This new era of "What's Going On (2001)"-esque celebrity mashups has its current-day origins in Drake and Future's 2015 album What a Time to Be Alive, a runaway success that clued labels into the profit potential of two giants coming together, despite its C-minus reviews. (For the record, I still like WATTBA.) When super-producers like DJ Khaled and Calvin Harris rose to prominence, mega-collabs only became more prevalent. Khaled's "I'm the One" featuring Justin Bieber, Quavo, Lil Wayne and Chance the Rapper dominated Billboard in the summer of 2017, leading us into the current era of Perry and Migos' "Bon Apetit," "Girls," "Jackie Chan" and their ilk.
Pop music has always been a business, and maybe I'm just getting older and more jaded. But as the artificial-feeling collab phenomenon continues, it's resulting in an overabundance of canned, rote and, frankly, boring music.
I want to see spectacle. I want to see greatness. I want pop songs that help us transcend the relentless news cycle for three minutes and believe in the beauty and magic of life. In an era where nearly everything in entertainment reeks of exploitation or outright trolling, these label-engineered collabs feel like another cynical way to gain clicks and streams. They don't have too much magic to them.
What they do have is incessant, nagging hooks. And if you see me out this summer singing "Jackie Chan," know this: I'm so sorry.
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