Spank Rock: "Energy"

The last thing I expected from a new Spank Rock track was restraint; heretofore his was music made up as the antithesis of all forms of decency. His first words on his debut album? “Ass-shaking competition champ / Ooh that pussy gets damp.” Remember the ridiculous title of that record, YoYoYoYoYo (2006); its sloshy, womp-heavy production, courtesy of XXXchange; the press photos; all the vulgar etc. It became nearly inconceivable that Spank would manufacture such an act and not mean it. Because, well, why would he?

So it was surprising when Spank Rock dropped the first single off his upcoming Everything is Boring and Everyone is a Fucking Liar and it seemed…off. Like: it’s the first Spank Rock track produced by Boys Noize, while simultaneously being the first track in Spank’s catalog not to sound like it was produced by Boys Noize. It’s titled “Energy” but jacks the beat from the inexorably laid-back Can and is quite possibly the least energetic song Spank’s done. And then he sings throughout the majority of this song, he who has never so much as held a single note in his professional career, and when he does rap he drops the line “keep it clean, that’s the only rule.” The fuck?

Spank was good at smut, had obscenity down to a marketable skill—once. Whether he’s being sarcastic, ironic, or what, it’s slightly tragic to hear him abandon his inexcusably crude party rap for what boils down to dance-punk.

Solid dance-punk, mind you: the “Vitamin C” sample is pure gold, a salaciously groovy bass and drums combo adorned with enough handclaps and synth runs to push it out of a jazz club and into a dance club. Plus Spank Rock sings with a sweet breathy moan that shouldn’t have been kept under wraps for this long, a croon so surprisingly adroit it had me convinced it was a guest vocalist’s work, despite all I read telling me otherwise. If he was committed to ditching his perv-hop ways for something different—his side project Mobroder surely strengthens that suspicion—he could have gone with worse moves (hi, Rebirth [2010]). One can still hold out hope that the rest of his latest album is as toe-curlingly graphic as his best.