven songs that weāll hear sometime between now and October 5th. The track list is as follows:
Didnāt think that Iād struggle with a song title more than āBanditoā, but āPet Cheetahā and āThe Hypeā are really gonna have to go the extra mile in ways that no other song from the band has before to justify those artistic choices. (That said, āNeon Gravestonesā sounds rad as hell.) Weāll save picking apart the meaning for all of these titles for a later date; weāve still got another two months before the album is out, and I donāt think weāll be getting any new songs or videos until late September at the earliest, so weāve got time.
ln the wake of the leak (much like with āHeathensā two years ago), the song and video forĀ āLevitateā were pushed out the following day, two days earlier than originally planned if the date on Tidal is anything to go buy. The third installment in this Trench trilogy features Tyler and Josh performing the track at the Bandito camp while vultures fly around looking cool. At the videoās conclusion, Tyler is snatched away from a campfire by a bishop and dragged without a struggle back to Dema. One Bandito looks frightened by this, but another just ominously statesĀ āWelcome to Trenchā.
I must confess that this music video didnāt fully do it for me. While the production value remains stellar, theĀ āCar Radioā call-back with shaving Tylerās head is great, and I love any opportunity to see the boys perform together, āLevitateā as a song is frankly too short and moves at a too breakneck pace to make a truly compelling video out of the song alone. Iām honestly shocked that there wasnāt a longer extended scene attached to the end of the video to provide a stronger narrative conclusion to the pieces laid in the last two videos, especially considering that āJumpsuitā opened with such a scene. As it is, the video moves by so quickly and shares so many aesthetic qualities with its two predecessors that it didnāt leave much of an impression on me.
There is, however, one (potentially unintentional) aspect of theĀ āLevitateā video that really resonated with me. Tyler enjoying himself while performing and being with people only to be yanked out of the group once the energy dies down a little is a perfect representation of anxiety and depression, which so often sets in without warning in circumstances where one would think are supposed to feel happy and safe. The fact that this story ends on such a down note reads as an honest reflection on the nature of mental illness, even if it is perhaps narratively unsatisfying. Besides, I highly doubt this will be our last exploration of the Trench universe; weāll just have to see where else Tyler and Josh take us when the album drops.
With the initial wave of promo singles out of the way, the marketing team has moved ahead with the business of actually selling the album. Trench is now available for pre-order on iTunes. The Twenty One Pilots webstore is now full of various bundle packages for pre-order that include t-shirts, hoodies, a dope bandana, a 10ā²ā vinyl EP with the three promo tracks, CD and cassette versions of the full album and (if you order before the end of the month) a neat little patch, all at pretty reasonable prices.
Other News and Shenanigans:
There isnāt too awful much to report outside of the mountain of major developments (thank God). Andrew Donoho posted some dope behind the scenes pics starring Clifford the Vulture. Josh is still occasionally tweeting and posting pictures of hanging out with Debby, his brother, and other cool people. Tyler is still quiet as ever, and Iām not sure why that shocks people. It bears repeating that he was rarely on social media pre-hiatus, that this is probably going to be a regular thing, and that stepping back from social media is honestly one of the better decisions one can make for your mental health and overall leisure time.
The only really notable thing that I missed during my vacation was Mark clarifying on Twitter that the Trench music videos have all been in chronological order and that heās been happy to be giving Andrew Donoho creative control over how the videos have developed. With how cryptic things have been surrounding this albumās release, itās refreshing to have a voice of reason to tell it like it is. Thanks Mark.
Chart Performance:
While the new song has been at the forefront of everyoneās mind, its predecessors have still been putting in work... but perhaps not as much as might have been expected based on the last album cycleās success.
In spite of the release of the new music video two weeks back, āNico and the Ninersā slipped off the Hot 100 after its first week and has declined in all metrics. This week, āJumpsuitā also fell off the Hot 100 and has also been steadily sinking in sales and streaming. There are plenty of reasonable explanations for this: the too-heavy-for-Top-40 rock sound, the constant stream of other TĆP content drawing focus away from any one song, the lack of promotional appearances from the band itself on TV and radio.
Many hopeful fans have pointed to the performance of āStressed Outā as a hopeful sign that āJumpsuitā may mount a future comeback, but I have my doubts about that comparison. 2015 was a very different time for the band- āStressed Outā, like āFairly Localā and āTear In My Heartā, debuted on the Hot 100 because the Clique was as ravenous then as it is now, but the band still had next-to-no mainstream recognition. Those songs thus debuted low and fell off pretty quickly. It wasnāt until months later that the Cliqueās grassroots support and the bandās rising esteem within the industry resulted in āStressed Outā getting picked up at radio and being shared with new audiences, creating a snowball of promotion that launched Twenty One Pilots into the popular consciousness. WhenĀ āHeathensā was released, the bandās profile was big enough to ensure it debuted at #14 and remained in the Top 40 for months. Compared to that performance,Ā āJumpsuitā is flopping commercially, no question.
However, there is still a glimmer of hope for the songās future. While it is falling off pretty hard in most categories, it is still gaining spins at radio. It took #1 on the Rock Airplay chart for this last week. That means that more casual music listeners are hearing it than ever, which could make for another snowball where these listeners go back and search for the song themselves in the weeks to come. We will have to wait and see how the band and Fueled By Ramen decide to market the song and promote the album as it gets closer to its release date.
One thing is for sure: the band is not in any financial trouble. Even ifĀ āJumpsuitā never returns to the Hot 100, even ifĀ āLevitateā is rejected by both lovers and haters of hip-hop and fails to chart, even if Trench somehowĀ fails to match the Week 1 chart-topping sales of Blurryface evenĀ after the band picked up millions of new fans over the last three years, two things remain true: Blurryface made them more money than any individual will ever reasonably need, and theyāve already sold tens of thousands of tickets for their next tour. The days of worrying about this band are over for the foreseeable future; for now, we can just enjoy the music.
Power to the local dreamer.
|-/
#twenty one pilots#tyler joseph#josh dun#trench#levitate#jumpsuit#nico and the niners#top weekly update
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