TV on the Radio: "Dancing Choose"

On 2006’s Return To Cookie Mountain, TV On The Radio frontman Tunde Adebimpe was noticeably a less up-front presence, content to mesh in with Kyp Malone’s airy falsettos and a chunky stew of backup voices. New single “Dancing Choose,” from the upcoming Dear Science, features Adebimpe in his most grabbing and foreground performance to date. This is due primarily to the fact that, for the verses, Adebimpe is left mostly on his own, to let loose with a, er, rap, of sorts. He’s not exactly a MC, nor is this flowing poetry, but rather it’s the kind of manic chanting that’s somewhere between “It’s The End Of The World As We Know It” and “We Didn’t Start The Fire.”

TVOTR works best lyrically when the words fit in that symbiotic niche with the music—think of a line like “why don’t you save yourself / I’ll save you all the time,” from “Blind”; it’s nothing special on paper, but that’s the magic of music and lyrics. Unfortunately, Adebimpe’s stiffly awkward rhymes are at odds with the minimal drums, bass, and sax stabs that garnish the verses. The effect is that, for much of the verses, the rest of TVOTR are making a beat, sure to stay in the background. And when, in the midst of lyrics that vaguely convey confusion in this wired, always-on society we live in, Adebimpe name checks “every young man in American Apparel is…” I can’t help but think “…listening to TV On The Radio on his iPod?” The pseudo-rapped lyrics can’t help but feel like misfired novelty.

The little epic Brooklyn band that could hasn’t completely struck out, though. The urgency is still there, particularly in the chorus, in which the band resumes playing as a unit, complete with Malone’s ethereally pained vocal strains. Also still apparent is the sincerity factor: Adebimpe might be spitting some flailing, eccentric verses, but whatever it is, he clearly means it. With a little tweaking and perhaps an increased instrumental presence on the verses, this could be gold, and Dear Science is still likely to be a doozy of a record. The title is a pretty lame pun, but then again, who’d have thought an album called Return To Cookie Mountain would be any good?

Note: It would seem that I misheard the lyrics to “Dancing Choose”—the line quoted should instead be “angry young mannequin / American apparently.” This ruins my poor attempt as a hipster barb, but such is life.