The best part of Thundercat and Eric Andre’s collaboration in the music video for “Tron Song”, is that the images and music absolutely do not combine to create any form of traditionally meaningful or powerful experience. Instead, the video consists of an amalgam Thundercat’s numerous personality quirks slammed together with Eric Andre’s distinctive directorial style and absurdist humor, resulting in three minutes and change of wackiness and tonal ambiguity that both confound and enchant the listener.
A track off of Thundercat’s second album, Apocalypse, Tron Song has all of seven distinct lines of lyrics, with the majority of the track consisting of Thundercat’s chordal bass guitar (emphasis on the guitar) technique, paired with multiple tracks of Thundercat’s floaty falsetto harmonizing over itself. To call the track a ballad is misleading, especially with Flying Lotus’ constantly shifting percussion that occasionally underlines Thundercat, but the feeling behind the track is that of a traditional ballad with the main lines of the hook, “Don’t you ever leave me turbo troooooooooooooooon, Don’t ever wonder where I’m going”, being a loving reference to Thundercat’s cat, Turbo Tron Over 9000 Jesus Baby Sally.
This provides a segue into how a video of this aesthetic even came into existence. A comedy collective named JASH began a series on YouTube (of which this is the second video) with the simple premise of giving $5,000 and full creative control to a comedian and musician tandem to create a music video. It’s fitting that JASH chose one of the most unique voices in television currently, as Eric Andre hosts quite possibly the most absurd talk-show of all time on Adult Swim. A bonafide master in the art of cringe comedy, low-budget spectacle and all around nonsense (as evidenced by simply the intro of his first show), Andre is the perfect choice to direct for this premise, and pairing him with the most singular bassists since Jaco Pastorius (and one of the most unique personalities in the music scene today) was a great way to extend such as the 5K music video idea.
As for the video itself, low budget is the name of the game as Eric Andre uses effects to create tape glitch or distorted effects, reminiscent of schlocky 90’s b-movies that you would find on VHS in the back of a video store. This could easily come off as gimmicky if it weren’t for the fact that Thundercat looks and dresses like a character straight out of a 90’s B-movie with hair in every direction and a wardrobe that defies any conventions, ranging from varsity jackets to Vegeta’s armor from the TV show Dragon Ball Z. If there was any doubt over the nonsensical direction this music video would take, Andre eliminates it by cutting in an image of Thundercat playing his bass on backside where there are no strings in the first thirty seconds. The breaking point in the video is around the 40th second where Thundercat’s discovery of a handgun (and subsequent suicide?) in a human-sized litter box coincides with Flying Lotus’ drum pattern crashing in. The following images that range from police brutality to Thundercat traveling through Tron’s anus into space to defecation and sexual acts in the aforementioned litter box are almost to an extent disturbing, especially considering the cute quirkiness of the first half a minute. Herein lies Eric Andre’s brilliance though, as he employs a technique he used to make his talk show a viral hit. Andre takes a pre-established format familiar to the average person (such as a talk show, or in this case, a typical love song video), but throws out every semblance of internal logic and coherence, instead attempting to provoke simply any type of reaction, be it disgust, incredulousness or anger via increasingly absurd images. This type of direction and aesthetic is perfect for Thundercat, who as a bassist also capitalizes on a level of incredulity and subversion. The traditional bassist plays on four strings, single notes, and for the most part is part of the background and foundation of the music rather than the ornament. Thundercat turns all of these standards on their heads, playing a six-string bass in a very guitar-like matter, with outrageous eye-catching clothes and a penchant to very rarely play on the low-end of the instrument (similar to his perpetual falsetto), all of which serve to emphasize the absurdity of his existence as a musician.
As for Youtube’s response to the video, the majority of people appear to already have some knowledge of either personality involved so this portrays their general reaction after watching the video.
Some people though, such as Unreal Psycho, are more perplexed that there was any money involved, asking, “where’d the 5k go to?”. In all actuality, my guess would be that the most expensive aspect of the video was having to buy the rights for the outro where Andre’s head blows up and Mortal Kombat’s classic FATALITY is said. Past that, the most expensive part would probably be buying a chroma key program (not expensive) to impose Thundercat playing bass over weird locations.
Jesse Smith states: “fuck this man. This is him just messing around, but the melody is life threateningly good”. I can’t exactly argue with this logic, but I’m not sure what Smith was expecting since none of Thundercat’s previous artistic output has ever been extremely self-serious. His whole artistic personality is based off of tongue in cheek humor and sarcasm. Finally, with a more serious comment attempting to process the track itself, Hambloko says, “really digging the chord progressions. It’s like Prog R&B”. In general, I feel as though attempting to categorize someone as unique as Thundercat just ends up in redundancy, giving people both expectations that are impossible to fill, since Thundercat doesn’t fit into any category perfectly, while also possibly turning off potential listeners, especially since genres like Prog have a somewhat elitist and indecipherable connotation. He is right that the chord progression is dope though.
Opportunities for further exploration:
Or any other Eric Andre skit or interview (there’s plenty of compilations on Youtube)
An interview to get a better idea of Thundercat and his beliefs in music and life
Hannibal Burress and Chance the Rapper’s JASH video
This is a great post! I really enjoyed the video — one of the few Eric Andre sketches I am not familiar with, so that was a fun new thing to see. I appreciated your use of links and media (especially the link to the tweet explaining Turbo Tron’s full name), and I think you did a good job introducing the video and providing background, assessing the overall aesthetic, and dissecting the motivation behind commenters’ reactions. I think you could have also touched on the use of visual repetition as a tool to bridge the gap between total randomness and intentional absurdity, which was definitely something I noticed as a theme in the Tim and Eric Totino’s video I talked about in my blog but is definitely still relevant here. And the further exploration options are great — I would have included the Froot Loops Subway skit myself (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UlXcoVHnog), but that’s a matter of personal taste! Overall great work, a fun blog to read.