Well, this sounds exactly how you figured it might: Kid Cudi at his “not giving a fuck” finest rhymes “maintain” and “sane” for the first time, I believe, since Cypress Hill did it all those years ago, Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino sings an insanely feel-good hook, and Rostam Batmanglij of Vampire Weekend adds breezy, playful production work befitting the song’s title.
“All Summer” is a track from Converse’s dramatically punctuated “Three Artists. One Song.” project, and if the quality of all future collaborations is this high, it will be nearly impossible to complain that the whole thing was dreamt up by some marketing department as a way to sell us sneakers. But for now, we can still poke a little bit of fun: When this track first popped up on the web today, I was immediately reminded of a press release I got a few weeks back, about some video thing related to the project. There was one part, about Rostam, that was so riddled with hyperbole and so woefully off the mark that I flagged it for possible blog fodder. Well, here we are:
“Rostam Batmanglij is a member of one of today’s most influential bands, Vampire Weekend,” said Geoff Cottrill, Chief Marketing Officer of Converse. “The band single handedly made the path for DIY artists that followed in their footsteps, and it is his leadership that Rostam brought to the table – both in creation of the track and in producing it. It’s thrilling to watch an artist apart from their normal musical realm and his talent and originality were a key element to creating the song.”
Now, perhaps I simply don’t understand anything, but wouldn’t it stand to reason that anyone who might potentially give a flying fuck about a collaborative track featuring Kid Cudi, the woman from Best Coast and a dude from Vampire Weekend would probably know enough to call bullshit on the idea that Vampire Weekend “single handedly,” or even with help from others, did anything of the sort?