In this weekly series, Entertainment Editor Austin Schouman picks a random album from an artist he has never heard of before and reviews it
Artist: Diplo
Album: Revolution EP
Genre: Electronic
If you can only buy one song buy: Crown or Revolution (tie)
Rating: C+
What’s happening on the cover of Diplo’s latest release, Revolution EP? Seriously, I have no idea. Are the scantily clad women performing a bizarre yoga move? Worshipping an obscure god? Wall twerking on an invisible wall? I can’t tell if I like this cover or not. If nothing else it’s interesting, and gives listeners an accurate preview of what they’re about to listen to. Because like the cover, I can’t tell if I like Revolution EP or not.
Let’s start with what Revolution EP does right. The beats that Diplo crafts are anything but boring. There’s an abundance of funky drums, old school synth, and trap…noises sprinkled throughout. Every song uses these elements differently, so no song sounds the same (save for the 2 remixes on the 6 song EP, which sound similar to their respective original mixes for obvious reasons).
A major plus for me was Mike Posner’s chorus on the song Crown. The smooth sound of his voice provides a great contrast to the otherwise uptempo nature of the song. It’s hard not to tap your foot and move with the music. Another solid song: Revolution. Though this song uses the fairly predictable formula used by a lot (read: 99%) of all trap music: a slow build before a slightly faster chorus followed by a really fast paced drop. Nonetheless it works smoothly and I found myself genuinely enjoying it. While I’ll probably end up deleting the majority of this EP from my iPod, those two songs will stay.
A common theme among all of the songs on the EP are their ability to firmly plant themselves in your head and refuse to leave. Even (or maybe especially) if you don’t like them in particular. The best example of this is the song Biggie Bounce. Biggie Bounce is good song in the same way Don’t Drop that Thun Thun is a good song: the only plus for either is that they are catchy and teenage girls won’t stop singing them for no reason other than that. Apart from their extremely repetitive chorus (Biggie Bounce’s is literally “biggie bounce biggie bounce biggie bounce *pause* biggie bounce biggie bounce biggie bounce”), they are shallow affairs featuring rap without any sort of substance and simplistic beats. Yet, it’s still stuck in my head a 30 minutes after my last listen.
The worst song by far is Rock Steady. At its core it’s incredibly similar to Biggie Bounce, but it does a lot more things wrong. This track also features a rap (performed by Action Bronson), but it sounds forced and awkward. The rhymes don’t flow well at all. The beat is weird in a bad way. It’s almost as if this song has absolutely nothing going for it and honestly this is the track that holds Revolution EP back from a higher grade
Revolution EP is an honest effort from Diplo. It does some things really well (creativity with some drops, Mike Posner’s part), but it also does some things downright horrendously (Rock Steady in it’s entirety). And while some songs have managed to get stuck in my head, I really doubt they’ll be stuck there for long. My overall recommendation for it is this: buy Crown, Revolution, and Biggie Bounce (if you like how it sounds on the preview on iTunes), skip the rest. You won’t regret this decision.