TT 513: Good God, this new André 3000 piano album is just awful
the hype machine continues to spit out nonsense
Can you do anything you want if you are famous? Judging by our current government, the answer is obviously “yes.” Trump was not a politician, but he was famous, so now he’s president for the second time. Many of Trump’s staff and henchmen are not politicians either, they are famous from right-wing talk radio and social media. Elon Musk had no serious bureaucratic experience, but he was the richest man alive (and also very famous), and thus charged by Trump to make the government slimmer and less expensive to run.
Oh, and here’s André 3000 with 7 Piano Sketches, which was launched at the same time as his red carpet appearance at the Met Gala last week. He wore a large model piano on his back, and dropped the audio tracks on the streaming services.
André 3000 is famous for the deeply satisfying hip-hop group Outkast, and especially famous for the novelty number “Hey Ya,” an enormous hit that everybody liked (including me). After years of silence André 3000 is now trying to take instrumental music by storm. Last year he made an album of ambient improv flute appropriate for getting high or doing yoga. I was never the target audience for this kind of music, so—despite wall-to-wall coverage in what remains of music journalism—-I ignored it.
But a solo piano album? Enough is enough. I simply demand expertise if the topic is solo piano, and André 3000 is strictly amateur hour. Based on the flute music, the expectation was that the piano music would be meditative and boring. Not at all! These compositions are spiky, weird, and lost. He’s playing with a beat, but the beat is uneven because he’s not a pianist. He’s looking for chords, but the chords don’t live next to each other in true harmony because he’s not a pianist. A few inchoate melodies start to emerge, but he can’t make a song because he’s not a pianist.
I dunno. Maybe he’s trolling. The first piece, “bluffing in the snow,” sort of starts like something from Béla Bartók's collection for children Mikrokosmos. (See my transcription of the first part below.)
If André 3000 truly hates Bartók or finds Bartók a figure of fun, then this “bluffing” is a legitimate swipe. Fair enough, if so. One piece on the album is called “off rhythm laughter,” maybe the whole thing is an unfriendly comic jab.
But I don’t think that’s really what’s going on. I think André 3000 wanted to make a splash at the Met Gala and his team came up with the piano gimmick, which would also be perfect press hit for the relaunch of his menswear label, Benji Bixby. (GQ article.) It’s all elite showboating, nothing deeper than that.
The tracks are ancient, from 2013, and just done with iPhone voice memo, so the production values are hideous, including during the trivial announcements of song titles at the start of each track. Had he even been thinking about this music before getting the call to peacock at the gala? The whole album is essentially unlistenable. If he was trying to troll, the joke needed to be more obvious.
The press comment for Apple Music declares, “May 5, 2025, will stand now as a historic benchmark for André 3000.” Duly noted. Duly fucking noted. If you are famous, you can do anything.
Rob Sheffield at Rolling Stone: “A playfully enjoyable exercise in spiritual renewal…”
Rodney Carmichael at NPR: “Few music icons have consistently pulled magic — or unpredictable pivots — out the hat like André 3000. After a 30-year career spent defying expectations, his latest sleight of hand finds him moving the keys like Bob James.” (Poor Bob James!!! — e.i.)
D-Money at Soulbone: “André isn't too shabby of a piano player and his influences — McCoy Tyner, Vince Guaraldi, Thelonious Monk and others — are evident.”
Alexander Cole at Hot New Hip-Hop: “André 3000 Showcases His Musical Genius On New Project 7 Piano Sketches”
Zakaria Mafa at StanIsland: “André 3000’s ‘7 Piano Sketches’ Is Lavishly Uplifting and Raw”
Selected from 375 comments on the YouTube stream of “bluffing in the snow”:
“First it was the flute, now it’s the piano. This man is giving out some classics.”— “André is healing through sound.”—”Not many have the same kinda courage or flair... Kudos!”— “Just close your eyes and imagine prancing around in the snow. Each note is a footstep” — “Highest Frequency is Sound!” — “Raw music is the real art, that's why I love to freestyle” — “Andre has picked up Prince ways, please enjoy” etc. etc. etc.
(Speaking of Prince: The pop artist who may not have been known so widely as a pianist was Prince, who played his last tour mostly singing and playing acoustic keyboard. What a shame we don’t have a mellow studio album of Prince alone at the piano!)
Check out Prince - Piano and a Microphone, released posthumously in 2018 after discovery @ Paisley park of cassette recorded in one take in 1983. Raw but I like it.
Thanks for this. Real criticism hits a worthy target. I think some of what's happening here isn't just the erosion of taste but also the distortions of public platform. Fame, as you note, is currency — and when legacy outlets are teetering over the abyss, it's good business to suck up to an artist with a huge and motivated fan base. (See also: the Cowboy Carter Tour.) I'm not sure that this is a conceptual prank so much as a shrug. I hadn't planned on prioritizing it, so your transcription and YouTube embed were my first exposure. I laughed through much of it, so thanks, too, for that.