Childish Gambino Faces Off Against Time

The rollout for the new Childish Gambino project has been strange, to say the least. Released in the dead of night on March 15, the album was available only on Gambino’s private website “donaldgloverpresents.com” for exactly 12 hours before being pulled off the Internet indefinitely. This strange marketing stunt preceded five days of silence on Gambino’s part before the album was officially released onto streaming platforms on March 20.

The bizarre nature of the album, however, doesn’t end with the release schedule. The album cover of “3.15.20” is a plain, white background with no text or pictures, and the titles of almost every single song are just the timestamps of when that track occurs in the tracklist. For many artists, a concept album to such a great magnitude would produce mixed results, but Gambino is no stranger to a slightly atypical album; see “Because the Internet” (2013) and “Awaken, My Love” (2016). He uses this prior experience to play to his strengths on “3.15.20.”

Opening with “0.00,” a three-minute track with soft synths, glistening keys, and no lyrics other than the phrase “we are” repeated 30 times in rhythmic harmony, the project gets off to a surreal start. This sets the pace for the rest of the album and ensures the listener knows they’re not in for a typical listening experience.

Gambino comes onto the album on the proceeding tracks, rapping, singing, and vibing to an assortment of beats that range from tropical to experimental to dark and brooding. Part of what brings this project to life and keeps the 57-minute album moving along with adequate pacing is the variation in the beats and sound from track to track. In just a three-song run (from “32.22” to “39.28”), Gambino panic-raps over a Kanye West “Black Skinhead” type beat, transitions into upbeat guitar sing-along territory, and then completely switches lanes into barbershop quartet-esque harmonies, all within the span of just over seven minutes.

This experimental feel, however, can go in both directions. While it is a delight to listen to Gambino expertly master dozens of unique styles and sounds, some overly experimental aspects of the project feel gratuitous. The album’s longest track “24.19,” which spans a tiring eight minutes, features a minute-long outro that consists of a man moaning into the microphone while fast-paced, heartbeat-like drums thump in the background. This feature adds nothing to the concept of the album and drags an already lengthy track to the point where the song’s replay value is nonexistent. Another example of Gambino’s gratuitous outro-work occurs on “Algorhythm,” one of two songs in the album that doesn’t feature a title timestamp. This track, a mostly pulsing, groovy song with Denzel Curry/Kanye West-inspired beats and vocals, is weakened by the ridiculous outro, which is 20 seconds of chaotic, offbeat, pitchy drums that add nothing to the track.

Only after multiple listens does one realize that the shorter a track is on “3.15.20,” the better it seems to be. With an album that changes and shifts so much, a song that drags on too long can make for an unfortunate stall in the powerful momentum that some other tracks carry.

But criticizing the problems in “3.15.20” accentuates the parts when the album shines. When they’re not being used for annoying sidetracks, the synths and drums on this album lend themselves to a richly produced body of work that transcends genre definition. Earworms like “35.31” exhibit why Gambino is such a coveted performer, with peppy guitars, smooth drums, and tropical background effects making for a smile-inducing three minutes.

One cannot get through a review of this album, however, without addressing the elephant in the room: why is “3.15.20” so fixated on the concept of time? The lyrics and instrumentals seemingly don’t reflect this sentiment, which leads me to believe that the mystery behind the timestamps, album title, and cover is not for the audience to understand. Donald Glover is a man who likes to keep a mystery alive, so having a cryptic album theme is the perfect way for him to keep his audience guessing as they listen to the project.

Gambino’s latest project is definitely a divisive one. While Pitchfork gives it just a 6.0/10, Rolling Stone gives it a perfect 5/5 and spends paragraphs upon paragraphs praising the project. I sit somewhere in the middle. I can appreciate most of this album for being a break from traditional music standards and an exciting piece of experimental work, but I can’t help but feel tired when this experimental nature begins to control Gambino, instead of the other way around. All in all, this album was a jolting exercise in experimental music and makes me very excited for the next Gambino project, whenever that may be.