Horns blare, guitars and drums come crashing in at once. The newest single from the Guilty Parties waste no time blasting into action, grabbing you by the throat and forcing your attention- and with good cause. The song intro comes in so hard it takes a second to adjust and realize what’s going on, and by the time you collect your senses the intro transitions to a catchy, bass-driven bouncy bop and a few seconds later the first chorus breaks into a personal and justified critique of modern American society- a system of collapsing hopes and dreams.
For generations the American mantra was work hard and invest in your future and things will be better. Invest in yourself, go to college, get a degree, you’ll get a good job and make more money and better financially well off. Now we have an entire generation who faced skyrocketing college prices and diminished returns, stagnant wages with rising costs- and it doesn’t stop with college costs- rent, groceries, car payments, insurance- every aspect of life is harder to attain and “productivity” and labor demands are still as high as ever.
This narrative is captured perfectly in lyrics like “work hard and you’ll get your reward, you want the life that you adore, promised these opportunities” and “I’m stuck with the bill and no form of payment, I’m busting my ass from check to check”. The most crushing lyric in the song is probably “You can’t have dreams if you can’t afford it”. One of the things that makes this song particularly effective is the tempo and pacing changes. Yes it shocks your attention at the beginning, but it gets extremely catchy, and the lyrics are rapped at one portion and sung more traditionally at others and slowed down. There is some instrumental tension building and easing at times, catchy ska rhythms on the bass and guitar before more traditional rock guitars at other parts, then dropping into catchy horn lines that re-awaken the senses before dropping into reggae and dub-like pacing. These shifts not only make the song interesting, they make you pay attention to what’s going on- and paying attention to what’s going on seems to be the core theme to the song.
Wake up. Pay attention. Listen.
Written by Gimp Leg
