Sweating out a marching band beat while simultaneously meditating on desire and betrayal, Young Fathers make anxiety sound smooth, and then the opposite, too. So “In My View” becomes a sinewy soul song that swings and sways while riding an undercurrent of tension and uncertainty. The group is still adept at crafting music and messages that don’t lend themselves to easy interpretation, no matter how clearly the words are delivered. But nothing in “In My View” is perfectly clear, even if it is one of Young Fathers’ most accessible tracks to date. If this is a hymn, though, it’s a harsh one, with a chorus insisting that progress comes with a price, possibly suggesting an eye-for-an-eye worldview.
In this Scottish trio’s half-rapped, half-sung verses, references to kings, saints, sinners, and Delilah abound, and wisps of background vocals evoke a holy choir. There are biblical overtones to “In My View,” from Young Fathers’ third album, Cocoa Sugar. Because as long as there are rich pop stars who need real love, there will be songs about how they can’t afford to find it. The track brings the latent woe in the singer’s voice to the fore-how he often seems to be sinking in quicksand while yowling of the spoils of success, like a forehead-tatted canary in late capitalism’s doomed coal mine. “I would throw it all away/I just keep on wishin’ that the money made you stay,” Post laments, sobbing into a pile of hundred dollar bills. “Rich & Sad” is buoyed by a psychedelic wheeze that recalls nothing less than “Strawberry Fields Forever,” and the song’s regretful message is a 21st-century twist on Paul McCartney’s 1964 revelation that more money does not necessarily lead to love.
Some may consider this changing of the guard a pop travesty of apocalyptic proportions-or, at least, a shameless byproduct of newfangled streaming metrics-but there is actually some kismet at work here. That record held for 54 years, until this May, when Post Malone placed nine tracks in the Top 20, including “Rich & Sad” at No. On April 11, 1964, the burgeoning Beatles both topped the Billboard charts with “Can’t Buy Me Love” and set a record for the most songs in the Top 20 by a single artist, with six.
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