Variety
the Collegian: 12
7 March 2016
“Spirit Phone” shows Lemon Demon’s growth
Comedian and musician Neil Cicierega released a new album through his music project “Lemon Demon” on February 29. A departure from the tone of previous releases, it maintains the heart of Cicierega’s previous releases as well as showing the artist’s musical growth into a more professional creator. Caitlin Woods Satire Editor
Lemon Demon, the musical project of online content producer Neil Cicierega, dropped a new album called “Spirit Phone” on the music-sharing website Bandcamp last week. Most people would probably know Cicierega from his Soundcloud releases “Mouth Sounds” and “Mouth Silence,” both weird mixes of ‘80s, ‘90s and early-2000s pop music, the most well-known being his mashups and bizarre edits of Smash Mouth’s “All-Star.” But Cicierega’s art is not new on the internet. He’s been producing music since at least 1999, and in the early days of YouTube made the popular Harry Potter fan series “Potter Puppet Pals.” As a long-time fan of Cicierega’s work, I was pretty hyped to listen to this new album. Before “Spirit Phone,” Lemon Demon’s most recent release was the “Nature Tapes” EP in 2014, so this is the first full, original LP since 2008. It is the shortest LP since Lemon Demon’s first album in 2003, but “Spirit Phone” is definitely an instance of quality over quantity. From the very first song, Lemon Demon’s new album sets itself apart from previous albums as being more polished and professional, with nearly all of the songs warranting multiple listens. Whereas Lemon Demon’s releases from 2014 and earlier were mostly comedic, with songs titled “Everybody Loves Raymond,”
“Jaws,” and “Two Trucks” (a song about two trucks having sex), the content of “Spirit Phone” is, if not more serious, conceptually deeper. It’s similar in tone to the last LP release, “View Monster,” in 2008; however “Spirit Phone” is, to date, Lemon Demon’s most bizarre release. The subject matter of nearly every song is centered around the occult, not based around references to ‘90s pop culture, and all around feels more polished than previous releases. The first track on the album, Lifetime Achievement Award,” begins slowly, building a tense mood with heavy guitar and synthesizer. With the opening lyrics: “Die hard fans adored your hands / They loved your throat and quote unquote ‘you’,” Cicierega sets out to criticize the culture in which we idolize artists and creators. With his signature flimsy voice, monster film-esque backing guitar and heavy metal hook, “Lifetime Achievement Award” maintains Lemon Demon’s quirkiness while moving toward something of a more serious musical style. Cicierega’s influences are clear in this song. Long-time fans will recognize chiptune riffs and chord progressions that only slightly remind one of songs like “Toy Food” and “Goosebumps,” and there’s something of a German industrial metal sound in there as well. The second track on “Spirit Phone,” “Touch-Tone Telephone,” is more like something you’d expect from a Lemon Demon album (it reminds me of songs off the 2005 album “Damn Skippy”), displaying Cicierega’s untrained voice and a more whimsical sound than established in the opening track. Cicierega is good at creating infectious beats and unique, interesting tunes with his use of synth and keytar, amongst an array of other musical instruments. I feel like Cicierega has been building up to this kind of bizarre and occult album for a while. His 2011 single “Goosebumps” had a gothic premise similar to that of “Spirit Phone,” and in his 2015 single release “Kubrick and the
Beast” he displayed a musical polish and instrumental complexity very similar to this new album. I’ve been a fan of Cicierega’s work and of Lemon Demon for a long time, but I’ve always kind of conceded that his music does better as conceptual work than as something you’d really want to sit down and listen to. However, “Spirit Phone” is a really enjoyable album, and shows how far Cicierega has come as a musician and as an artist. Even though Cicierega’s voice is honestly not the greatest, his lyrics are really fun to listen to and he explores some cool concepts, such as the practice of using corpses as medicine in track 6 “Sweet Bod,”
and of occult and mysterious occurrences in track 5 “When He Died” and track 7 “Eighth Wonder.” Another thing long-time fans might appreciate is the inclusion of older songs, remastered for album release. Mentioned earlier, “Eighth Wonder,” was originally posted on Cicierega’s YouTube account six years ago, and track 12 “Reaganomics” is three years old. Both of them have been re-worked to fit the more polished feel of the album. Personally, “Eighth Wonder” and “Reaganomics” are two of my favorite tracks on this entire album. “Reaganomics” is a funny take on a classic love song and is steeped in ‘80s musical tropes, but
there’s a duality within the song that seems to match with the ethos behind many of Cicierega’s other works, focusing on the seductive (yet unreliable) nature of nostalgia, and its subsequent dangers. And it just sounds really good. Some of the songs on this album are a bit weaker than others, but I would recommend everyone listen to the whole album at least once. Cicierega’s voice may not be for everybody, and if you’re not very invested in the music it can be a bit of a turn off, but the music itself is unique and creative. Recommended tracks are 1, 6, 7, 10, 12, and 14.
references drunk women settling for sex with him. This dichotomy characterizes “This Unruly Mess I’ve Made.” It’s a roughly 1:2 ratio of heavyhanded comedy rap and heartfelt gems focusing on Macklemore’s political ideology and transition to stardom. There’s still plenty to enjoy about “This Unruly Mess,” but having 5 mildly unfunny songs is concerning. The Heist only really had “Thrift Shop,” which ended up one of the biggest songs of the year. Comedy rap in general is an unexplored, unrefined and underdeveloped subgenre. Very few artists make comedy rap the focus of their careers. When artists do choose to focus on comedy rap,
success ranges from the mostlyhit favorability of The Lonely Island to the collective “meh” heard when listening to most Lil’ Dicky songs. With such a small sample of artists, it can be rather difficult to figure out what works and why it works. However, two types of comedy rap tend to be generally successful. Some musicians will release the occasional comedy rap song filled with puns and pop culture references. Songs like Bo Burnham’s “WORDS, WORDS, WORDS” and Childish Gambino’s “Bonfire” are funny at a relatively universal base level, relying on clever wordplay and not requiring much knowledge of rap culture. The second type is the song
that takes a satirical stance on rap culture. This is where songs like “Thrift Shop” and “$ave Dat Money” shine. They actively make fun of the genre’s focus on expensive items as status symbols. Another example is “Jack Sparrow” by The Lonely Island. Frequent rap listeners can probably think of a feature verse that doesn’t seem to fit or is an active detriment to a song. “Jack Sparrow” takes that to the comedic extreme by having Michael Bolton perform hooks that are completely unrelated to the verses. Unfortunately, legitimate satire of the genre is rare, and even positively regarded comedy rap artists don’t have a meaning behind each song. Part of this may be that com-
edy rap is primarily performed by white men that pride themselves on their position as outsiders. Many rappers already make jokes in their songs, but don’t define their career by their jokes or go out of their way to poke fun at rap culture. Comedy rap has potential. The occasional gem in the genre shows that comedy rap can be a commercial success and effectively satirize the genre it stems from. However, apart from viral hits, the small market for comedy rap leaves little incentive to enter the genre. This, combined with the lack of people doing it now, means that the genre probably isn’t getting bigger anytime soon.
courtesy Lemon Demon
Similar to the music, the art for “Spirit Phone” shows a much more polished, professional work from Lemon Demon’s previous albums.
The current state of comedy rap: What works
Comedy rap is an underdeveloped genre plagued by a lack of understanding of what works. James Whisenhunt Student Writer Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’s new album, “This Unruly Mess I’ve Made,” opens with “Light Tunnels.” The song gives a playby-play of Macklemore’s first Grammy appearance and victory, painting a vivid picture of a man feeling out of place in a new world. The next song, lead single “Downtown,” is about Macklemore buying a moped. The song after that, “Brad Pitt’s Cousin,”
“Deadpool” generic movie with more dick jokes Despite billing itself as “not your average super-hero movie,” Deadpool comes off as another generic origin story, but with a 13 yearold’s sense of humor and stronger language. Justin Guglielmetti Student Writer Perhaps I went into “Deadpool” with expectations that were too high. A product of 20th Century Fox (which by my count has made a whopping total of two quality superhero movies) with a rookie director and a lead notorious for his poor acting? The onus should have been on me to suspect that this wasn’t going to be a masterpiece. But for whatever reason, I expected something more out of “Deadpool” and was bitterly disappointed when I found it one of the most utterly mediocre film experiences
of my life. Dry and shockingly joyless in its execution, crass but not terribly funny, the problems with “Deadpool” were myriad, not the least of which was its utter failure to live up to its promise as a fresh, satirical take on the superhero genre. At the end of the day, despite its aggressive marketing campaign and rabid fanboys doing everything in their power to tell you that “this is not your average superhero movie,” “Deadpool” was just another cut-and-dry origin story the likes of which we have seen a thousand times over. Guy gets superpowers through an unfortunate mishap or difficult situation, guy’s girlfriend gets captured, guy has to go rescue her and exact vengeance on the man who wronged him. Does that sound like a particularly compelling plot to you? If it does, chances are you’ll love this movie; if you are looking for something more creative and original, you’ll probably be just as bored as I was.
Yes, I said bored. We’ve reached the point of critical mass with superhero movies in Hollywood where it is possible, even likely, for them to be dull. There’s no great spectacle anymore to these types of films, no anticipation or buildup to see your favorite childhood heroes brought to life on the big screen; there are just too many of these movies out there. But “Deadpool” was supposed to be different. He’s meta, breaking the fourth wall left and right, cracking jokes like an X-rated Spiderman. He’s cool, owner of arguably the most visually impressive abilities that can be shown on the big screen: a supercharged healing ability and gravity-defying martial arts prowess. And he’s violent, performing the kind of logical extreme violence that is so often whitewashed in the stories of mainstream heroes. If there was any movie that I thought could break my superhero lethargy, this was it, which makes it all the more
sad that it was such a creative flop. What went wrong exactly? The story was a huge issue that I have already touched on. Based on the type of character he is, I thought “Deadpool” probably would have been a stronger film with no linear or traditional type plot at all. Make no mistake, this was a mindless action movie, and that means the more action scenes the better. Whenever there weren’t a lot of moving parts on screen, it lacked the substance to keep me interested, like during the middle act when the origin story was hashed out and we were subjected to Deadpool’s painfully slapstick home life. The humor was something out of an eighth grader’s comedic repertoire, chock full of dick jokes, ugly jokes, frequent expletives and all the other hallmarks of an immature mind. I’m not heartless, the movie did get some laughs out of me (certainly more than the MCU movies tend to) but there was nothing here that
was particularly memorable. A saving grace existed in the casting of Ryan Reynolds, performing above his usual wooden standard, whose sardonic wit and undeniable charm made him a perfect fit for the lead. The camerawork and fight choreography were excellent as well but I couldn’t help but feel cheated at the lost potential. This could have been Marvel’s version of “Kickass,” Matthew Vaughn’s excellent flick from 2010 that was everything “Deadpool” wanted to be, only cooler, raunchier, more original and more stylish. Instead it was standard fare with blood and curse words. If you want to see “Deadpool” and have yet to do so, make sure you go into it with the proper expectations. Recognize that it’s not a mature movie but rather a middle school boy’s wet dream and perhaps you will be less disappointed than I was.