Friday, November 15, 2013

ATM Jam | Azealia Banks feat. Pharrell Williams

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

In the ongoing saga of Azealia Banks and the delayed release date of her debut album, Broke With Expensive Taste, Banks has added a new hurdle. Last month, she released "ATM Jam," a single made in collababoration with Pharrell, but it's evident that she couldn't care less about the single... and the same goes for the rest of the world.

"ATM Jam" is just a flat, plain beat; there's no other way to put it. There's absolutely nothing special about it, especially when compared to Banks' outstanding 1991 and Fantasea mixtape. I feel like it was only pushed for release due to the feature of Pharrell Williams, who saw a boost of popularity in Daft Punk's "Get Lucky" and Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines." Williams takes over most of the song, with his chorus line repeating six million times throughout the song.

Dear God, if I hear "I've got racks, racks, racks 'til the ATM jam / Tell me what you wanna do" one more time, my head might explode. It's a monotonous way to go about a chorus, which is supposed to be the height of the song. Instead, Banks' verses overpower the chorus simply by her vocal power. Her verses really aren't bad, they're just stuck in between repetitions of that terrible chorus.


Sadly, even Banks knows how bad the song is; she has openly admitted that she doesn't like the song and has even decided to take it off of the album that it was supposed to be promoting. Williams also has moved away from the song, because as Banks said on Twitter, "he changed his mind about wanting to be associated with [Azealia Banks]." So, with both Banks and Williams not giving two fucks about it, "ATM Jam" was left to die... two weeks after it had been formally released.

Do I have a problem with the song's early entry to the grave? Not at all. I'm just going to sit here and listen to 1991 while I wait out the release of Broke With Expensive Taste. I can only hope that it doesn't get pushed back any farther than the scheduled January 2014 release date, but if she keeps switching the track listings for it, we may never see the album.

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