Tokyo Drifting; Unfortunate Deviation, or Visionary Masterpiece?

Tokyo Drifting, released on November 13, 2019 was the Glass Animals first song since 2016, and there have been some mixed feelings about it. It is the second installment of their experimental collaboration series, Fresh Fruit. 

Tokyo Drifting featured rapper Denzel Curry, and their different styles mixing had an interesting effect. The song deviated strongly from the old style of the Glass Animals, but wasn’t the radical deviation that it was made out to be.

Older Glass Animal albums such as Zaba had a vastly different sound, heavy in surreal percussives and unique use of ambiance. More recent releases, however, have tended to stray closer to trap style, while still keeping that usual psychedelic vibe. Their 2016 studio album, How to Be a Human Being, fell directly in between these two distinct phases in the band’s history, and that is reflected in its sound. 

The first installment of the Fresh Fruit series, Lose Control, featuring Joey Bada$$, was a definitive turn for the band away from their older sound into a newer trap collaboration phase.

It comes as little surprise, then, that Tokyo Drifting has a trap beat. Purists might say that collaboration is tainting the band’s unique sound, but I don’t see it as a problem. All bands change radically over time. Fleetwood Mac, for example, was originally a blues band, and had they not turned to pop, the internationally beloved Rumors might never have been released.

The song itself is told from the perspective of the fictitious Wavey Davey, who compares the feeling of a cocaine high to the feeling of drifting cars, hence the title, which is a reference to the third installment of the Fast and Furious franchise, released in 2001. 

It has the energy of a pump-up song, but still retains that psychedelic feel so characteristic to the Glass Animals. Yes, it may have been a deviation from the bands old sound, but I still enjoyed it. One could liken it to the recent development in the Star Wars franchise; nothing in comparison to the originals, but flashier, and still fun to watch. 

Maybe it was no Gooey or The Other Side of Paradise, but we should at least be glad that the Glass Animals are still writing music.