A Decade in Sweatpants.
Ten years of Because the Internet.
From Assassin’s Creed, Grand Theft Auto V and Peaky Blinders, 2013 was a busy year in the entertainment space, which meant 2023 (well, mine at least) was equally busy with retrospectives.
So as 2024 looms, I figured, hey, why not one more? Today, we’re looking back on an album that even now, a decade later, inspires discussion. And remains a personal favourite too.
As always, thank you for reading Off-Balance! Until next time.
Ryan.
To see where Donald Glover is now, with a body of work that stretches across genres, artistic lines and numerous mediums, it isn’t all that surprising to consider where he was in 2006.
Just 23, fresh out of university and only beginning to establish himself as an up-and-coming creative when he was hired as a writer on 30 Rock.
But that has always been the folly of those who would look to undervalue or perhaps even pigeonhole Glover, isn’t it? Trying to fit him into one particular box, only to be routinely defeated by his sheer versatility.
Within four years, he’d go from the writer’s room, to stand-up, to being a standout on the sitcom Community (where his character, Troy Barnes, was featured in five of the show’s six seasons).
And with that success, there came another shift - into music.
Under his stage name, Childish Gambino, Glover had been steadily putting out projects for a number of years but it was with the back-to-back releases, most prominently, of mixtape Culdesac (2010) and his debut album, Camp (2011), where you could start to see his musicianship, ever-eclectic, come into clearer focus.
Culdesac, broadly, follows the larger trend that was emerging in hip-hop at the time, (or re-emerging, depending on your perspective) with a focus on the introspective, the personal, a willingness to take established genre standards and turn them inward.
From the heavy hitters like Kendrick Lamar, Kid Cudi and Mac Miller, Glover wasn’t the first but even so, you could see it happening right there, track-by-track, as he created a sound and spoke from a lyrical space that was uniquely his own.
Bravado, modesty and social commentary, all at once.
Culdesac’s lyrics, subdued and quiet, almost poetry instead of “bars”, are overlaid with alt-rock and folk influence, presented with such absolute earnestness, it becomes, if not quite there, then almost vulnerability. The same goes for Camp, if only because it exists on the opposite end of that spectrum.
The production work of Glover’s long-time collaborator, Ludwig Göransson, is strong, confident, definite. It matches the lyricism, which, even now (especially on tracks like “Bonfire” and “Backpackers”) still surprise, by way of sheer bombast.
All of it, leading to Because the Internet, which released ten years ago this month, in December of 2013.
And how does it hold up, a decade on? Well, for my money? It feels both inherently dated, given the 2010-circa Internet-culture focus driving much of the material (yet because of that, to be fair, nostalgic) and equally timeless.
Whether it is the uncertainty over a relationship’s future (“Telegraph Ave.”) a commitment to ever-lasting love (at least in the chorus) masking worries of morality and thoughts of existentialism on “3005” or“Worldstar” - which ruminates on the nature of fame, while, on the same hand, being indebted to a title taken from a pop culture website.
“Sweatpants”, with its industrial-beat and battle-rap-esque lyrics is instantly recognizable, even if you haven’t heard it in years.
Or maybe, for you, like it is for me, that song is “The Worst Guys”, instead.
Like any musical or artistic undertaking, while one’s experience and perspective, will always vary, it helps, I believe, to best understand where Glover himself was coming from.
Did you know Because the Internet, the album, is only one part of a larger project, a more complete experience?
Alongside it, Glover released two companion pieces: a screenplay he wrote, which is meant to be read in tandem as you listen to the album and to both, a prequel short film, Clapping for the Wrong Reasons (you can read the script at this link, if you’re so curious).
Totally unified in narrative triumph? Not by any measure, although it is made very clear that yes, that is the point (the screenplay specifically almost seems to enjoy taunting the reader with its lack of coherence - clarity one moment, befuddlement the next).
Such ambiguity though, should be expected. It is, after all, right there in the name: the Internet.
A place where millions-upon-millions of scattered ideas, in any given moment, co-exist. And really, only an artist of Glover’s many talents could successfully pull such a concept off.
The protagonist of all three pieces, as played by Glover himself in the short film, is “The Boy”.
A young man who seems to meander somewhat aimlessly through life, his days filled with emotional repetition, constant “being online” consumerism and vapid partying, until circumstance force him to confront something approaching purpose.
More a cultural commentary than anything else, as frustrating as it can be to consume from a pure artistic standpoint, you can’t help but respect it.
And that’s the thing. Glover could’ve stayed there, in that space, for probably as long as he liked. He did, for a little while, at least, on his next musical project, 2014’s mixtape/EP, STN MTN/Kauai, which shared some thematic tissue with Because the Internet - but then, that was it.
Because the Internet didn’t become the launching pad for some sort of extended musical undertaking, the first in a proper trilogy of albums, where each line, every beat, was obsessively scrutinized until the whole enterprise collapsed under its own weight.
It, rather simply, was what it was.
Instead? We could only hope to see where Glover went next.
Primarily, that was to Atlanta, the comedy-surrealist-drama television series, he created, co-wrote and starred in, which across its four seasons, received total acclaim. But there was too, his move into Hollywood, where he has starred in two different Spider-Man films, had a supporting role in The Martian and played a younger Lando Calrissian in 2018’s Solo: A Star Wars Story.
Even then though, Glover’s musical reach continued to expand, whether it was jazz/soul infused stylings of his third album,"Awaken, My Love!" or the multi-Grammy winning effort of the 2018 song, This is America.
As Gambino, Glover hasn’t released any new music, individually, in three years. Speaking to GQ this past spring, it seems he’s set his sights on even bigger creative highs - where those will take him, only time will tell.
Until then however, there remains Because the Internet.
At times imperfect and unsure, even as, totally ambitious, it strives for something seemingly out of reach. It features an artist not at the peak of his powers necessarily but rather, laying the groundwork for his succeeding acts.
But how impressive it is.