Critics deem Atmosphere emo rap

Atmosphere’s When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold has excellent rhymes.

By Lindsay Eanet

Published April 29, 2008

Maybe it’s the cold that makes Minneapolis rap duo Atmosphere so melancholy, to the point that their lyrics are often mocked for being just a little bit “emo.”

And yeah, they are, there’s no denying that. But emo works for group members Slug and Ant. Instead of three-sizes-too-tight jeans and meticulously dyed bangs, that mentality translates into introspection and empathy in their rhymes. Their narratives come with a lot of compassion for their subjects, whether they are horny teens, down-on-her-luck waitresses or love struck homeless men, all of whom appear as characters in Atmosphere’s simultaneously dark and wonderfully vivid world on their new album, When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold.

Gold is a concept album to a certain degree, divided into “Us,” “You” and “Me” sections. The first section opens with the tinkling pianos and soft-almost-to-a-whisper rhymes of “Like the Rest of Us.” Despite the overall mopey tone of the track (that continues for the first third of the album or so, perhaps a metaphor that we are collectively doomed?), there is a little bit of optimism in Slug’s words, as he advises listeners to “count your blessings and mind your business.”

“Puppets” is a loping tale of perpetual dissatisfaction, where Slug and Ant “Know a guy with a rock star life/But he still don’t fly/So he’s mad at the sky.”

The piano is the duo’s best friend on Gold. The riff from “Yesterday” recalls Biz Markie’s “Just A Friend” at times, with a little more of an R&B bounce, complementing the “girl, I miss you” theme of the lyrics.

The single, “Shoulda Known,” is equally funky and acerbic, one that could maybe even be a party track if played at the right time of night. But the simple hopelessness of the chorus (“Shoulda known better not to fuck wit’ you/Ain’t got nothin’ but too much to lose/Lost in the rush don’t know what to do”) could potentially explain critics’ “emo” charges. What redeems the single, though, is the gifted wordplay on the verses, where Slug weaves a tragic tale of defeat, rhyming “Satan’s daughter” with “Jameson and water.”

“You” is likely a better contender for the party track, with hooks to boot, a simple, but driving, beat reminiscent of Gnarls Barkley’s first album and playful lyrics like “With a smile like that, I just gotta flirt/Girl, you look like you just got off work.” The waitress character who appears later on in the album makes her first appearance here to encouraging words from Slug, who thinks he might be able to finally find love here after all.

When guest stars are used on the album, they fade into the background, becoming part of the eerie haunted-urban-apocalypse aura that Slug and Ant rap over. “Your Glasshouse” features bold horror-film synths, fuzzy beats and ghoulish guest whoops and whispers from TV on the Radio frontman Tunde Adebimpe. “The Waitress” features a rather subtle and unusual performance of alt-rock antihero Tom Waits beat boxing. Waits’s presence is incredibly subtle, barely above a whisper, an extra seasoning thrown in with the bass and jazz flute that accent Atmosphere’s cinematic tale of the bitter interactions between the homeless narrator and the waitress.

So Slug and Ant have friends in high places like Tunde Adebimpe and Tom Waits, excellent rhymes and one of the best albums of their career. Maybe now they’ll lighten up a little bit? Probably not.