Ms Badu’s new mixtape is dedicated to our obsession with a single piece of technology — the telephone.
Erykah Badu/ But You Caint Use My Phone
Let’s face it, songs about telephone calls are hardly a novelty — back in the early ’80s we had Blondie’s Debbie Harry imploring her lover to “call me!” while Stevie Wonder was just calling to say “I love you”. However, with smartphones having become an intrinsic part of our modern existence, the subject matter is more relevant today than ever. Two of this year’s biggest hits, Drake’s Hotline Bling and Adele’s Hello, revolve around phone drama, and now we have American neo-soul diva Erykah Badu, who not only has jumped on the bandwagon, but also kicked it up a notch with her 11-track mixtape, the fantastically-named But You Caint Use My Phone.
The mixtape marks Badu’s new material since her fifth studio album, 2010’s New Amerykah Part Two, and is the second mixtape following a compilation she put together earlier this year called Feel Better, World! The first taste of But You Caint arrived in October in the form of a cover — a splendid rework of Drake’s Hotline Bling. Here titled Cel U Lar Device, the song is built on the original beat, which is sampled from Timmy Thomas’ Why Can’t We Live Together. It features a new verse where she plays the role of an automated phone service, giving callers sassy dialing options: “You’ve reached the Erykah Badu hotline/If you’re calling for Erykah, press 1/If you’re calling to say peace, and don’t really fit into any of those descriptions/Text me, because I don’t really answer voicemail.”
The remainder of the mixtape strictly adheres to the telephone concept — from opener Caint Use My Phone (Suite) that uses all sorts of phone sound effects and 36-second interlude Hi on which she repeatedly croons “hello, hello, hey, hello hello” to the straight-up hip hop number Phone Down and the André 3000-assisted closer Hello. On the latter, the Outkast member lays down a slick lyrical flow about having “awesome thoughts of tossin’ this softer palate” while Badu revisits the “hello” line on Hi, then breaks out singing “Hello, it’s me, baby/I thought about us for a long, long time”.
While it can feel repetitive and self-indulgent at times, But You Caint Use My Phone is a thematically-cohesive, largely playful body of work from one of the finest neo-soul artists of our time. Bear in mind that this is not meant to be a proper album but a mixtape, so in that sense, it warrants a melange of ideas that manifest themselves through all these different interludes, sketches and musical motifs.
What this mixtape also subtly portrays is how much our lives are inextricably tied to our phones — a reminder for us, then, to perhaps look up from the glowing screen and see what’s going on around us in real life once in a while.
THE PLAYLIST
Polycat/ Mun Pen Krai (Alright)
So few bands have made ’80s throwback music more convincingly than pop-rock five-piece Polycat. After releasing a trilogy of hugely successful singles last year, the boys return with Mun Pen Krai (Alright), which continues to draw its wistful inspiration from the bygone era, plus elements of ’90s R&B that includes a spoken word intro, choir, saxophone breakdown, as well as throwaway fillers like “alright” and “oh babe”. If you’re a fan of Polycat’s previous releases, this one should be another delightful treat for you.
David Bowie/ Blackstar
David Bowie is once again poised for an interstellar expedition as he’s announced the forthcoming release of Blackstar, his 25th studio LP. The album’s title track and first single is a sprawling 10-minute number crammed with outlandish elements covering jazz, funk, avant-garde and Gregorian chant. As far as the lyrics go, they’re equally puzzling — with references (or are they riddles?) to fictitious places like “the villa of Ormen”, macabre imagery (“on the day of execution, only women kneel and smile”) and how he wants “eagles in [his] daydreams, diamonds in [his] eyes”.
Coldplay (featuring Gwyneth Paltrow)/ Everglow
Everglow is the second cut from Coldplay’s just released seventh studio album, A Head Full of Dreams. Musing about all the positive memories that linger following the departure of a loved one, frontman Chris Martin has fittingly enlisted his ex-wife Gwyneth Paltrow to sing, albeit very faintly, backing vocals. “And though you might be gone/And the world may not know/Still I see you’re celestial,” he croons over a twinkling piano. “There’s a light that you give me/When I’m in shadows/It’s a feeling within me, everglow.” It’s a bit like Fix You, but less depressing.
MIA/ Borders
Not one to shy away from being unabashedly political, MIA has shared Borders, a single dedicated to the European refugee crisis. “Politics, what’s up with that?/Police shots, what’s up with that?/Identities, what’s up with that?/Your privilege, what’s up with that?” she quizzes alongside a lilting woodwind and hip hop beat. Then, in the second verse, she touches on today’s pop culture, firing off a string of some of this year’s most hashtagged buzzwords (“slaying it”, “being bae”, “breaking internet”, “love wins” and “living it”), repeatedly asking, “what’s up with that?”
The Corrs/ Bring On the Night
It’s been a decade since we’ve heard new music from The Corrs, the Irish sibling quartet whose hits What Can I Do? and All the Love in the World still haunt restaurants and cafes in Thailand today. Now they’re back with their sixth studio album, White Light, and Bring On the Night is the lead single from it. Musically, the song relies on the very sound that had made them a household name from in the ’90s. You know the sound we’re talking about — a collection of rather beige, uninspired love songs with an occasional whiff of traditional Irish folk.
