Paul Thompson has worse shit on his identification card.
I’m drinking out of a mason jar. Open Mike Eagle taught me how to not be afraid of things: my credit score, old Atmosphere songs, the stupid fucking last three seasons of Lost. But his latest video, “Celebrity Reduction Prayer,” keeps me up at night. The Oddisee-produced contribution to the Mello Music Group compilation Persona aims to deconstruct our hero worship, but all it does is make me cry and check my Klout score. Think about it–if the Los Angeles-by-way-of-Chicago rapper cared about my sanity, why would he tear apart my HTML-supported sense of comfort? Why remind me my Twitter is artificial? I texted him about my discomfort last night; he laughed and sent me seventeen They Might Be Giants videos.
Last year, Mike strong-armed his way into iPhones and the issues of USA Today on your dad’s hotel doorstep with Dark Comedy. That album is dense, hilarious, and intermittently terrifying–have you ever driven through the upper Midwest three hours after you should have gone to sleep? But “Celebrity Reduction Prayer,” though it fits sonically with the LP, is looser around the collar, more flip in its tone. If someone in your Wednesday yoga class is in an NBC pilot, dap them, but don’t hang yourself.
