I need to be honest with myself here. I knew I would be writing this review eventually. When people ask me the whole “If you could only take one album onto a desert island to listen to for the rest of forever, what would it be” question, I always respond with this: Motion City Soundtrack’s Commit This To Memory.
The album is a gem from start to finish, displaying well-structured songs that are made unique by a pop punk synth sound from keyboardist Jesse Johnson and drummer Tony Thaxton. Justin Pierre, the lead singer and rhythm guitarist, makes this album heartfelt and emotionally accessible. A recovering addict with low self-esteem, Pierre comes across as a real, genuine person with real problems.
The album starts out with the genius “Attractive Today,” a two-minute punch in the face (metaphorically) that lets the listener know that Pierre is “wrecked,” “overblown,” and “fed up with the fucking common cold.” Pierre just wants to feel attractive for once… and, really, don’t we all? There is then a smooth transition into the lead single, “Everything Is Alright.” The track has a wonderful hook and honest verses, and is brought home by some guest vocals by Patrick Stump in the bridge.
Other standouts on the album are… well, all of them. There is not a single track on this album that I can say is weak. “Resolution” is a personal favorite in which Pierre expresses his disdain for the New Years holiday and the arbitrary nature of New Years resolutions. “Time Turned Fragile” is a fast-paced track with a lot of back and forth in dynamics and rhythms. Not to mention a beastly drum part in the bridge that showcases Thaxton’s endless bank of creative rhythms.
The one potential negative I can say about this album is that it does not exactly have a lot of variety in the genre of the songs. Motion City Soundtrack does pop punk with synth thrown in very, very well. And I think they know that. So they stick to a singular sound and show all the different ways that you can display that you’ve mastered it. If you like either of the videos I embedded, I can guarantee you that you’ll love the rest of the album, too. And who knows? Maybe you’ll want it on a desert island someday, too.
Minimal techno, black metal, witch house, goth: They are all some of my favorite music genres, but they’re also some of the bleakest. While reviewing end-of-the-year lists from a slew of magazines, it appears that I am not the only one who has become obsessed with darkness. In the past decade, many genres of music have begun shifting toward dark, sluggish, and spooky themes. All of this begs the question: Why has our culture, or at the very least our musicians, become obsessed with darkness?
Darkness in music is nothing new: The ’80s, for example, were dominated by post-punk and were dark in their own right. But it’s been over 20 years since darkness has been in vogue. Perhaps music is finally becoming a reflection of the global trauma evident in the news: oil spills, economic ruin, riots, revolutions, tsunamis.
As cultural analyst Simon Reynolds points out in his 2011 book Retromania, trauma induces repetition and regression, or hyperstasis. Reynolds implies that while we appear to be moving somewhere, we are actually staying in the same spot or even traveling backwards. In this state of hyperstasis, the past is perpetually reanimated into present culture. This results in individuals exhibiting an aching nostalgia for even the most irrational sorts of retromania.
As a result of global trauma, a large portion of the music being produced today seems to be haunted by the past. It is in music that we are seeing a distinctive reaction to the political and economic atmosphere of the world. This sort of sluggish and spooky music is not like the ’80s music that was dark for the sake of being dark, but rather is a result of social, political, cultural, and environmental shocks. Musicians today are taking ideas and styles from the past and are reworking them to become a reflection of the present. The world isn’t a good place right now, but the darkest hour is just before the dawn.
