By Genre: Neo-Soul
Favorite Tracks: N/A
I’m gonna cut to the chase: This shit is some serious dogshit. When a dog goes doo doo out of its lil shithole, it is generally somewhat amusing, albeit fairly gross. Listening to 3.15.20 is roughly the same experience, but imagine the dog was trying to convince you it’s hot dump was High Art. Actually, on second thought, that would be magnitudes better and more entertaining than 3.15.20.
There are no redeeming qualities to 3.15.20. At no point does it approach anything approximating Good; it rarely feels like you are listening to a song. 3.15.20 doesn’t even have flaws, because there are no goals or destinations or concepts to be executed. It is formless garbage drifting through a vast ocean with no shore in sight. Glover’s myriad influences are obfuscated at every turn; there are plenty of different sounds, but they don’t sound like music. There are times where it truly feels as if the studio engineer has just domed a fifth of Smirnoff on his first day at the job. Songs like “19.10” are so poorly mixed they could be mistaken for avant-garde critiques of pop music, but the only thing Glover seemed to put any thought to was the nauseatingly pretentious track listing that affixes timestamps to each song save for tracks two and three, titled fucking “Algorhythm” and “Time.”
Some songs flow into one another with the grace of a kindergarten track relay while others spend three entire goddamn minutes ending. There are no grand climaxes or conclusions just as there are no beginnings to speak of. Tracks like “0.00” are embarrassing while “12.38” are plain baffling, the latter truly deranged with CAMP-like bars that rhyme “bell hooks” with “dirty look” (Glover is, of course, receiving said dirty look from a woman’s vagina). If you want to hear what THE LION KING hyenas’ take on YEEZUS sounds like, listen to “32.22;” if you want to hear Glover poorly cosplay Nine Inch Nails and french electro, try “Algorhythm”; if you survived Abu Ghraib and want revenge, lock Bush’s cabinet in a room and toss the album on shuffle.
On the rare occasions that exude some semblance of an artistic vision, the product is sloppy. The beat switch on “35.31” sounds like they accidentally copy-pasted the wrong loops for the track’s second half. Insanely long cuts like “12.38” are complete sideshows; picture Michigan J. Frog dragging a dead horse to the finish line at the Kentucky Derby. At one point on the record, Glover’s frantic moans sound like he’s having sex while held at gunpoint. Each mishap is more baffling than the last, compounding to Adam Neumann levels of psychotic navel-gazing.
It is phenomenal that a Sony Music vehicle could turn out so horridly weird. The only thing that could be charitably called an actual song is the last one, “53.49.” Mercifully, it does not exceed four minutes, though it really doesn’t warrant half its run. In fairness, there are good bits in there; Glover exudes an energy that, if applied to the whole record, could’ve produced a couple hits. But it’s far too little and way too late.
That Glover was able to cobble together something so psychedelically disastrous is a more astonishing feat than any in his career—I would’ve thought it impossible to have a resume bullet point more embarrassing than Andrew Yang 2020 Creative Consultant, but here we are. With 3.15.20, Glover proves that he pulled off the greatest ideological heist in recent memory: convincing people that not only is his music good, but that it is the work of an auteur.
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