TobyMac – Me Without You
Amy Grant did this sort of thing a lot better, you know.
[Video][Website]
[3.62]
Edward Okulicz: Sure, this song has absolutely no bottom end whatsoever, but that’s pretty much standard for this kind of light-rock infused light-dance (and yes, DC Talk rocked harder while feeling it just as much) and it’s not without its melodic charm. In fact, “Me Without You” is professional, well-put together, modern, and hooky. If I were to say it’s a shining exemplar of a genre I can’t stand, you’ve got to remember that I don’t mean contemporary Christian music as a genre, I mean Maroon 5 as a genre. In light of this, its faults (too thin, too anaemic) are of design not incompetence. Still, there is competence here; even if there’s nothing to move your hips and ass to (dare I call it a Graham cracker of a pop song?), there’s enough to raise your hands to. Its parent album being the first Christian pop album to top the Billboard 200 is a curious quirk, but not inexplicable based on this.
[6]
Anthony Easton: Just so you know — for Mac “You” is not a lover but Jesus. There are some textual clues, not a lot of them, mostly around the idea of building my kingdom, instead of building His kingdom. CCM for a long time has been accused of completely co-opting secular music, with a fig leaf of culturally suitable divinity — what is dismissively called as Jesus is My Boyfriend Music. It has gotten really close to making it mainstream, but this is conceptually interesting for two reasons: (a) it is not an attempt to remake muscular Christianity via rock music (b) it is the most generic, and thus, most successful attempt at this — if we judge success to mean lyrics. Still, I wasn’t expecting something that sounded like teen pop — a genre still gendered femme — to do this well.
[4]
Iain Forrester: If I hadn’t been already aware before listening that this was CCM I am quite certain I would have assumed it was a run-of-the-mill Owl City/Guetta hybrid taking a no more dim than normal approach to a romantic relationship. Mission accomplished, I guess. The particular medium its synth and drum sounds hit between 8-bit and full-sounding is a horrible one; it should sound bigger but the budget wouldn’t cover it.
[3]
Brad Shoup: It’s amazing that TobyMac is still doing this sort of thing at 47. In about a quarter of a century, his career path could be expressed thusly: Pantera’s Metal Magic x Ice T in Breakin’ x Robin Sparkles. With DC Talk, he was still rippity-rapping when even the Fresh Prince knew it was time to start calling out chumps. As a solo artist, he’s focused on building-block rap-rock and excruciating dips into reggae. (give him this, though — he did cover SoCal hip-hop/noise rock weirdos Soul-Junk) He’s never been less than sincere about whatever genre he’s using to reach the kids, five of whom are his own, which makes panning him all the less fun. Like much of TobyMac’s output the last couple years, “Me Without You” finds him squarely in the stylistic company of pop’s biggest blockheads. We have the crisp, triggered guitars, the house-pop breakdown wherein his filtered (and sweetened) voice floats to the surface, and a dyspeptic dubbish bass squonk. Charts, discographies, music videos: the lack of a collector’s impulse indicates an audience that sees CCM as a renewing spring of interchangeable product from artists – like Toby – who stay on top not from loyalty, but from name recognition. If he won’t lend his name to “Euphrates with the Golden Hands,” I’ll settle for “Lose Myself.”
[3]
Will Adams: The chart-baiting is a bit embarrassing, especially when the approximation is so thin. This needs at least 60% more guitars, bass, synth pads, and hooks to even stand a chance.
[3]
Patrick St. Michel: The parking-lot-bake-sale version of Cobra Starship’s “Good Girls Go Bad.”
[4]
Mallory O’Donnell: Strangely flatulent, needlessly euphoric, predictably annoying. This guy either needs you desperately or sees you as a ProTools effect. In either case, stay the hell away.
[3]
Alfred Soto: Of course TobyMac would be chickenshit about the identity of “you,” but at least his cowardice informs the aesthetic choices. Why else would a fortysomething ape Adam Levine singing over a Carly Rae Jepsen track?
[3]
“Toby Mac/And the Mac is back no slack/On a DC track that’s jacked/Beyond comprehension/I believe that I failed to mention that/There’s a lack of recognition/When it comes to His position/’Cause if Christ can’t be crossed over/Then I’ll kick my beat up nova” — His rap verse on a cover of the Doobie Brothers’ “Jesus Is Just Alright,” twenty years ago. (From memory.) His main influence at the time was MC Hammer. I’m not sure Mike Posner is a trade up.
(The above would’ve been my blurb if I’d made it in on time. No idea what the score would’ve been.)
“Jesus is Just Alright” was my exposure to DC Talk. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but it sure was weird, going to a non-religious, government school, for all the kids to be ushered into the hall to watch some kind of… documentary on DCT in the school hall while a youth pastor spoke to us and told us not to take drugs. Some years later, it happened again, only it was “Jesus Freak” that got played to us. And some Jars of Clay song I can’t remember (not “Crazy Times” which was actually getting some play on the radio around that period) I thought it was pretty embarrassing at the time.
Now, Amy Grant, that we can all get behind being great.
Yeah, I don’t know why CCM always makes me want to give a history lesson; y’all know what’s up.
I was hoping “Me Without You” would turn out to be some big CCM meme, but really it’s just the name of a far superior Rebecca St. James list song (“Like a wasted feast / Like a faithless priest / That’s mew/oyou”, etc) (also it sounds like Steve Earle’s “You’re Still Standing There”) and a sort-of-Christian rock band (mewithoutyou). This wasn’t as bad as I expected but I wouldn’t have affected its controversy score much.
Also Brad, this — “an audience that sees CCM as a renewing spring of interchangeable product from artists – like Toby – who stay on top not from loyalty, but from name recognition.” — strikes me as just right, at least from what I’ve observed among fans.