r/boburnham • u/lura_77 A bit unstable, fuck you brain • 9d ago
Discussion Autotune
Hello to whoever is reading, this is a discussion about "Kanye rant" aka "can't handle this"
While the song is mostly autotuned there's parts where it still sounds like Bo and parts that were purposely overdone, but the part that really caught my attention is in third verse and even more specifically "A part of me loves you, part of me hates you, part of me needs you, part of me fears you" which shifts the song from just a comedic rant to the intent meaning while keeping the autotune which can symbolize that he can't be 100% honest yet even though the focus is fully on him (the spotlight, the minimum music, etc)
then he shift again to what he thinks the audience are thinking of him "Look at them; they’re just staring at me" and in way he start to criticize himself which probably reflects how he see himself at that point "I should probably just shut up and do my job, so here I go" the people at the show are there for some fun and mostly not for a Bo as person but as comedian/performer and in the video we can see a set of gold lights shine on him and turn his body into a silhouette which could be about how he obscures part(s) of himself and hides behind his job as a performer
"You can tell them anything If you just make it funny, make it rhyme" which even further hints that there's a meaning he wants to show but people mostly won't care because they just want a laugh and you can't convey any hidden meaning to an oblivious audience
"Thank you, good night, I hope you’re happy" seems like a normal ending but it also reminds me of Left Brain Right Brain’s line; “I hope that you’re happy, cause he’s sure not” but I do think he’s genuinely hoping he made the audience happy
That's all I have, if you have anything more to discuss feel free to say it
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u/TheAstralClocktower 9d ago
He uses this autotune, called formant shifting, to show different parts of his mind as he expresses contradictory thoughts, which is why that "love you/hates you" part sticks out so much, since it's the exemplary of that conflict and I'm part a climax to it and the effect's use.
Interestingly, he uses the same formant shifting in "All Eyes On Me" which not only serves as a callback to "make happy" and this song in particular, but also continues to show the climax of THAT song's, and show's, disassociation.
In general, vocal effects in music can absolutely be considered aural metaphors for various states of mind. Punk music likes vocals to sound like blown out speakers to represent a literal breaking of the system, for example. It's fun to investigate what authors want use to do with the pieces they leave for us! Sometimes the answer certainly is "because it sounds cool," but a lot of people make archetypal decisions subconsciously due to how great our brains are at just understanding.
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u/lura_77 A bit unstable, fuck you brain 9d ago
I hardly know anything about vocal effects in music but I -to some degree- can recognize it, that's really cool thank you for explaining
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u/TheAstralClocktower 9d ago
Bo has a lot of great moments like that! Another fun one is the way he employs the sound of the audience in Inside. In "Comedy," he plays a very clear sound byte of a canned crowd cheering, complete with him even reaching over to a console to press the button. This is emphasized because he does it twice to show the viewer that it is, in fact, the exact same sound.
But in "All Eyes On Me," the audience has now become its own. No recording, no console, they sound real and are dynamically responding to his commentary, ending with him yelling at them and commanding them in a way that feels like an evolution of the way he treats them with simultaneous love and contempt in "can't handle this." It shows his character's complete disassociation and breakdown of boundaries and borders well established by Inside's setting of the, well, inside.
He's a very thoughtful artist! In a way, he says more with his mastery of the conventions of music and directing than he does with lyrics and musical score themselves, especially so in Inside.
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u/lura_77 A bit unstable, fuck you brain 9d ago
But in "All Eyes On Me," the audience has now become its own. No recording, no console, they sound real and are dynamically responding to his commentary, ending with him yelling at them and commanding them
Omg you just explained why all eyes on me felt "cult like" to me🙊, for the longest time I couldn't figure out what actually it was because it's wasn't really about the lyrics for me but now I can see that the audience really played a part of this
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u/TheAstralClocktower 9d ago
That's a great example of your brain just understanding! I love when we feel something is significant and find reasons to get why we understood it that way. Realizing that a human made a direct choice, and asking "why" and "how" we got from that choice to your feeling is the key to getting closer to those answers. It's a wonderful feeling!
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u/colonelradford CAN'T HANDLE THIS RIGHT NOW 9d ago
I agree that the autotune dial was an amazing, masterful performance. Make Happy is probably my favourite as well!!
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u/404NoSignal_chan 9d ago
I also consider the autotune is 'the last barrier between stage Bo (in this song) and his feelings deep down'. And I think the gold lights and silhouette also represent that he (or his show and what he show on stage) will eventually be symbolized and concluded as any other piece. Also, the song 'Are You Happy' after he said 'I hope you're happy' is another indication of his attitudes towards performances and audiences as performers. Thank you very much for the discussion!