Round and Round has been praised by many since it was released four years ago, and even I have shown my fond appreciation for that song on the Capsule Podcast. It’s a blessing and a curse, because Ariel Pink has had a large number of good songs released within the past few years (Bright Lit Blue Skies and Schnitzel Boogie, anyone?). His latest two albums Before Today and Mature Themes have received their kind words, sure, but I feel that Round and Round is slowly becoming the song that defines who he is. There is a justifiable reason here: It’s a damn good song. He is also quite the experimenter with what genres he wishes to dabble in, and the tone you’ll find in Round and Round is far from the only one he can identify with. Where his songs are ultimately tied together is with his uncanny ability to turn almost any oddity into music. Musicians like Björk and Einstürzende Neubauten will look at obscure noises we face every day and see how they can be applied to a song, where as Ariel Pink will throw his hands up in the air, say “fuck it, why not?” and use the sounds of the world that are the closest to him.
You’ll find these kinds of sounds in a song like Black Ballerina, the newest release off of the upcoming VHS-Wave release pom pom: A double album where the singles are a huge reminder that Ariel Pink is a terrific musical time machine. You’ll be rewound to the 80’s with this certain song, and some of the sounds that will come back with you are spoken vocals in reverse, echoing whispers and the very apparent sound of someone crunching on food (which gets used as a metronome of some sorts). There are many other random sounds that you can only excuse as events that simply got lost in the night. The setting truly gets made with this song; It’s one of his songs since Round and Round that have come close to achieving the same visual mastery (but just not as quite, as that will be a rare accomplishment). You are patrolling the city of your choice at night when suddenly all of the adult establishments catch your attention.
This song is sexually charged, but it is sneakily releasing a moral here. Pink sings about getting turned on, he asks for strippers to take their “bras and panties off”, and he relishes in the fact that he only has dollars to spend. While we have the cheesy beat and the suggestive lyrics, we are also given a bizarre bridge with dialogue. What sounds like a grandfather taking his grandson to a strip club is, oddly enough, the point of the song that truly reveals the point of the song. The old man, perverted in nature, sounds vile and wretched. His grandson is a stereotypically socially awkward boy who doesn’t know what to do with himself. You hear bottles breaking and people talking amongst this skit. It all goes downhill when the grandson inappropriately touches a stripper because he has no idea how this environment works. Who is the bigger creep: The grandfather that lives for this moment and doesn’t touch the women or the grandson that did come into contact with a dancer simply because he is naive?
Ariel Pink is in between these two age gaps, and Black Ballerina is a photograph of this point in his life. He is neither too young or too old to be considered unacceptable when he talks about this culture; So he feels, anyways. With the recent controversy he has sparked, this song may blow back in his face. He claims that he helped Madonna with her new album and he suggested that he helped her get back to being a credible singer and not just pretend she is “20 years old” again as she “gyrate[s]” to techno tracks. Not only was this negatively received by the press (singer Grimes has publicly shown her disgust with these comments), but Madonna herself denies that they even worked together. Maybe this was a publicity stunt to work hang in hang with this new song’s release, but Ariel Pink has never looked more shallow.
This somehow works in his favor, because this is exactly the kind of market Black Ballerina is attacking. It attacks the sex crazy ways of pop culture, and it also says that — hey — it’s actually okay to be a part of this; It’s still silly, though. Pink has described himself as a fan of early Madonna before, and he could have easily made a statement on pop as an entire entity. After all, he has run into trouble for what his mouth has spewed before, and he has announced that he may very well be “an asshole”. Maybe he is one. It’s hard to deny that he’s an asshole who can write some great songs, though. Black Ballerina is one of them, and this Talking Heads-esque sex nightmare (try saying that five times fast) is one of the few reasons why pom pom is a late-arriving album that could still put a spin on 2014.
