Board 8 > Rank the Tracks 103: clipping. - Splendor & Misery (+ Parklife results)

(+) Yeah! (+)

I think Johnbobb just unlocked expert difficulty for Rank the Tracks

Oh shit I might have to muster up the energy to do this album this week.

Caroline Polachek - Desire, I Want to Turn Into You > SOPHIE - Oil of Every Pearl's Un-Insides > Jockstrap - I Love You Jennifer B

Oh shit I might have to muster up the energy to do this album this week.

Caroline Polachek - Desire, I Want to Turn Into You > SOPHIE - Oil of Every Pearl's Un-Insides > Jockstrap - I Love You Jennifer B

• I don't really know what to say here that isn't obvious. These harmonies are gorgeous, full to the point of making you forget there's not any accompanying instrumentation, and the severity of this story - the way it draws you not just into this character but her cause, her charisma, the idea of her as a revolutionary champion of the people cut down in a tragedy - to give us that and then successfully couch all of this in the idea of a future traditional song concerning now-contemporary times is such an interesting juxtaposition. I can't claim to understand the finer points of Splendor & Misery's narrative, but I appreciate and respect Story 5's position in relation to the story of the prisoner, and I'm never not crushed listening to it.

• Concept albums have a bad habit of losing the plot and either ending up somewhere unsatisfying or ending on a total non sequitor. I have a lot of respect for the way A Better Place brings everything full circle, and the way it directly grapples with the story without feeding us a resolution. Every verse having its own flow is a great chance for Diggs to stretch his legs, and I adore the "local baseball stadium" vibe of that lead organ instrument.

• One of the quiet successes of S&M is its establishment of three distinct voices: the precise diction of the ship's computer, the soulful howl of the a capella hymns, and the snarl of the prisoner. This last voice really only comes through on a few tracks, but Air 'Em Out establishes him so well with those in-universe bars. Usually hip hop concept projects have to digress pretty hard to produce a bop - think Backseat Freestyle - so I'm perpetually impressed by clipping.'s ability to ground this comfortably within their setting.

• All Black could be a standalone story. Having a full arc from escape to desperation to resignation to collaboration, all told through the ship's perspective, with no non-musical digressions, with a multifaceted chorus that serves the story differently each time around, and with an open-ended sense of resolution - it's almost a disservice to the tracks that follow it when you can tune out at this point and feel fulfilled.

• That fucking noise beat. The whole disc is full of bursts of noise and sound effect stabs, but Baby Don't Sleep is by far the best execution in a musical context. The long, slightly off balance rumbling low end, slightly reminiscent of thundering hooves, and then that sharp KRZZZZZT acting as the release, over and over and over again. The flow over the top is just a bonus.

• Listening through for this ranking made me realize how much of the heavy lifting on this album is done by interlude tracks, even though it might not be apparent from their placement in lists. Long Way Away (Intro) has always been striking to me for its introduction of that haunting melody which acts as a refrain throughout the record. It does come back on Long Way Away, which is similar but a little less impactful, and Long Way Away (Interlude) with less structure but a very nice use of theremin, but the intro version sticks out to me the most.

• This is basically the intro to All Black and it's difficult to evaluate it on an individual basis, but the force with which you're introduced to Diggs here is remarkable. The first time I heard this absolutely perfect diction at speed it was mind blowing and that effect has never fully worn off.

1. True Believer - True Believer captures everything I love about clipping. It combines the hymnlike vocals, the industrial beats, the atmospheric sci-fi effects, story-telling lyricism and Daveed Diggs' rapping ability (who doesn't rap any faster than exactly how he needs to, making his voice just another part of the song's industrial sound).
2. All Black - I had liked clipping before this album, but I think this song in particular (combined with Story 2) really showed me what they were capable of in terms of telling entire stories within a single song. There's so much happening here to in the background to boost that story and set the stage for the rest of the album
3. A Better Place - After a full album of tragedy, violence, sadness, anger and desperation, it goes out on a high note, both emotionally and in the context of it's story. As the protagonist pushes out into uncharted distant space, he, the AI and the listener all get that last boost of inspiration to find something better, and the slower, melodic hymns are replaced by upbeat chimes and bells and it just really ties the whole thing together
4. Air 'Em Out - Interstellar gangster rap. True Believer (and the following instrumental) are a distinct turning point for the album, and in Air 'Em Out we hear the character only known as Cargo #2331 really taking over and taking his rage out on the slavers.
5. Break the Glass - hey have I mentioned how much I love this album's industrial beats yet
6. Story 5 - What a fuckin switchup. We'd gotten some hymn-styled songs meshed with the sci-fi setting, but this is just a direct hymn about a horrifying story, and it's a story that clipping fans were already vaguely familiar with! Almost every clipping album features a "Story __" song and in the very first Story 1, a rap is told from the perspective of Randy, a beat cop just starting out getting called onto the scene of Grace's violent death (later revealing that Grace was his sister). The Story songs are always particularly tragic, telling a slow-burn connected story that both connect to the others, but also the albums they're on (ex. Story 7, which appears in There Existed an Addiction to Blood, is full on supernatural horror, while still keeping with the story arc)
7. Long Way Away - Look, I already rambled about how cool the very basis of this album's story is (lone survivor of a space slave colony) but pairing the style of slave hymns in a sci-fi setting interspersed with the rap is just so good
8. Long Way Away (Intro) - Natalie nailed it in their comments about this song. A big part of what makes this album so incredible is the interludes. They aren't silly unrelated sketches like often appear in rap albums; they're atmospheric and intense and often contain brief chunks of excellent lyricism
9. Baby Don't Sleep - This song is told from the perspective of the AI just like All Black, and is the final push of the AI to encourage Cargo #2331 to survive, and it's aggressive and at times almost hard to listen to as it actively tries to break the album's protagonist out of his lull into sleep
10. Wake Up
11. The Breach - I will stand by the opinion that Daveed Diggs is the most talented rapper working today. He doesn't just rap quickly, he does so in such a way that the lyrics are always crisp and precise and comphrensible so that even tiny songs like this are startling
12. Interlude 01 (Freestyle) - There's an argument to be made that trading out atmosphere in place of the ability to actual hear the lyrics is a bad thing. I won't make the argument, but it could be made.
13. Interlude 02 (Numbers) - This is barely a song, but it's also a big part of what makes me love the album. The letters being read out are a cipher that require a keyword (that's later provided in Air 'Em Out, "the keyword is Kemmer") and ultimately spells out "The target is Amy Clark" but it's theorized that it refers to Dr. Clark (a character that appears in Story 2, a song on their prior album that also connects to this album's Story 5) but it's also the name of a real-life escaped slave.
14. Interlude 03 (Freestyle)
15. Long Way Away (Instrumental)

1. Air 'Em Out
2. All Black
3. Wake Up
4. Baby Don't Sleep
5. Story 5
6. A Better Place
7. True Believer
8. The Breach
9. Interlude 01 (Freestyle)
10. Long Way Away
11. Long Way Away (Intro)
12. Break the Glass
13. Interlude 03 (Freestyle)
14. Long Way Away (Instrumental)
15. Interlude 02 (Numbers)