Post-modern bullshit is dead. Buried. Six feet under. The hegemonic, exclusivist idea of art for art’s sake, in case you haven’t noticed, with piracy and the deterioration of the traditional record industry business model, is over.The artists who still make it, and make it big, in the Facebook era are the ones who acknowledge that what they do is ultimately, entertainment, and allow this realization to empower them instead of using the tired concept of “selling out” as a cover for their mediocre talent. Audiences, listeners and viewers, are all alternately tired of being preached to, of revering and idolizing the artist, especially with the average 12 year old already more experienced in many ways than her or his parents were at twice that age. Entertain us, and stop trying to teach us about life, my generation and the one after us demand, because we know it all already. Just tell us about yourself, be honest with who you are, and make sure it’s catchy in the process.
Very few artists understand this brave new dynamic better than B.o.B. His first full-length studio effort, The Adventures of Bobby Ray, appeared, at least in the mainstream, not attuned to his years of background work in the rap scene and various mixtapes, to come out of nowhere. And with it, established the blueprint for a debut artist who still wishes to buck trends, gain fans, and sell enough digital downloads to crash a server.
For young music fans, scene politics is, largely, an outmoded, foolish concept. We don’t see genre as much as we hear, simply, a good hook. Is it good enough for my 99 cents? Does the track warrant a sliver of my 30 gigs? Hip-hop and rap understand this better than any other genre. Say whatever you want to say, just make sure I can sing along to it as well. This concept is understood by the biggest non-hip hop acts today: Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, and Paramore, and also by up-and-comers like Mike Posner and Bruno Mars. So when B.o.B. calls upon Paramore frontwoman Hayley Williams, undoubtedly this generation’s more accessible (and for young straight boys and queer girls, attainable) Gwen Stefani, to sing on “Airplanes,” the first big radio hit in recent memory to feature a hook that doesn’t even rhyme, as well an honest, revealing account of fame as a curse rather than a blessing, the best of us understand exactly what he’s trying to do. Maybe it was a big deal for Run DMC and Aerosmith to get together decades ago, but for us, “Airplanes” is, simply, a great idea, and one that makes total sense. This sentiment is echoed in another single, the infectious “Magic,” with Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo assisting B.o.B. in a self-important track that, although is ultimately still about how, well, B.o.B. is in time-honored rap tradition, does so with fun in mind and tongue planted firmly in cheek.
Even mega-hit “Nothin’ On You,” starring the music star of the summer Mars (he also delivers the hook on former Gym Class Heroes frontman Travie McCoy’s final five minutes of fame “Billionaire”), which seems to be, on the surface, another lightweight made-for-radio throwaway about love and sex, is actually a revealing elucidation of a man trying to keep his ego and pants in check and realize that he must stay true to the one girl he loves (“…But never mind that, we should let it go/Cause we don’t wanna be a TV episode/And all the bad thoughts just let them go”). We feel like we know B.o.B. as a person, as a man, and all the while we’re singing along to the tracks expertly crafted by his impossibly musical hands, his songs that have become the soundtrack of this summer. Kids will fall in love for the first time on Facebook, and breakup with each other via texts, to these songs.
The revelatory nature of this artist permeates throughout the LP, as on the funky, soulful “Past My Shades” (featuring Lupe Fiasco, who has never recovered from his subpar sophomore effort The Cool), the more traditionally hip-hop “The Kids,” the grinding, dirty “Fame,” and the absolutely masterful “Ghost In The Machine.”
For all these reasons, it doesn’t matter what any other artist does this year, major or indie label. The Adventures of Bobby Ray is the best album of the year, a record that will live on in the hearts of an entire generation for a very, very long time. Now let’s see what B.o.B. does for an encore.
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