Popcorn Noises

TV on the Radio - “Will Do”

TV on the Radio wasn’t always like this, y’know. Take a second to think back to 2003, when their first EP earned them all kinds of gritty-experimental-band hype and “Staring at the Sun” delivered on it: a sweaty, forceful, gripping anthem that never lost an ounce of power in spite of being little more than a fuzz bass and voices. Sure, their 4-track fiddlings could miss as often as they hit, but by the time Return to Cookie Mountain rolled around a couple years later, TVotR seemed to be a band firing on all cylinders, crafting epic rock music that exhibited neither shame nor histrionics. As a person who likes to talk about cool music, this was some really cool music to talk about—from a major label, no less!—a good story to tell that got a lot less fun with Dear Science, a great record that, mostly because of my laziness, didn’t strike me with the same potency.

This is the point in the story for me at which listening to TV on the Radio becomes much more of an exercise in patience. That sounds like an insult, doesn’t it? I mean, why sit around pressing ‘repeat’ over and over again as you wait to start liking something when there’s plenty of music out there willing to roll out the red carpet for your ears. Besides, the very idea of a ‘grower’ is kinda silly: the recording doesn’t change; you do. Shouldn’t a discerning listener be confident enough in his/her own tastes to not need a dozen plays through a song before it does anything for them?

“I think we are compatible / I see that you think I’m wrong,” sings Tunde Adebimpe on “Will Do,” the first single from TVotR’s post-hiatus return Nine Types of Light. Somewhat ironic, yes? The song strolls along in a middle tempo and doesn’t make much of an effort to gather steam. There’s little (if any) of the white-noise distortion we’re used to getting from them and Adebimpe’s delivery is calm and casual. He’s not staring into the sun so much as donning shades and shrugging, while Kyp Malone and his awesomely staid falsetto barely show up at all. “Any time will do, my love,” goes the refrain, a statement of devotion that can just as easily sit like resignation. At this point, I think I can be forgiven for not taking to this amiable version of TVotR right away, as underwhelming as all this can look on paper. But don’t let “Will Do” fool you. Adebimpe’s singsongy hooks play effortlessly against the sultry-lite counter melodies on the guitar and, as usual, David Sitek’s production is deceptive. He has a way of crowding instruments together so that everything hits your ears at once, a textural substitute for the hot fuzz of ‘old’ TVotR that, in combination with all the tinkling bell sounds here, reimagines the airy harshness for which they’ve been known. It’s a style that takes time to hear, no matter how confident and discerning you are; not a ‘grower,’ but a slow listen that needs longer than its own 4 minutes to worm its way into your brain. Take that as a negative if you want, but even if you don’t think you’re compatible with this song, give it a shot anyway. TV on the Radio may yet prove you wrong.