Album of the Month: October 2022

October 2022 was another exceptional month for music, with some of the catchiest releases of the year dropping this month. I was particularly impressed with the bittersweet house on Actual Life 3 (January 1 – September 9 2022) from Fred again.. and Noah Kahan’s introspective singer-songwriter on Stick Season. However, no other release came close to being as infectious and exciting as Alvvays’ trademark brand of noisy indie pop on Blue Rev, their third studio album.

Take a look at the album art for Blue Rev, the third studio album from Canadian jangle pop band Alvvays. Three young adults look down from what appears to be a roof, as one of the men pulls the woman up a ladder. The young man on the left is smiling with a dazed look in his eyes, while the woman climbing the ladder looks directly into the camera with a crazed panic, the wind blowing her hair over her mouth. Behind the group looms a dark sky of ominous storm clouds. The juxtaposition of the man in blue, finding bliss in ignorance of the clouds behind him, and the woman, panicked by the camera in her face as she tries to escape, serves as a striking metaphor for the difficulties of being vulnerable in the internet age.

In past articles, I’ve written about the scarcity of genuine hope and positivity in today’s music. Most music of the past few years has taken one of two approaches: either they neglect to acknowledge the alarming state of the world today, instead indulging in dishonest, saccharine joy (see: much of Weezer’s recent output, Panic! at the Disco’s Viva Las Vengeance, Ghost’s Impera – we’ll call these the “Hopefuls”), or they fall into a pit of cynicism, filling their music with hopelessness, irony, and disdain for modernity (see: fawn’s Foxtails, underscore’s boneyard AKA fishmonger, Jane Remover’s Frailty – the “Ironics”). Bear in mind, I don’t claim either of these approaches is the “right” one. Our world today certainly does not have a lack of problems, and the cynicism of the Ironics is warranted; however, the world is also not devoid of joy and hope. The issue with both sides is that they fail to consider the other; the Hopefuls create a utopian vision of the world that neglects real problems, while the Ironics wallow in their disdain, ignoring the possibilities of change. I’ve rarely seen music that resolves the two groups – until Alvvays’ Blue Rev. Blue Rev synthesizes the unchecked hope of the Hopefuls and the hopeless cynicism of the Ironics into a third group – one that recognizes the apparent imperfection of the present but retains strong hope for the future.

Let’s go back to that album cover. The camera, which can also be interpreted as the viewer’s eyes looking at the photo, frightens the woman. Her fear of being watched is made clear through the panicked look in her eyes. This fear of modern surveillance, whether through the cameras of social media or the microscope placed on musicians and celebrities, is expressed on the track “Very Online Guy,” where frontwoman Molly Rankin sings of a man who spends all his time online. In the song’s pre-chorus, she sings, “We all know everything that he says and does/Leave your location on and just follow the buzz”. In the internet age, chasing “the buzz” and finding that instant gratification of clout has become such a high priority that individuals leave their location on and allow others to track them constantly. For a high-profile musician like Rankin, that pressure to be active on social media reaches a boiling point where paranoia and anxiety outweigh any potential benefit, replacing the chase with disdain for the “very online guy”. Despite this cynical outlook typical of the Ironics, she retains hope. In the bridge, Rankin sings, “The truth is I’m afraid of instant change/But when you’re close to me, does anyone notice?”. Despite fearing the “instant change” of the rapidly developing internet, she finds solace in connection, having other people close to her. Though she recognizes the issues, she deals with them by acknowledging the other areas of her life that bring her joy.

This precarious yet realistic balance between cynicism and hope is made further clear on “Belinda Says”. In the song’s outro, Rankin sings, “Belinda says that heaven is a place on earth/Well, so is hell/And we’ll all get help, paradise/And we’ll start another life”. This is the most direct statement of the album’s primary theme. Though heaven exists in small doses on earth, so does hell; the only way to make it more like paradise is by helping each other to create a better life. Alvvays doesn’t shy away from the often depressing nature of reality, but it offers a way out. Instead of only acknowledging problems and wallowing in despair, Alvvays suggests that we can still live joyous lives if we retain hope for a better tomorrow.Blue Rev marks a turning point in indie music. Previously split largely between the Hopefuls and Ironics, Alvvays resolves the issues between the two, creating a third group – the Realists. Acknowledging both other groups through the art and music, Alvvays refuses to float in baseless optimism or drown in hopeless pessimism, Alvvays presents a world that is more akin to our own. The world is unrelenting, and it can be really hard to stay hopeful, sometimes – but it’s the only thing we can do, and we have to do it together.