It’s nice to be nice. It’s good to turn the other cheek. There is a lot to be said for dwelling on the positive rather than the negative. Sometimes though, you just have to get things off of your chest and say how you really feel. This is one of those times. Without naming names, it is fairly obvious what type of person this is aimed at and after all there is no need to be specific as there seems to be an endless revolving door of macho, alpha-male, would-be despots espousing greed and division, fear and hate to further their own ends, both political and personal.
At a time when the world seems entrenched and uncompromising, stuck in one or another opposing and unflinching view and also when attention spans seem in short supply, it seems as if songs such as this are the perfect rhetoric for the modern political arena. Short soundbites to rally the troops and focus debate. Even more well-timed is that as I write this review American is waking up to the day of its mid-term elections and passions are running higher than they have been for a long time. But it isn’t just America, the political futures of countries from Brazil to Britain, to Turkey, The Philippines, North Korea and beyond seem to be in the hands of such people.
But as always, B FREED uses an accessible pop-rock package to sweeten the swallowing of this poignant pill, one falling somewhere between the soulful rock riffage of Little Steven and the more angular alt-grooves of Talking Heads. A strange mix but these are strange times.
