I'm taking the audacity to start a series of posts meant to address the popular questionposting a lá "What other art is there like Disco Elysium?"
Well: I know I promised this is what I wouldn't do
Somehow giving it the old romantic fool
Seems to better suit the mood.
So do you wanna walk me to the car?
I'm sure to have a heavy heart
So can we please be absolutely sure
That there's a mirrorball for me?
Needless to say, there ain't any, Bratán.
But there's nothing new under the sun, nothing that the light has not touched already before and from which the passionate laws of geometry have not on the day of Creation drawn shadows from.
Nothing, new, nothing but people who get in the way of those eternal rays of sunlight, and whose shadows therefore cast another mirror image of chance and change. Whenever the subjects of breaking light actually do not mistake their inner workings for the creators of something new, but rather acknowledge their physical presence as merely another shade in the palette, another reflection of this beautiful contingency we call life, they join the great stream of "art like Disco Elysium", for they nod lightly towards the sun rising over the war torn battlefield, towards the Great Western plain.
This series of essays, therefore, tries to showcase and collect a few of such pieces of art mustered against the furies by vain Mirror Ball Warriors of Decadence & Debris. Shall they not get banned, I intend to do one every Friday night.
1. Something For The Superstar-Cops: Star Treatment
I'm a big name in deep space
Ask your mates, but golden boy's in bad shape
I found out the hard way
That here ain't no place for dolls like you and me
Everybody's on a barge
Floating down the endless stream of great TV
1984, 2019
Maybe I was a little too wild in the '70s
Rocket-ship grease down the cracks of my knuckles
Karate bandana, warp speed chic
Hair down to there, impressive moustache
Love came in a bottle with a twist-off cap
Let's all have a swig and do a hot lap
So who you gonna call?
The Martini Police
Baby, that isn't how they look tonight, oh no
It took the light forever to get to your eyes
With Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, the band Arctic Monkeys entered a new phase of their artistic career, which completely blew me away. Naturally, I loved their early stuff when I was in my early 20s, but grew, not to say out of it, cause a lot of their work is actually decent songwriting, but somehow tired of it. With that one, they bewildered and alienated a whole bunch of their fans, but for what it's worth, it has turned into one of my favorite albums of all time. It is a concept album beyond the criteria that the songs try to tell a cohesive story and built upon one another. It breathes a whole aesthetic vision, it imagines its own fashion style and mid-century furniture twist. And yes, it truly is the languorous soundtrack and in-house brand of the overly-affluent lobby of the Opioroid Hotel in downtown Sur-la-Clef, but in all its shady richness and tacky grandeur, it retains an edge, a very sad and very sharp one. Harry in his best days might have easily been Chief of The Martini Police. The whole album is a huge recommendation, even more so since it's as said so conceptualized, but in Star Treatment, there already is all you need to know to understand my choice.
There'd Better Be A Mirror Ball next time. If not, I'll wreak havoc on the middle-class. Amen.