FEATURE:
Everything Everything All at Once
PHOTO CREDIT: Timofey Urov/Pexels
Global Warming: The Balance Between Apocalyptic Albums’ Relevance, and the Need for Feelgood Escapism
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I think it is as important…
PHOTO CREDIT: Tiff Ng/Pexels
for artists to reflect the realities of the world as much as it to project something impersonal and properly feelgood. I actually have recently written about the need for artists to tackle important and current issues like genocide and war happening in Palestine; the global crisis regarding climate change; the political ineptitude that is a permanent headache. Rather than this needing to be done in a very morbid and heavy way, artists can discuss topics that need to be confronted, though they can do this in a way that is more accessible and less suffocating than many have. You can be serious with the lyrics and keep the composition and mood of the song balanced. I bring this up, because one of my most-hated phrases in music is when artists talk about their new ‘apocalyptic album’. Maybe the media choose those words, yet artists putting out quite bleak and gloomy albums that talk about destruction, the end of the world, bad times, a lack of hope…I never see why they do this and what people get from it. I appreciate that it is relevant being candid and open about feelings and thoughts regarding the changing world and how bad things are right now. How many fans get excited when an artist discusses an upcoming album that is apocalyptic?! It seems to be the bus replacement service of the music world. Such an unappealing and depressing thing. Even so, if artists are all happy and do not discuss what is happening, then we risk being too escapist and not doing what artists should be doing: using their platform to raise awareness of major themes and problems that need to be discussed.
I bring this up, because a band I like, Everything Everything, are seemingly stepping into darker and more hopeless territory with their new album. Mountainhead arrives next year. They have never been particularly bright and overly-optimistic with their lyrics - through, with each album, there is something very uplifting to take away. To be fair, as the band’s lead Jonathan Higgs told NME, there is a concept that runs through the album. Some imagination and fantasy. The band also do address modern issues and ills that a lot of artists are not! It is a credit to them that they are using their music to create something substantial and vital:
“The record, set for release on March 1, 2024, takes place in a world where society has created a huge mountain by digging a pit at its foot, and aspires to climb to the mythical mirror at its peak. All the while trying to escape a gigantic golden snake called Creddahornis who lives at the bottom of the pit.
“A ‘Mountainhead’ is one who believes the mountain must grow no matter the cost, and no matter how terrible it is to dwell in the great pit,” Higgs explained. “The taller the mountain, the deeper the hole.”
Written and recorded quickly and produced in Stockport by the band’s guitarist Alex Robertshaw, the synthetic pop album was intended to have no plug-ins and effects in reaction to last year’s ‘Raw Data Feel’, for which the band used AI technology to generate lyrics, song titles and artwork.
“It wasn’t a big journey and struggle,” Higgs told NME of the new album. “We wanted to make it quickly to get back on track timing-wise because we’d been in a weird place in terms of the pandemic. We kept putting out albums at the wrong time and missing the festival season. We really needed to get back on schedule and we have these ideas we’d been working on during the touring of ‘Raw Data Feel’ so we just did what we do and put the record together quite quickly.”
The fundamental metaphor appears to be that of a capitalist society where the wealth disparity has reached an inhumane crisis point.
“It’s one of the many things. There’s a growing sense of questioning what it is that we’re trying to achieve. Sometimes it seems to fly in the face of common sense, particularly the idiocy of Liz Truss’s mantra. I was just watching it go by and thinking what actually is this culture? What is this society? What are we trying to do here? Just grow with seemingly no limit and no forethought, when everything around you seems to be going the opposite way, telling you the opposite thing.
“I read this book Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher which is a sort of diatribe about late-stage capitalism… I wanted something core and large for the centre of it because it controls all of our lives and we forget how we got here and why we’re even in the system. It has always been this and will always be. Increasingly as I get older I think about what life would be like without it. It’s not just capitalism, it’s more the endless attempt to expand that humans do. They have a tendency to spread out and consume everything and then move on.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Steve Gullick
Are all the songs linked by the concept?
“Probably two-thirds of them are and there’s maybe a third that aren’t. We never go the whole hog with concept albums, I think it gets a bit tiresome. There’s things that will occur in our lives that don’t have anything to do with it. The whole thing about having a concept that spreads across multiple songs is that you vaguely fall within the shadow of that idea, and in this case, it’s life from within this world. None of it is baked beans reality.”
Are we all mountainheads now?
“Yeah, unfortunately, apart from people who try to get off the grid or try to destroy everything. Obviously a lot of it is great, of course it is. I’m glad I can go to hospital when I’ve got a lump in my head, but there’s a lot of bad stuff about it. Which is why it’s interesting to think about, it’s not very clear-cut at all. Also I enjoy playing a role within the record. You don’t really know if I’m in support of it or against it because I’m not really talking about it in emotional terms. I’m actually talking about it in factual terms. This is what’s happening. I’m not saying, ‘Look how bad this thing is’, which I found much more interesting to do.”
The final song, ‘The Witness’, seems to predict this system will end in apocalypse.
“We usually end up that way. Haha!”
Is that our inevitable course?
“Yes, but I couldn’t tell you and it wouldn’t happen all over the place. But I can’t see much good in the future right now. That song is really about seeing somebody go through a very intense psychological [event] and seeing it almost like a religious experience. So it’s got this flavour of holiness. That’s a song I haven’t done much analysing of because it makes me a bit emotional to listen back to it, just because of certain circumstances around the time we recorded it. I’ll answer that in a couple of years, probably”.
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Like Everything Everything, a lot of artists can’t see much good in the future. That is fair! At what seems like the scariest and most bleak we have been for decades, imagining a future when there is less economic strife, less war and there are some bright shoots coming through is pretty hard. I am in that position. Even so, the entire music landscape is not dominated by defeatism or a certain resignation. I recently wrote a feature arguing that artists need to discuss things that are happening in terms of conflict, discrimination and inequality. If we shy away, then that means that a lot of people’s voices and experiences are being ignored. Even so, it can be all too easy to be too influenced and infected by a malaise and darkness that then permeates the music. From a listener’s perspective, we do need to have some hope and brightness there to give balance and strength. I still hate ‘apocalyptic albums’. Music that is so heavy and bleak will never appeal to me! To be honest, you hear so many artists write apocalyptic albums that it gets very boring and frustrating. We all need our musicians to speak truth and power, yet we all need some comfort and assurance. Relatively speaking, things will get a lot better. I think that an anthemic song that has this huge spirit and energy can be as inspiring and important as a song that goes deeper and darker. It is not shying away from the harshness of the world by embracing music that is more concerned with positivity than pragmatism. We are going to see more and more artists put out albums that are apocalyptic and foreboding. So long as there are songs about big issues that needs to be discussed, rather than constant woe and negativity, then that is the main thing. As a reaction, there might also be some artists more used to less optimistic and joyous music changing their sound up.
It is striking that balance and ensuring that the landscape has shades of light and dark. It can be just as bad hearing too many empty and shallow albums that are all surface lightness and no depth as it is experiencing doom-laden albums that has no hope or any sort of light for the future. Ideally, we would have a lot of albums that do confront and explore the various issues and divisions around the world, where the artists talk more in terms of hope and resolution rather than the planet being f*cked – which seems to be an attitude many have. That sort of defeatism is not helpful and just adds to anxiety and depression! If the compositions and lyrics mix political seriousness and compassion but can also bring in something lighter and more melodic, tied to a composition that is rich and not crammed with icy synths, heavy drums and dirge-like guitar droning, then you can create a potent blend of the serious and sweet.
PHOTO CREDIT: Alexander Krivitskiy/Pexels
Togetherness at such a difficult time is essential. We also need music to mobilise and activate thought, protest, discussion, wider awareness and, yes, a degree of record-straightening and education. Views that are bigoted and toxic need to be addressed and called out. At a time when politicians are letting everyone down and showing their true colours, artists have an opportunity to create a very power and influential voice. Rather than artists choosing sides and potentially being divisive and using music to spread bad politics and ideologies, instead, they can bring us together and call for action and progress. I don’t think albums that see no hope are helping us. We need to have some fun and escapist music as much as possible. Putting this alongside albums and songs that react to the here and now – and the evils we are seeing on the news daily – is of the utmost importance. Even though things are very tough and seem lost at the moment, we all need to…
HOLD on to hope.