Converse’s “Three Artists, One Song” series has produced some interesting teamups in the past, and their latest one holds quite a bit of promise. “Hero” puts singer/songwriter Frank Ocean, producer Diplo and Mick Jones & Paul Simonon from the iconic Clash together on one track.
The concept behind “Hero” is intriguing, but it turns out there are too many elements to make it work. At 2:45, the song is way too short. It sounds unfinished, and whoever thought shoehorning in a children’s choir was a good idea should’ve re-thought that one.
With a more fleshed out song and no choir, we might actually have something to work with. The degrees of separation between the three entities isn’t that great. Hell, I’d love to hear Frank work with Diplo and/or Jones (who worked magic with The Wallflowers, of all people, a couple years ago) on a couple of tracks. As it stands, though, “Hero”‘s just kind of a clusterfuck. An interesting clusterfuck, but a clusterfuck nevertheless.