It’s 2015, which for many college students, means another year in which events that seemed to have happened yesterday are now celebrating their fifth and tenth anniversaries. It may blow your mind how much these songs, albums and events have aged, so if you’re in the midst of a quarter-life crisis, I’d recommend you stop reading here.

5 years ago:

– Ke$ha releases Animal (January 1).  The hard-partying pop star released her debut album on the first day of the 2010s, becoming the perfect icon for the glam-damaged electropop that defined the turn of the decade. 

– Lil Wayne goes rock, then to prison (March 2).  After releasing the bizarre nu-metal experiment Rebirth, Lil Wayne spent most of the year behind bars for weapons charges.

–Ronnie James Dio dies (May 16).  The legendary Black Sabbath/Dio/Rainbow singer’s death in 2010 came as a shock to rock fans everywhere.

– Lady Gaga debuts her meat dress (September 12).  Though it’s now a sheet of jerky preserved in the Rock n’ Roll Hall Of Fame, Lady Gaga’s raw-beef dress remains fresh in many of our minds.

– Skrillex blows our heads with dubstep (October 22).  Dubstep’s been around since the ’90s, but it only truly blew up–along with the entire EDM movement–when Skrillex dropped Scary Monsters & Nice Sprites in 2010.

10 years ago:

– Bright Eyes drops a two-fer (January 25).  While Digital Ash In A Digital Urn is largely forgotten, I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning (released the same day) spawned the sensitive-guitar standard “First Day Of My Life.”

– Alice In Chains reunites (February 2).  Naysayers who doubted the band could spring back without the late Layne Staley were silenced by the undeniable vocal power of new singer William DuVall.

– Daft Punk releases Human After All (March 14).  The house duo’s third album disappointed critics upon release, though its reputation has improved somewhat in the last decade.

– Fall Out Boy drops “Sugar, We’re Going Down” (April 12). Emo peaked right around George Bush’s second inauguration, and Fall Out Boy’s infectious single was a major reason why.

– Gorillaz drops Demon Days (May 11). Blur singer Damon Albarn’s virtual band proved itself more than a silly side project with the acclaimed Demon Days and its juggernaut single “Feel Good Inc.”

– Rihanna debuts (May 24).  The Barbadian singer’s debut single “Pon De Replay” may not have been enough to make her a megastar just yet, but it was only a matter of time.

– Michael Jackson found not guilty of child molestation (June 13).  In 2015, it just seems amazing there was a time when Michael Jackson was a punchline.

– Pink Floyd reunites with Roger Waters (July 2).  Sadly, a full reunion with Waters will likely never happen, and the history of Pink Floyd from here on out seems doomed to consist of posthumous albums.

– Kanye has strong words for Bush (September 2).  The rapper/producer’s impromptu rant against the then-President on a live Hurricane Katrina benefit established him as pop music’s most controversial and outspoken superstar.

– Lil Wayne begins his classic era (December 6, 2005).  Between Tha Carter II and Tha Carter III, Lil Wayne was one of the hardest-working MCs in hip-hop–and one of the best.  (If you don’t believe me, cue up “Get High Rule The World.”)

In our Double Takes series, Emerald staff writers share their thoughts on new music with one another.

Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper, the fifth and newest album from Animal Collective member Panda Bear is one of the first major album releases of 2015. Two of our music writers, Emerson Malone and Daniel Bromfield, met to discuss what makes the record great (or not-so-great) and then posted their own separate reviews.

Daniel Bromfield: I’m trying to figure out how Panda Bear wants us to see him on this record. The title makes me think it’s very personal, but it’s also a much more production-oriented record.  What do you think?

Emerson Malone: Well, I mean he wrote Young Prayer for his dying dad, so it’s always been a very emotionally visceral thing for him to sing about death. There’s definitely a morbid element in the foreground of a lot of Grim Reaper.

DB: How so?

EM: In “Mr. Noah,” he talks about a dog getting bit on the leg. And “Tropic of Cancer” can definitely be interpreted as being about his dad passing.

DB: I think the song is about that. Just look at the title.

EM: What were your early favorites?

DB: I think “Boys Latin” is definitely the standout, which is strange because it’s one of the less lyrically focused songs.

EM: It’s hard to understand what he’s saying, which doesn’t matter because of how he overlays his vocals in the chorus.

DB: It’s very joyful.

EM: Yeah definitely. It feels ecstatic, even if the subject matter is pretty grim. This is much more complicated production than Tomboy, but it’s also more focused than Person Pitch, which was almost maximalist.

DB: I remember him saying he wanted to “attack” the instruments more and make something less focused on sampling (on Tomboy). On this one, I feel there are more sampling and effects, but it’s very physical in a way Person Pitch wasn’t.

EM: You can’t have any of his music on in the background. It really reels your attention in.

DB: When I was going into it I went in with lofty expectations, but I kinda learned to just vibe to it.

EM: I was the opposite. After Centipede Hz I was pretty disenchanted with Animal Collective, but I was very stoked when I heard this album’s singles. What do you think of how he repeats his vocals and lyrics a lot?

DB: I see that as his influences from dance music.  The first thing I thought when I heard “Boys Latin” was the new Caribou.

EM: I love how he can send his voice into these pitch-perfect melodies. He had a live album after Tomboy, and you can just listen and it’s very obvious he’s not adding too many effects to his vocals.

DB: I feel on his earlier albums he’s a lot more rapturous – definitely a Brian Wilson thing. On this one he’s more in control.

EM: The sounds he’s making are very out-there, but the way he’s singing makes it seem like it’s a very normal thing for him.

DB: I think “normalcy” is pretty key. I think this is kind of the album where he’s like, “This is normal, this is what I do.”

EM: For sure. I felt on Centipede Hz that they were getting weird for the sake of weird.

DB: I can’t really blame them, but now Animal Collective is no longer this sacred cow, it has made an album that could have derailed its legacy, so now Panda Bear can be like, “Whatever” now.

EM: I think when he’s unchained and he’s allowed to abide his own rules, that’s when he makes astounding stuff.

Listen to Panda Bear’s track ‘Boys Latin’ below.

Daniel’s review:

Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper is Panda Bear’s cheeriest album yet, which leaves one wondering what to make of that title. My theory is that Panda Bear’s settled down. The man born Noah Lennox is now a father, closer to 40 than 30, and his band Animal Collective is no longer a critical juggernaut after the disappointing Centipede Hz. These may be signs of age – and by extension, impending death. But they also mean Lennox, as a somewhat venerable musician, can do pretty much whatever he wants.

Grim Reaper is Lennox’s least ambitious album. “Tropic of Cancer,” the only song explicitly dealing with death (his father’s), sounds like a ’90s quiet storm ballad. Nothing sounds like Brian Wilson, to whom the blogosphere incessantly compared Lennox in the ’00s. For the most part, Grim Reaper consists of ostinato tracks Lennox reluctantly referred to as “beats” in a Rolling Stone interview, overlaid with vocals that provide most of the melodic heft.

They’re incredibly catchy. “Mr. Noah” is Lennox’s best pop song since 2007′s “Take Pills,“ with an instantly memorable hook that finds him imitating digital delay with his own voice. And on “Boys Latin,” the album’s most impressive tune, he chops his vocals into an unearthly call-and-response that still follows pop form. Whenever the beats threaten to stagnate, Lennox swoops in with a killer vocal hook and saves the day.

But these tunes feel curiously simple by Panda Bear’s standards. Sometimes, as on the skippable “Selfish Gene,” they’re a bit too so. This is definitely a passion project, and as listenable as it is, it makes no effort to be high art, “progressive,” or a “statement.” As bewildering as the contrast between the title and the music is, the message is clear: I am Panda Bear, and this is my sound.

Emerson’s review:

If there is any true constant in Panda Bear’s sound, and if there’s a central reason why anyone should listen to this new release, it’s the masterful way that he harnesses his voice and uses it to his eminent advantage. Panda Bear expertly demonstrated this on “I Think I Can” and Tomboy stand-out “Last Night at the Jetty.”

His vocal range is beyond comprehension; he has the pipes of someone you’d be envious to stand next to in a choir’s tenor section. Panda Bear, the moniker of one-man band Noah Lennox, carries each track on Grim Reaper with self-harmonization and repetitive lyricisms drenched in reverberation. His voice is no less important an instrument than its electronic pairing.

The opener “Sequential Circuits” sets a melancholy atmosphere for the album; Lennox bellows in a Gregorian chant mimicry that recalls “Ponytail” on 2007′s Person Pitch. In stark contrast, on the ecstatic single “Boys Latin,” Lennox perpetually interjects himself to finish his elated thoughts in a beautifully layered and youthful way. Purely from a technical standpoint, this track is a marvel.

Grim Reaper‘s other single “Mr. Noah” begins with grimy effects and the sound of whining dogs. This hangs in the air for nearly a minute before it breaks into a beat-heavy rhythm and warbly chorus. The alien meandering never detracts Panda Bear far from creating some contagious grooves, like “Principe Real” or “Come to Your Senses.” Each new production from Lennox seems to come from a very alienated, as well as homey and welcoming, place. Grim Reaper is representative of some of the best exports from Animal Collective, incorporated.

With all the world’s music just a click away, the idea of a cult album – one that can be passed around like a secret – is almost an anachronism. But since its release, DJ Sprinkles‘ 2009 deep house album Midtown 120 Blues has proven itself a true cult phenomenon. You won’t see it next to Disclosure on EDM-oriented “deep house” playlists, but those who know it love it. And as many fans as it acquires, it will never truly be mainstream.

This owes in part to its difficulty to access. The album was reissued in 2014, but only on CD. It’s absent from iTunes and Spotify. This means finding a free digital copy is an ordeal.

And not everyone vibes with Sprinkles’ slow-burning music, which is a far cry from the pop-ready take on deep house that currently dominates DJ mixes.

“I’ll switch it on for people who like that kind of music,” said Nathan Ratchen, a Portland native and house fan. “But people either really identify with it or it doesn’t vibe with them, it’s too slow for them.”

Yet the album’s limited reach also owes to political reasons. Midtown 120 Blues is a treatise on how house music’s queer origins have been forgotten by the mainstream. As such, this album is not designed for mass appeal.

Its tracks are broken up by short speeches from Sprinkles (a trans-woman with roots in the New York queer club scene), pertaining to these themes. If you want to put on Midtown 120 Blues just for the grooves, you’ll run into a speech sooner or later. No matter how much mass appeal the album acquires, it will always be a political work.

As such, it has helped house fans get wise to the music’s context.

“I didn’t know dance music had that context,” said Ian Harris, a University of Oregon student and Sprinkles fan. “It’s meaningful in that way, even though I can’t speak to the issues.”

William Winston, a DJ at University of Puget Sound’s KUPS, runs a show called “Madonna-Free Zone,” named after a Midtown track. As on Midtown, Winston’s show approaches dance music from a political angle, alternating tracks with political commentary.

“Often times I will use (Sprinkles’) quotes within the songs to inform people of what they’re hearing,” Winston said. “Our generation is prone to social justice, so I think people are interested.”

Thanks to people like Winston and general word of mouth, it’s likely Midtown 120 Blues‘ fanbase will grow beyond anything Sprinkles expected.

But Marke Bieschke, a San Francisco-based nightlife writer, sees no issue with this. As a queer club regular, he’s familiar with the issues on which Sprinkles speaks. But he sees Midtown 120 Blues‘s popularity as a boon.

“I think it’s awesome if straight college guys are listening to this record from a trans DJ that’s based on an anti-capitalist political viewpoint,” said Bieschke. “Even if people just want deep house grooves, it’s great they’re listening.”

Midtown 120 Blues will likely never hit the mainstream, due to its limited availability. But even if it’s destined to remain a cult concern forever, it’s proven an effective piece of political art. As such, perhaps it’s best for as many people to hear it as possible.

Follow Daniel Bromfield on Twitter @bromf3

Shortly after the surprise release of Black Messiah, D’Angelo’s first album since 2000, the R&B singer clarified to the press that he and his label rushed to finish the album in the wake of the Michael Brown decision, to which the album’s themes of black suffering and empowerment are deeply relevant. In all fairness, they could have spent a bit more time getting it ready. Though many of the songs here certainly sound like the product of a decade and a half of painstaking labor, they’re arranged into an unwieldy slab of music that’s a bit of a hassle to get through.

But amid the uneven pacing, messy production, jarring genre shifts and hookless jams are tunes that approach, and some that surpass, those albums’ heights. These songs demand time, in part due to the ridiculously busy production and in part because D’Angelo’s singing style is so mush-mouthed that just understanding what he’s saying comes in stages. But if you’re willing to put in the effort, Black Messiah is immensely rewarding.

Opener “Ain’t That Easy” struck a sour chord on first listen. The chugging guitars were too Ben Harper-like for comfort, and the way the vocals on the chorus tumbled into each other, rather than cooing in unison, was off-putting. But after a few listens, the song opens up. The guitars aren’t the host of the party — they’re the guest. The focus became not on the disorganization of the vocals, but the impeccable timing of the chorus’ entry.

This is typical of a Black Messiah song, and it’s not just the music, either. The lyrics on this album’s political songs are so stunning that just looking at a lyric sheet should be enough to make a doubter take the album for another spin. “The Charade” seems like little more than Prince pastiche until D’Angelo’s stinging lyrics about black suffering come to the fore. “‘Till It’s Done (Tutu)” is a poignant, mournful plea for global sanity, but it’s easy to stay hung up on the incongruously chipper groove.

Though Black Messiah is a marvel on every listen, it’s not particularly enjoyable to listen to it as a whole. Rather, the optimal way to consume it is through individual songs (“Sugah Daddy” is a hit at parties) or even just setting it on shuffle. This has to do with its awkward length and its pacing. Lengthy mires like “1000 Deaths” and “Really Love” slow the album just as much as shorter roadblocks like “The Door” and the wholly unnecessary “Back To The Future (Part II)”

But Black Messiah continues to reveal itself as a grower, and these songs and their places on the album become more appreciable as time goes by. I’m hesitant to recommend the album for this reason, as I am with Trout Mask Replica, Exile On Main Street or other great growers. But if you find yourself compelled to get to the bottom of Black Messiah‘s mysteries, I encourage it with every atom of my being.

It’s almost surprising nobody opened an Animal House Saloon until now.

Once the establishment at 11th Avenue and Mill Street opens, Eugene will finally have the perfect tribute to a movie that has defined the town’s culture for nearly four decades – and given the film’s classic status, it seems likely the saloon will never run out of customers.

But Animal House, like most comedy films, is very much of its time. As a movie about the ’60s made in the ’70s, it reflects a world with different values than those of the millennium we live in now.

Much of the film’s humor comes from its glorification of the sexual harassment of women. And in an environment in which at least one in five women is sexually assaulted during their time in college. On campus 10 percent of women report being raped, and some are still recovering from last year’s sexual assault scandal involving the basketball team — it’s likely the University of Oregon and the town of Eugene will want to shake off this baggage in the future.

I attended a Ducks After Dark screening of Animal House, having not seen the movie in several years, and found reception to the film lukewarm. There were few laughs. Several people walked out during the scene in which a frat member contemplates raping his unconscious date— this I anticipated.

But as I watched more closely, I noticed humor pertaining to sexual assault is crucial to the film.

A man tricks a grieving woman into believing he is her deceased roommate’s date in order to hook up. A voyeurism sequence peaks with John Belushi looking triumphantly at the camera, breaking the fourth wall and communicating to the (assumed male) viewer: “Wouldn’t you love to be doing this?” Perhaps most importantly, the main reason the (opposing) Omegas want the (protagonist) Deltas kicked off campus is for their “acts of perversion” — presumably such as these.

It would not surprise me if future audiences sympathized more with the Omegas. It’s worth recalling the conversation between Omega president Marmalard and his girlfriend, in which he expresses his disdain of the Deltas’ molestation of women. Seeing as it’s the only conversation in the film between a man and a woman that isn’t a post-coital joke or a lead-up to sex, it makes Marmalard look pretty good. Still, she leaves the conversation because he’s not trying to engage her sexually.

At the end of the movie, we see her driving off into the sunset with Belushi.

It is common for classic films to survive changes in cultural values. Audiences are willing to overlook Mickey Rooney’s yellowface in Breakfast at Tiffany‘s or the faceless black workers in Dumbo. But in neither of these films is racism key to its appeal or humor.

Animal House, on the other hand, thrives on its treatment of women as a commodity for the Deltas to use, abuse and steal from their rivals. And it is for this reason that Animal House‘s lifespan will not be as long as the owners of the Animal House Saloon perhaps hope it will be.

Music trends may come and go, but every year is sure to bring plenty to popular music. 2014 gave the world no shortage of great albums – but which ones to listen to? Our musically knowledgeable music reporter, Daniel Bromfield, has compiled his picks for the best, boldest and most exciting records to come out in 2015.

5.  Salad Days/Salad Days Demos – Mac DeMarco

Mac DeMarco writes pop tunes in the early-Beatles vein: short, sweet and snarky. But rather than cramming dazzling amounts of content into two minutes, DeMarco’s tunes wander and somehow find their way to the end in enough time to form a good pop song. His craft is on top form in Salad Days, and the demos give curious insight to his creative process, adding a few haunting instrumentals that are as enjoyable as his lyric songs.

4.  Why Do The Heathen Rage? – The Soft Pink Truth

As a gay man who likes black metal, Drew Daniel is perpetually faced with the issue of liking a genre with a history of homophobia. On his bold, brilliant Why Do The Heathen Rage?, he tackles this problem by recasting black metal songs as queer club-friendly disco. His source material is ripe for this treatment – metal lyrics about sinners and sodomites could easily apply to LGBTQA* people as seen through homophobic eyes. But Daniel also has a keen sense of humor, and the fun he has in pitting these two genres against each other makes this album as enjoyable as it is admirable.

3. Sandopolis – Hashman Deejay

Canadian producer Hashman Deejay evokes the vastness of space and time by drawing from other genres that aim to do the same, particularly the interstellar concerns of Detroit techno and the warped nostalgia of deep house and chillwave. But his approach to this music is so simple and effortless it’s hard to say if he’s doing it on purpose. This is simple, laid-back dance music capable of rocking both stoner dens and dance floors – and infuriating DJs who spend weeks on end perfecting the right side-chain.

2. It’s Album Time – Todd Terje

Everything about It’s Album Time reeks of patrician smugness at first. It riffs on space-age pop, bossa nova, disco and all manner of pop music’s goofiest outcasts, topped off with a sad man with a martini seated at a piano on the cover. But, Terje is a skilled composer and he’s aware of the time and painstaking care needed to make these tiki-bar comforts. This is perhaps the year’s most sumptuous listening experience, and for all of Terje’s self-consciousness, it might take a few listens for the album’s inherent goofiness to sink in.

1. Beyoncé – Beyoncé

Pop has historically portrayed sex as something one person gives up to another. On her monumental self-titled fifth album, Beyoncé casually thumbed her nose at this entire tradition by portraying it as something fun, filthy and most importantly, mutual. If Beyoncé were sexy songs alone, it would still probably score the top spot. But she also reflects on marriage, motherhood, body image, envy and death in such detail and with such conviction that every song could potentially yield an album. All of this over music that treats contemporary pop trends (indie pop, alternative R&B, post-dubstep) as pastiche for the first time in their histories. This is something unprecedented.

Honorable Mentions: Vladislav Delay – Visa, Vashti Bunyan – Heartleap, Aphex Twin – Syro, Tink – Winter’s Diary 2

Check out the Arts and Culture desk’s top albums of 2014 at dailyemerald.com

Yet for all the great albums that came out in 2014, it seemed mostly like a year in transition.  Few new pop stars or major genre trends emerged, and most of the year’s most acclaimed albums were by relative veterans (Aphex Twin, Sun Kil Moon, Run The Jewels, Swans, St. Vincent) — as were its biggest (Taylor Swift, Coldplay). Yet a few promising artists have emerged this year that may blow up in 2015 and make it an even better year for music.

Here are some of those artists:

Mood Hut

Deep house is all over the charts thanks to Disclosure’s massive success in 2014. But Vancouver’s Mood Hut collective has been quietly honing a classicist take on the sound that’s as suited for casual home listening as it is for large-scale raging. The collective’s flagship act Pender Street Steppers released the awesome Life In The Zone in 2013 and crewmember Hashman Deejay released the stunning Sandopolis towards the end of last year. But most of its most promising acts have yet to issue any widely available albums. 2015 may change that.

PC Music

Masterminded by producer A.G. Cook (who may or may not make all the music he releases), this London-based web label specializes in minimal, creepily artificial Top 40-style pop songs, delivered by robotic pop stars with names like QT and Hannah Diamond. Though there’s a whiff of irony about PC’s productions, its songs are as catchy as anything on the radio right now, and it would not surprise me to see one of its anonymous pop products actually make it to the charts. (I nominate Hannah Diamond’s “Every Night” as a candidate.)

John Williams

The 82-year-old composer rocked the world nearly 40 years ago with the original Star Wars soundtracks, and he’s stepping up to the conductor’s platform once again for the upcoming sequel trilogy. Hearing his gleeful orchestral music in the trailer for Episode VII was a treat, and now that his soundtracks are bigger than ever (Frozen, Guardians of the Galaxy, Mockingjay), it’s not unlikely whatever new music Williams cooks up for Episode VII will be a hit.

Father John Misty

J. Tillman has been working the festival circuit for a while as Father John Misty. But his upcoming album I Love You, Honeybear – slated for a February release – may finally treat him to a slice of the critic’s pie he’s so far only tasted with his old band Fleet Foxes. After his first single “Bored In The USA,” he seems slated to step up to the curmudgeonly-white-guy throne Sun Kil Moon held last year.

Disclosure (even more so!)

Disclosure’s been big for a while, but it has increasingly chosen to stay behind the scenes as producers. Its monopoly on the recent deep house boom means it’s a lot of aging musicians’ first collaboration choice for a late-career reinvention. It has already worked with Mary J. Blige on her new The London Sessions, and they’re supposedly in the studio with Madonna. Who knows who’s next? Elvis Costello, perhaps?

2014 seemed like a year in transition. EDM was stuck in limbo between trap and deep house. Frank Ocean dropped half of a song and then retreated back into the shadows. Most of the year’s most acclaimed albums were by relative veterans (Aphex Twin, Sun Kil Moon, Run The Jewels, Swans, St. Vincent), as were its biggest (Taylor Swift, Coldplay). But this year has shown a few promising signs that 2015 will be a pretty great year for music.

1. Mood Hut. Deep house is all over the charts thanks to Disclosure’s massive success in 2014.  But Vancouver’s Mood Hut collective has been quietly honing a classicist take on the sound that’s as suited for casual home listening as it is for large-scale raging. The collective’s flagship act Pender Street Steppers released the awesome Life In The Zone in 2013, and crewmember Hashman Deejay released the stunning Sandopolis last year. But most of its most promising acts have yet to issue any widely available albums. 2015 may change that.

2. PC Music. Masterminded by producer A.G. Cook (who may or may not make all the music he releases), this London-based web label specializes in minimal, creepily artificial Top 40-style pop songs, delivered by robotic pop stars with names like QT and Hannah Diamond. Though there’s a whiff of irony about PC’s productions, their songs are as catchy as anything on the radio right now, and it would not surprise me to see one of its anonymous pop products actually make it to the charts. (I nominate Hannah Diamond’s “Every Night” as a candidate.)

3. John Williams. The 82-year-old composer rocked the world nearly 40 years ago with the original Star Wars soundtracks, and he’s stepping up to the conductor’s platform once again for the upcoming sequel trilogy. Hearing his gleeful orchestral music in the trailer for Episode VII was a treat, and now that soundtracks are bigger than ever (Frozen, Guardians of the Galaxy, Mockingjay), it’s not unlikely whatever new music Williams cooks up for Episode VII will be a hit.

4. Father John Misty. J. Tillman has been working the festival circuit for a while as Father John Misty. But his upcoming album I Love You, Honeybear – slated for a February release – may finally treat him to a slice of the critic’s pie he’s so far only tasted with his old band Fleet Foxes. After his first single “Bored In The U.S.A.,” he seems slated to step up to the curmudgeonly-white-guy throne Sun Kil Moon held last year.

5. Disclosure (even more so!) Disclosure’s been big for a while, but they’ve increasingly chosen to stay behind the scenes as producers. Their monopoly on the recent deep house boom means they’re a lot of aging musicians’ first collaboration choice for a late-career reinvention. They’ve already worked with Mary J. Blige on her new London Sessions, and they’re supposedly in the studio with Madonna. Who knows who’s next. Elvis Costello?

For better or for worse, there are no good male pop singers on the charts right now. The alpha-male breed of pop star rightfully died out last year thanks to Robin Thicke, and as the music industry tries to figure out how to make men palatable to pop again, we’re stuck with Sam Smith. Though it’s awesome to see women running the charts, I still find myself wondering how can a male pop star work in this day and age.

Behold the Male Pop Star of the Future.

Image and personal life: Our Male Pop Star loves to party, but he understands the importance of being a role model. As such, he can take one of two directions. He can go the old-fashioned route and just not sing about partying. Or he can sing about all manner of debauchery but play up his self-determination and lack of reliance on societal norms for male behavior to set an example for other young men. Either way, he doesn’t sing about molly because he doesn’t want anyone to die at his concerts. And he understands one can be both a role model and a sexual being.

Musical style: Our Male Pop Star likes to experiment with different producers and musical styles. Whether it’s retro Meghan Trainor-style production or futuristic beats from the likes of Boots and Timbaland, he can score a hit on any musical terrain, yet he’s very picky about taking cues from subcultural music movements for fear of commodifying them. If he wants to start a dance craze, he’ll invent his own dance instead of plucking one from the underground and making it his own.

Persona: Machismo is out of the picture. Even self-conscious machismo is out of the picture for fear that his audience might miss the joke and interpret his behavior as serious. Our Male Pop Star is gender-bending enough that people yell homophobic slurs at him, even if he’s straight.  The Westboro Baptist Church pickets his concerts.  And then he gives them all a bejeweled, brightly painted middle finger.

Sexuality:  The word “want” is not in his vocabulary. No “I want it all,” no “I know you want it.” The only exception is when he’s pining over an unattainable romantic target, and when doing so he should be at least somewhat aware he should probably just let it go and stop tormenting himself. But this guy is sexy enough to get with anyone he desires – and he always gets the other person off, because he cares about the other person’s orgasm as much as his own.

I’m not twiddling my thumbs waiting for this guy to show up. I’m in no rush to see any new pop stars given that Beyonce, Charli XCX, Tove Lo and Taylor Swift all made incredible music this year and that new music from Drake, Kanye, Lorde, Adele and Frank Ocean is doubtlessly on its way. But when the next wave of male pop stars comes along, I hope they look at least something like this.

Ariel Pink is arguably the weirdest musician in the pop industry right now, and as such, he’s pretty much critic-proof. His latest album Pom Pom contains a five-minute ballad about being a frog and still managed to get an 8.8 from Pitchfork. But it’s not because he’s making high art. It’s because it’s plainly obvious that few people give less of a shit about making high art than he does. Say what you will about irony, pop chops, aesthetics–Ariel Pink is a comedian.

Pom Pom contains the following things: a surf song about a nude beach featuring Azealia Banks, songs called “Goth Bomb,” “Dinosaur Carebears” and “Sexual Athletics,”  a chorus of “penetration time tonight,” a skit in which a pirate introduces a teenage boy to a stripper, a ballad sung from the perspective of a stillborn baby and two dreadful collaborations with Runaways svengali Kim Fowley that could only have been made for L.A. sleaze cred. Excluding the stillborn song “Dayzed Inn Daydreams,” none of this is executed with any subtlety or semblance of that branch of humor we call “wit.”

Rather, we must take this music at face value and let the absurdity of it sink in. The change in production between his prior album Mature Themes and Pom Pom helps. Mature Themes was shrouded in burbling, bass-heavy production that gave it a thorny sense of mystery. Pom Pom has no mystery and no depth. The song about nude beaches is about nude beaches, and the song about frogs is about frogs. No obscure pop or philosophical references here.

As such, Pom Pom fails when it’s not funny. Track two to five are the sort of woozy Tinseltown miasmas Pink first honed on his breakthrough Before Today, all atmosphere with few hooks or jokes. (Five tries to be funny, but the word “penetration” has had all its humor milked out of it by now.) Six and seven are straight-faced pop songs, though not among Pink’s best by any means. As such, I start this album on track six, “Put Your Number In My Phone,” when I put it on for casual listening.

“What could tame this gypsy heart,” Pink sings on that song, bringing me to the major elephant in the room here: the nasty, often misogynistic and invariably un-P.C. statements Pink has made in the lead-up to Pom Pom‘s release. The way Pink forcefully, hatefully spits out the word “gypsy” in the song leads me to believe he just included it to piss off social-justice types. (Pink is not of Romani descent, as far as I know.)

But I don’t believe Pink is truly trying to sabotage his art in this fashion to make a statement – not in the way Eminem, his closest peer in terms of publicity tactics, has. I believe he’s just trying to sabotage his career. An artist this weird should not be operating on the scale of indie adoration and critical acclaim, if only because it might cause some to approach pom pom as a grand artistic statement. Do not make this mistake. This is comedy.  And for the most part, it’s pretty funny.

The lightsaber doesn’t make sense. So what? Since when did Star Wars have to make sense? After Gravity and Interstellar, I’m glad it doesn’t make sense. If you’ve given up hope for the upcoming Star Wars sequels because the technology doesn’t make sense, you’re missing the point. You probably don’t remember Episode I coming out. You want grit in your sci-fi, not absurdity, and God forbid if there’s even the tiniest bit of sound or fire in space.

One could make the argument the 21st-century generation of moviegoers just isn’t cut out for Star Wars. These are people that get their minds blown by plotlines about dreams within dreams within dreams, not insane space drama. But if the sequels were some Chris Nolan-ass bullshit, that would be a pretty bleak way to end the greatest sci-fi franchise of all time. Plus the people most excited about this movie are probably the people who were around for Episode I and were disappointed by it.

The trailer gave me hope. It’s filled with fun, silly things, things that would be cliché if Nolan hadn’t taken a giant desaturated shit over blockbusters with those Batman movies he probably doesn’t want you to call Batman movies. There’s cheesy orchestral music. There’s an over-dramatic narrator. There’s color, something missing from recent blockbusters because, once again, Nolan and his monochrome caca. And most importantly, there’s stuff that doesn’t make sense.

Let’s compare the Star Wars trailer to the post-Nolan industry’s best shot at a “fun” blockbuster – Guardians of the Galaxy. That movie was supposed to be the kind of absurd sci-fi brain-rotter Star Wars was in the ’70s, and it worked pretty well. But its color palette is as grey as any Nolan movie, and the only character that’s even close to as instantly likable as the fucking robot head on a soccer ball that appears for two seconds in the Star Wars trailer was an overconfident thirty-something music nerd.

Maybe Star Wars: Episode VII will suck. But if it does, it won’t be because it’s boring, and it won’t be because the technology doesn’t make sense. If you’re mad because the lightsaber is impractical or because Millennium Falcon isn’t aerodynamic enough to do those flips, you should stay away from this movie. You should find some movie where Michael Fassbender and Chloe Sevigny remind you God is dead, not a movie about goddamn space wizards.