What is the obsession with dodgy rap collaborations?
Sam Smith and Logic, Eminem and Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar, why? Just, WHY?!
I have a real issue at the moment, and I have had it for some time. I can’t get my head around the weird collaborations that artists are releasing that don’t seem to add anything to their original songs.
The thought struck me earlier on today, when I heard the recently released Pray, an album track by Sam Smith reworked to feature American rapper Logic. Now I like Sam Smith (I wrote a review on his current album, The Thrill of it All, which you can read here) and I like his newest album, but I simply don’t understand the obsession that modern artists have with uniting with radically different artists to make obscure mismatch songs. Take the album version of Pray, for example. It is what you would now describe as the “Sam Smith sound”, with gospel choir, thoughtful lyric and lush orchestration. So why chop it up and make a much inferior product by crowbarring in a rapper?
Unfortunately these songs aren’t always just bolt-ons to albums either. Take the Eminem/Ed Sheeran song River. Both artists are majorly successful in their individual fields, but the song is like a Frankenstein’s monster of sewn-together verses and choruses. If you could divide the rap verses from the sung choruses, there is a clear divide between the “normal Ed Sheeran” song and the “circa 2013 era Eminem” song, and it doesn’t feel okay to me.
Now I know that there are all sorts of reasons that things like this can happen; be it a record label issue, or even a maximum publicity push, but my question is why? These decisions seem to lack integrity musically, and often do a disservice to both artists concerned.
Sam Marshall is a freelance musician, writer and reviewer based in SW UK.
