Mr. Probz was all up in this music thing in the teens decade, taking over the world with the pliable, breezy radio hit “Waves,” and in general, keeping the press pretty piqued with the releases of all of his singles. One of these singles came as a collaboration with Dolly Parton, 2019’s “Faith,” the last one to date.
And 2013 did indeed bring us a full album, The Treatment, the only one of his career so far, and one saturated fully with rap, contrasted starkly with “Waves,” his meal ticket which is a song that he sings, like Usher, or whatever. And The Treatment was a high-profile enough endeavor as to feature Action Bronson on one of the cuts (emitting the tickling lines of “All I talk about is what I know / And some other sh**”, no less) and as to SOUND really professional, though Wikipedia seems to be scratching its proverbial head as to who produced this thing.
The music sounds good, too — I’d even call it perfect work music, in fact, with its baritone flow and glossy, rhythmically tight beats. One other reason I call it perfect work music is that in such an environment, you can’t really understand the words, and so, with this being the case, remain obvlious of just how “nice-guy” this dude is. He’s like that character of that actress who played Melody on Hey Dude when she appears on Seinfeld: he’s too “good,” like meaning “goodie-goodie,” or “good samaritan,” et. al. And it’s not that the flows aren’t rugged and it’s not that his delivery is awkward — he just kind of like seems to have any reason to live without constantly droning on about condoms and killing people (killing people with condoms the wave of the future in rap?), hence demarcating him starkly from the median American subject matter.
Probz’ single from 2017, then, “American Dreamin’,” takes on a bolstered level of meaning and irony, in light of this discussion I’m attempting to unfurl here. One complicating aspect as that, though he doesn’t sound it, and though The Treatment is relayed completely in English, Mr. Probz is actually Dutch. And in fact, The Treatment was never officially released in America. It is, though, availabe on Spotify, with all English titles. Another is that “American Dreamin’” is a really great tune — possibly one of the 10 best mainstream radio singles of last decade (I’d undeniably place “Waves” in the top 10), making it all the more puzzling that the world ignores this guy’s album.
Now, I’ve posited one pillar of argument for why there would be no online reviews posted of The Treatment on the entire Internet, which is that Probz, though not necessarily “soft,” lacks the sort of caricatured gangster axe to grind that would grant him an appeal in America. Another, though, of course, would be people’s waning interest in albums, as a whole, this interest being supplanted, typically, by toggling of singles, many of which preferrably contain some sort of goon-ish, lowbrow concession to the idea of the world being composed of brainless sex baboons. And maybe Mr. Probz saw this because he’s yet to release a single yet in this new 20s decade, with the world immune to his “treatment,” apparently, having been vaccinated by horror movies and the unflagging notion that they’re just not worth a da**.
..
<script async src=”https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-5127494401132808″
crossorigin=”anonymous”></script>