Brooklyn's industrial indie icons TV ON THE RADIO hope for, but don't write for, a utopia
By Ben Westhoff
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TV ON THE RADIO |
Heavy on chaotic song structures and featuring a bleak storyline, TV on the Radio's 2006 breakout album Return to Cookie Mountain felt like a report from the front lines of battle. "I was a lover, before this war," lead singer Tunde Adebimpe howls at the record's start. That piercing image enthralled nearly every critic who heard it and set the bar high for the art-rockers' recent follow-up Dear Science.
But if Return to Cookie Mountain had a duck-and-cover mentality, the band's latest work has a nuclear winter/ post-apocalyptic one. Though it employs doo-wop and post-punk melodies, they are mostly buried beneath layers of digital programming, desperate lyrics and eerie electro flourishes. It's tuneful without sounding joyful, simultaneously catchy and depressing. One of the only songs that sounds optimistic (or even the least bit radio friendly) is "Golden Age," in which the band's other front man Kyp Malone contends: "The age of miracles/ The age of sound/ There's a golden age/ Comin' round." But "Golden Age" aside, Adebimpe insists, "The whole record is definitely not a utopian record. It'd be nice to make a utopian record, but I think that would require a utopia."
Instead, Dear Science seems written for a generation swerving towards financial and spiritual collapse. Released in late September – in the midst of the banking system failure, fears of a global recession, and a massive shift in American political opinion – the album has an angsty, worried tone that feels current. Lyrics like "I'm scared to death but I'm living a life that's not worth dying for" (from "Red Dress") seem to speak to a populace that feels simultaneously helpless and apathetic. Yet the album moves briskly and is often quite stirring. "We just wanted to make our version of a dance record," Adebimpe told Rolling Stone, meaning something that infused a cerebral component with motion-inspiring beats.
Though Adebimpe acknowledges geopolitical events were on the band's mind during the album's composition, he says its timing was more coincidental than anything, and that the group was aiming for an enduring work that would stand outside of time. "It would be nice if [listeners] could put it on, and it would seem like it was made that morning," he says, adding: "I hope that whenever anyone plays any of our music, it conjures up its own world without being too tied to any particular situation. I hope even the topical songs aren't too specific, that they aren't more than a feeling about a situation, one that could be applied to other situations."
Another contributor to the album's bleak mood was the recent passing of two people close to Adebimpe -- a friend and a family member, both of whom he declines to name. "They were absolutely an influence on the record," he says. "They were people who were very instrumental in me wanting to make art and music. The whole thing, for my part, is for them."
And yet despite the grim circumstances surrounding its creation, fans have responded to Dear Science with tremendous enthusiasm. In a time of declining record sales -- when most established acts are only selling a fraction of the copies they're used to selling – the album moved more than 34,000 units in its first week and debuted at number 12 on the Billboard 200, both career bests for the band. Adebimpe insists he was completely shocked. "We don't keep tabs on that kind of thing. I don't think anybody in the band would have known how many records we sold if someone hadn't sent us an email," he says. "That being said, it's totally encouraging that that's happening. I feel it's obvious by now that the business of selling records is in flux and it's not really sure what it's doing. With the exception of something that's blasted down your throat and marketed into your fillings, you just really know what's going to happen when you put a record out."
The group's achievements have coincided with Adebimpe's burgeoning success as an actor. Having acted in the 2001 independent film Jump Tomorrow – not to mention finding employment as a filmmaker and a stop-motion animator before TV on the Radio formed -- he recently starred in the Jonathan Demme movie Rachel Getting Married along with Anne Hathaway and Debra Winger (He also performs Neil Young's "Unknown Legend" on the film's soundtrack).
But Adebimpe, a longtime resident of Brooklyn's Williamsburg neighborhood, can't seem to fathom how things will change now that he and his band are in the spotlight. "I have no concept of what could possibly be different, other than that more people are going to hear the music," he says. "That's the farthest ahead I can think about that." For someone who has his finger on the pulse of a nervous citizenry, he likely has more important things to worry about.
