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earwaxinggibbous · 6 years

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“Congratulations” VS. “Started From The Bottom”

Started as a bottom, now my whole team’s fuckin’ rears.

Self-aggrandizing rap and hip-hop anthems have existed since the genre was invented. It’s just a really nice, friendly way of saying, “hey! I’m better than you.” Generally speaking, whoever is on the track should have the power and clout behind them to make all of the bragging seem warranted. A great example is Eminem’s Rap God, which has a chorus that literally has Eminem saying he’s beginning to feel like a rap god. And we buy it, because hell, Eminem basically IS a rap god. Regardless of how you feel about him, especially as a person, there’s no arguing that his flows and style require an insane amount of skill. (Or at least, they used to.)

The other big rule, once again using Rap God as an example, as that the song should actually be good. Because if you’re bragging about being the coolest rapper with the most chains and bitches while rapping like complete shit, your point is pretty much moot. When Eminem speed-raps in Rap God, it’s essentially the proof that he is in fact the man named in the title.

There’s only one real problem with these songs when it comes to audience reception: They’re not relatable to anybody except other rich rappers and musicians. Which can be kind of a problem since that’s not really who the music industry is aiming to please. So in somewhat recent times we’ve been getting a different flavor of self-aggrandizing rap. Songs that, instead of saying “I’m super great”, they say, “Hey, I started from humble beginnings and worked my way to the top, and now I’m super great”. Which gives us viewers the idea of this sort of achievable dream that is nearly within arm’s reach.

Enter two very, very different hip-hop artists, at two very different times.

Drake and Post Malone, in my opinion, are both pretty good, in my opinion.

Let’s start with Drake. Drake feels at least a little more like a “real rapper” than Post does. Maybe because he was on Young Money, or because he doesn’t have that sing-songy flow that Post does, but he just feels more like somebody I’d describe as a rapper. If I had any reason, I’d say it’s because Post Malone’s music, even his ego-boosting shit, tends to sound stoned or morose the bulk of the time. Drake’s voice isn’t much fun either, but at least I can believe his ego based on his vocal tones alone. Post has a tendency to sound really, really sad, or just super high.

Now one might say, “Panda, you can’t compare these two songs. Started from the Bottom precedes Congratulations by four years.” But the reason I’m making this comparison is that, despite Drake being considered the superior artist by nearly everyone, Congratulations is basically the better version of its predecessor.

Let’s discuss this.

Now for one thing, I fucking hate the music video of Started from the Bottom. Not because it’s that bad, though depicting “working at a drug store” as “the bottom” is pretty fucking stupid, the video itself does a pretty good basic job at getting across what it wants. I just hate the skit.

I remember pulling up the song on YouTube and thinking, Jesus, this song is 5 fucking minutes long? Half the lyrics are just the title. Relax, past Panda, one minute of that video is a stupid skit that shows up randomly before the second chorus. A full fucking minute of two of Drake’s coworkers, not even Drake himself, but two of his coworkers at Duane Reade or something ogling some woman who’s checking out of the store. It’s not funny, it doesn’t really add anything, and the two guys can’t act. Drake’s body language is awkward and goofy in the music video, I doubt he’d be a great actor either, but that’s fine, he’s just the guy who made the song. Most of what he needs to do is lipsync along to the track and wave his hands around anyway. But the two guys are in a skit, an acted skit that requires acting to happen, and they suck.

It doesn’t help that it’s interrupting what is already one of the most monotonous songs that the lord hath graciously dumped on top of our collective consciousness like a weighty cow turd. The video actually tries to help the song by making it look like Drake really did work a crappy job with a bunch of assholes and was raised in a shitheap. But this isn’t true.

And I hate bringing the lives of artists into their music more than anything. Because ever since really getting into Eminem’s works, I’ve been seeing every musician’s persona as a character. Now some musicians characters, like say, Mary Lambert, are very close to their real-world self, or even identical. Others, like David Bowie or the aforementioned Eminem, are essentially entirely different people offstage. Then there’s incredibly creative people like ThatPoppy who sort of blur the difference between a musical persona and the person behind it. And honestly I find that way more interesting than ripping into an artist personally. (Unless it’s Taylor Swift.)

But Started from the Bottom is an argument against critics who don’t believe Drake ever really suffered or understands the lower class. And I’ve read about him, so I can say that he should. He wasn’t living in a complete shithole, generally Canadian shitholes are better than American ones, but he still dealt with a parental divorce, bullying due to his race and Jewish upbringing, and having to see his father arrested. But there’s two issues once we reach this point.

One. This song never mentions any of that. And two. After dropping out of school he got a TV job to act as a main character on Degrassi. And since this song isn’t about his childhood, I can only assume it’s looking back on his days as a working-class young adult.

NO, Drake. BAD hip-hop artist.

Being an actor on a TV sitcom is not the bottom. Not to mention that even when he left to start making music, he essentially had his career set. Once you’re an actor on television, if people watched your shit, you can almost definitely get a job in music afterwards. It worked for Miley, Demi, Ariana, and Selena, there’s no reason it wouldn’t have worked for Drake. Not to mention that he got picked up by Young Money, which is essentially a free win for anyone who’s better and more interesting than sentient iguana man Li’l Wayne. (Which was surprisingly rare, apparently. Where the fuck is Gudda Gudda’s next single, Wayne?!)

Yes, Drake, we know you weren’t rich. That doesn’t mean you were at the bottom. I live in a comfortable apartment in Midtown and my mom works a law firm, and we don’t even call ourselves rich. “Not being rich” is different from “the bottom”. “The bottom” is only owning hand-me-down underwear, living in a downturned umbrella and eating dirt for nutrients.

But lyrically this song doesn’t tell you anything. All the stuff I know about this guy is just from Lyric Genius and Wikipedia.

Wow, you only argue with your mom once a month?

Lucky bastard.

Also, really quickly I wanna comment on the uncle line for a second. “The keys” are specifically to his drop top Lexus that young Drake was borrowing. I don’t think you need me to say that people who are on “the bottom” don’t tend to own convertibles.

And, like, rich people work at night and get in traffic too. Just because you’re in a limousine doesn’t mean there’s no traffic. It’s just slightly more enjoyable traffic.

And then Drake just spends the rest of the song essentially sucking his own dick without expanding on his hardships, which was supposed to be the point of this track from the beginning. And I don’t get the whole “no new friends” thing he always says, this isn’t the only song he’s said it in. Drake, unless you’re gonna tell me that the entirety of Young Money and several other well-known rappers went to high school with you like some kind of wacky rap music-based sitcom, I’m pretty sure you’ve made some new friends. Either that or your obvious baby crush on Nicki Minaj is painfully laced by inconceivable amounts of mistrust.

So you’re either a paranoid asshole who just admitted to not trusting the people that got him into the game in the first place, or you’re a liar. Good to know!

Honestly this song makes me just kind of not like Drake as a person. Which is probably one of the worst things you can do as an artist. If you’re trying to make a song that allows people to sympathize with your plights or revel in your success, being this illegally unlikable while doing it isn’t helping your case in the slightest.

But honestly the worst part isn’t even the douchey lyrics, it’s just the song itself. It just feels like it goes on forever.

(Pictured: A hook, apparently.)

The chorus itself is so repetitive I’d rather listen to fucking Come and Get It, Drake has a really bad habit of sounding literally bored to death, and the beat just sounds like a Future song jacked off on GarageBand. Lame snares and lame backing tunes. One whole piano key. Wow, Drake, you’re almost as good at playing physical instruments as your mentor.

(Even he hates it.)

Sad to say the beat and production is probably the best part? Drake’s voice wrecks what was already a weak beat. Whenever he wants to be self-aggrandizing he just sounds fucking bored. Like the most self-aggrandizing thing about it is the fact that he doesn’t think he needs to actually try. In fact, The Motto (YOLO) had the exact same problem. I actually prefer that song. The beat still isn’t high art, but it’s got a little more snap to it. Kind of reminds me of Sage the Gemini’s Gas Pedal, which falls into the category of songs that aren’t that great but can be danced to if put on the setlist.

But this? It’s no fun. A hard 1 out of 5, and that’s only because its attempted premise was almost salvageable. But all I really got out of this song was that Drake is an asshole, he went to school with Lil Wayne apparently, his mom is really really nice since they only argue once a month, and he should just go back to desperately wishing his girlfriend would call him on his cell phone. You’re way better at being sad than--

Fucking... goddamnit.

Now Post Malone is kind of... different. In many ways. One time he said he doesn’t write rap music, and while normally I’d attribute that to him being a pussy who’s too afraid to contribute to what is and has always been a predominantly black genre and racism and he secretly doesn’t wanna be associated with them or whatever. But honestly I’m inclined to give Post Malone some leeway because really, he’s a singer. He makes notes. He’s singing with a hip-hop flow and occasionally has actual rap guests who... honestly end up doing a similar thing on his tracks. (In this case, it’s Quavo! Hurray!)

Oddly enough I actually went through a few songs to compare this to before settling on Drake. I considered Cheap Thrills, as they both sort of follow a similar concept of ‘today’s a good day, let’s go clubbing with only three bucks in our collective pockets’. Decided not to because really Cheap Thrills could be more accurately compared to a myriad of other songs. Considered White Iverson, his first single, but decided they didn’t really have enough in common to use it. I had options.

Really the only reason I went with this is because Congratulations succeeds in every place that Started From The Bottom fails.

Rather than attempting to detail Post Malone’s past suffering, it moreso discusses the actual rise to fame. And alllll the people who said he couldn’t do it.

Beatwise this one outclasses Drake’s already. I remember reading critics describing Started’s beat as “haunting”, which was apparently a good thing. I don’t get it. Congratulations, on the other hand, is carried by a sort of stoned, laidback tempo. Really speaks to the whole idea of “hey, we worked really hard, our album dropped, and now we can take a break and have some fun!”

Honestly if Post Malone wrote more songs like this and less straight-up luxury porn/self-aggrandizing rap like White Iverson or rockstar. (I feel like I’m a minority in not really minding either one of those songs.) Also I must say that Post Malone seems to be really good at picking guest artists. On rockstar he has 21 Savage, whose big thing is that he’s gangsta and shoots people and don’t fuck with him, which at least fits into the attempted tone. (Honestly Sav fits better on that song than Post does.) And in Congrats, we get Quavo.

Not only do Quavo and Post sound really good together on this, as their vocal range seems somewhat similar implying some kind of bro-type unity shit. Honestly this song gives me more band vibes than rockstar does, albeit a very different kind.

You know, you just started your band, you’re waiting to hit it big, you’ve put in all this effort with barely any money, you’re living in a shitbag apartment with 4 other sweaty dudes and you all have to sleep together and Quavo keeps rolling over and shoving his nuts in your face. It’s completely garbage and your drummer has to whore himself out for money, you accidentally get paid for a gig in beer tickets like in that one episode of Metalocalypse, and then finally, FINALLY, you drop a tape that hits big. You get on TV, you meet a record exec, and you’re calling your mom during the afterparty and you’re all celebrating because it’s been so LONG since you could just have a BREAK and now everybody’s SAUCIN’.

EXACTLY.

The lyrics work perfectly for this, but not only that, it’s to show all of the naysayers who insisted they couldn’t do it. All the haters who are now suddenly super gung-ho about how they used to be friends with Post Malone even though they actually shoved him in a locker literally every day. This somehow manages to be super-laidback and super-hype at the same time, which seems to be Post’s general style. Candy Paint has sort of a similar feel. That’s also a fucking great song. I love Post Malone. There. I said it.

But the biggest difference between these two songs is that I somehow get some feeling that Post Malone started somewhere. When I hear Congratulations, I feel like he actually had to put in some effort to get where he is. His first big hit only even got released because somebody leaked it. Nobody was ever expecting it to be as big as it is. Stoney in general is an insanely personal album, and it all feels surprisingly honest for the genre despite the drops of luxury porn and self-aggrandizing.

Basically, TL;DR: Drake cares more about the destination than the journey. Post gives us both the conflict and they payoff. Drake’s beat lacks texture or purpose, whereas Post manages to meld his melodic voice with a smooth backing track. Also, Post occasionally bothers with wordplay! Lyricism in a melodic rap song? Who would’ve thought?

Hell, it even manages to fix the “no new friends” idea displayed by Drake by sort of re-interpreting it as “no fake friends”.

And fuck, I almost forgot to mention Quavo.

Oh Quavo. Your verse may be short, severely lacking in punchlines and technically mediocre, but you just... you sound good. You sound good with Post. Somehow Post fucking Malone manages to totally outclass one of the Migos on this track. But Quavo does pretty well. I kinda like the “Huncho Houdini” line and a few of the football puns. In the end his verse is a little too short to really judge as anything more than decent.

(Also, the music video is great.)

But yeah, who would’ve thought this white stoner with braided sideburns would manage to completely slam Drake, the god of the late 2010′s? I’m honestly tempted to give this thing a 5 out of 5, but due to a few not-rhymes that nearly slip past due to Post’s mild drunken slur, I’d have to drop it into a 4.5/5. Still, I love this song. I love this song, I love Post Malone, fuck it. Judge me if you want. I have yet to hear a Post Malone song I don’t like.

Which I guess doesn’t mean much since he only has an album and an LP out, but...

It’s more than can be said for Drake at this point.

#song vs song #post malone #drake #song review #panda posts #music criticism

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