Review Summary: Pop Music Masquerading as EBM, with Heavy Notes of Narcissism
*This review is for the 2022 album MMXXI. But the image of this EP is critical to understanding the overall concept of the album
I honestly tried to like this record. Tried several times, in fact. And after repeated failures to enjoy it I have apparently come down with a bad case of sour grapes.
EBM is not the kind of booze I recommend to just anyone. The world is mostly filled with drinkers of light beverages -- especially coffee, tea and soda -- who outnumber smaller groups of wine, beer, and cocktail drinkers. Those who consume spirits straight-up are perhaps the smallest of all. In my mind, trying a new EBM album is like trying an obscure, aged, slightly sweet rum, best poured warm over an ice cube. For a few like me, with dysfunctional tastebuds and generations of liver-diseased alcoholics in our genes, good rum is delicious. But to everyone else it probably tastes like antifreeze. So I don’t recommend even the best EBM records to fans outside the Gotho-Industrial complex.
Our album here though,
MMXXI, is a lot less like a fine rum, or a light beer, or even a well-made coffee. It tastes a lot more like an experimental Kool-Aid, something like
green-olive-raspberry, say, or
jalapeno-cantaloupe. That doesn’t make it something to recommend, but it does make it worthy of discussion.
Instead of Kool-Aid, though, a better comparison for this album might be an experimental soda pop. For fans who prefer
good Pop music, my poor opinion might
actually mean that MMXXI is Aesthetic Perfection’s most accessible album, that he is trying to commercialize his sound by adopting popular techniques and making it into a kind of Pop/EBM hybrid. You should definitely try this one if you’ve acquired a taste for Pop music. Wine sells a lot better than obscure rums, and soda pop presumably sells best of all. I get that.
Unfortunately, I am not a soda pop drinker, so I can’t really tell the good stuff from the bad. Even so I would be surprised if there is a single good track on this record. I love some of Daniel Graves’ older music, but I don’t drink soda pop, nor do many in the Gotho-Industrial complex, his principle fanbase. So, introducing pop elements into his latest record makes it feel like he’s breaking up with me; like he has gone to a place to which I cannot follow.
Maybe I’m just being a sourpuss, but surely almost everyone will agree:
Getting dumped sucks.
Serviceable EBM Supporting Nursery Rhyme Choruses Sung to Ludicrously Narcissistic Lyrics
This album is poor in my opinion, but Daniel Graves is a superb musician and used to be a fine EBM artist. His older stuff is kind of weird -- the vocal style is the weird part -- but wildly enjoyable for his fans; the instrumental EBM structure has always been catchy, and it supported choruses that swung between nursery-rhyme silly and wildly, surprisingly entertaining.
But the melodies are often just regulation-issue silly on this record, and the accompanying music is merely serviceable. Despite a few hooks here and there, it is evident that he didn’t spend much time innovating melodies and rhythms on this album.
No, he seems to have poured his energies into his lyrics.
I saw trouble coming when he released his first EP from this album, SEX. There, on the cover (above), Daniel broadcasts to the world his reproductive desirability by striking an almost comic, Adam-Levine-style, “hello ladies” pose.
I admit that I sometimes surge with envy when I see images like that and think about how much tail the lucky bastard is getting. Yes, I am perfectly aware that my attitude almost certainly emerges from the reptilian part of my mind, like an alligator from a swamp.
And in fact, if I was a man-who-has-sex-with-men, I might have a crush on the guy. But I’m not (normally) attracted to people who identify as cis-binary men, so his skeletal figure does nothing for me.
Or maybe it’s not “hello ladies,” but “hello BOYS”? I don’t know what Graves’ orientation is. But whether he’s gay or bi is irrelevant. The point is that his sex appeal, real or imagined, encourages me in no way to buy his record. In fact, it has the opposite effect for many men-who-have-sex-with-cis-binary-women -- or maybe trans-chromosomally-XX-men, for that matter. Why not? -- dudes like me, in other words, who have spent endless hours chasing after finicky chicks, and who have wasted countless dollars wining and dining prospective partners only to go home alone. Yes, a lot of my bad attitude stems from bald, simian jealousy. In humanzee terms, he is far more dominant -- certainly in terms of sexual desirability -- than I ever was, even in my prime, and these days I’m just old and flabby and gross. As a result, the only effect that particular image has on me is to inspire me to compete in a game in which I am certain to fail.
Still, sour grapes or not, it seems to me that a guy who arrogantly broadcasts a selfie like that to the world is not immune to criticism. I mean, there are other bucks in the herd, Daniel. Know what I mean? Only a special kind of personality looks at an image like THAT and says to himself “oh yeah, he’s justified in building a harem, hoarding all the tail and leaving the rest of us with nothing.” It is true that broadcasting sex in that manner effectively communicates “I am hot and available” to some people. But to a lot of others it just communicates “I am fair game.”
Criticism is hard, brother, but it’s a lot more civilized than butting antlers.
Let’s get to the lyrics, my favorite part of
MMXXI. Here’s a sample:
Track 1:
So I’ll spell it out, I want your sex
Track 2:
I’ve found a way to feel immortal
Track 3:
I’m automatic…I can’t sleep
Track 4:
I scratch my eyes…I’m not the one I want to see
Track 5:
I slip away, I’ve lost my place
Track 6:
I put on my happy face…I tell the world I’m okay
Track 7, (the whole song):
I want to be happy
I want to be loved
I want to feel something
I want a new drug
(repeat 1):
I want to be happy
I want to be loved
I want to feel something
I want a new drug
(repeat 2):
I want to be happy
I want to be loved
I want to feel something
I want a new drug
Jesus wept. There are five more tracks on the album, and they all go on like this. From start to finish the entire f*cking album is
me me me me me me me me me me. What happened, did he spend half its production-time staring in the mirror?
Probably no artist of any caliber can thrive without a certain amount of narcissism. You have to believe that
your art is good, that
your art is worth being read, or heard, or seen, or watched, or whatever. People with truly low self-esteem simply don’t have the motivation to create stuff they believe people will hate; they'll simply do something else with their time. So, narcissism is an uncomfortable but necessary problem in art. But an ego-freak’s music had better be damn good for us to admire him, much less expect us to
buy his sh*t. Otherwise, the only thing they are going to get from critics is contempt for strutting around like a peacock.
Egotism can actually be modulated with care, however. There are entire genres of literature based on egotistical thoughts: Autobiographies and memoirs are the more well-known genres, but also personal essay collections like Thoreau’s
Walden. True, they are niche genres, yet some have been read and copied by hand for centuries; classic examples written on papyrus exist from Greco-Roman times, thousands of years ago.
Doing them well, however, requires some technical tricks to make the rank egoism at least tolerable, never mind interesting. Daniel Graves doesn’t appear to have used any of them. Instead, every song on the record is about
his sexuality,
his thoughts,
his experiences,
his problems,
his wants,
his needs.
Sheesh. What does he think, the world is all about
him? It has nothing to do with him.
Nothing whatsoever. Didn’t he get the news? For Christ’s sake, man, get it straight, it’s not about you at all. It’s about me!
