Chapter Text
SIDE A
TRACKLIST:
track 1: cause love’s such an old-fashioned word
track 2: beware, doll, you’re bound to fall
track 3: INTERLUDE: voice of rage and ruin
track 1: cause love’s such an old-fashioned word
Don’t ask Will how this ended up being his job, because he honestly doesn’t know. One day, they had a meeting for the QSAC (that’s Queer Student Artists’ Collective to you) zine, zine of the times, where he was complaining about everyone’s responses to the new U2 album (yes, it sounds different from other U2 albums, but obviously if you look at the lyrical and metatextual themes of Achtung Baby, it’s still very much U2), and then BAM–suddenly he’s in charge of doing the cover art for the zine and writing music reviews.
Sure, he could probably turn it down, but nobody else will take the job. Plus, he’s pretty sure they wouldn’t do it right, because, as much as he loves this group, their music tastes are…
Well…
Not everybody has an older brother like Jonathan Byers who makes sure they grow up with proper music opinions, okay?
So, if anything, Will does this to keep the spirit of reviewing and recommending underground artists in New York City alive for the zine, and also because he doesn’t think anybody else could do it justice, no offense to them.
But Will is loathing this job for their upcoming edition. He’s sitting in that weird liminal space between class periods where people are in the chaotic throes of rushing around or throwing their notebooks open to prepare for the lecture; his elbows are pressed into the desk that’s just a little too small, and his head is in his hands. He’s staring down at the one submission he’s been putting off for precisely three semesters, because Lucas said it needed to be done before they moved on to new submissions, so could you please just lower your standards for one night and go listen to them play so you can write the damn review?
The Fellowship of the Ring, the submission card reads in faded pencil. Scratched under it in the slightly-fresher ink of Lucas’ pen, it reads: Thursday - The Purple Hall - 8 p.m.
And, God, Will wishes this show was just gonna be a live reading of the Tolkein book. It would be so much better than what he knows it actually is.
The Fellowship of the Ring is a local, up-and-coming act in the underground venues of the greater New York City area that everybody loves because they sound like Nirvana and, you guessed it, throw out Tolkein references like they’re Led Zeppelin. They’re huge on college campuses, where students pass around live-recorded tapes of their supposedly-legendary performances all the time, gushing about how even the bass sounds, the peeling shrieks of guitars, the way the vocalist wavers between grumbles and ethereal, falsetto howls. They even gush about the lyrics and how they truly capture the experiences of Western youth in these first few years of the new decade: malaise, boredom, this sense that there is no great struggle for the future left for them, but only an endless drowning in comfortable excess.
Will had even seen a girl with the band’s logo tattooed on her shoulder.
Which is…fine. He guesses.
If you like shitty music, that is.
See, that’s the fundamental problem here: Will likes doing these silly little reviews for live music around New York because, half the time, the music is passably decent, and even if it isn’t great, the lyrics can make up for it. There’s so much creativity in the air, and people are doing so much with it.
Not The Fellowship of the Ring, though.
Where everybody else sees innovation, Will sees reductivity; where everybody screams about the charm of the lyrics and the pop culture references they sneak in, Will sees a demeaning pandering to an audience. Every single time he has been subjected to the squawks and out-of-tune guitars of The Fellowship, he’s spent his time thinking he would be better off to save himself the time and just listen to Nirvana’s Nevermind for the millionth time, because that’s all The Fellowship’s trying to do, anyway, and at least then Will could listen to something good.
Yeah, Will hates The Fellowship of the Ring, and now he’s squeezing his temples so hard that the letters on the submission card are beginning to swim in his vision.
“Hey!”
Thankfully, in this moment, Will is saved by his very friendly, incredibly attractive neighbor in U.S. History since 1877, Mike Wheeler.
“Hey!” he says, trying to gain back the energy that seeing The Fellowship’s submission card had unwittingly drained out of him.
And honestly, seeing that flash of Mike’s smile and how the fluorescents dance in his eyes, Will feels like he has enough energy to power the sun now, even if they are going to have to sit through yet another lecture about the Industrial Revolution and, like, child labor, or something.
“What’s got you so down?” Mike asks, head tilted to the side, some of his hair tumbling into his eyes, and all Will wants to do is push it away–
But, no, he has to have a coherent conversation right now, so he shakes his head and tries his best to return Mike’s smile. “Oh, nothing…Just something for that zine I work on.”
“Oh, yeah!” Mike snaps his fingers, causing some of the buttons on his jacket to rattle together. He always wears a leather jacket no matter the weather or the rest of his attire, and today, paired with plaid pajama bottoms, held-together-by-duct-tape Converse, and a baggy Care Bears shirt, it shouldn’t work, but in Will’s eyes, it does. It almost works too well. “I think I saw one of those around! I wanted to grab a copy, but somebody else did before I could get to it.”
“I can bring you a copy of the next issue,” Will says, then, remembering the task ahead of him, groans and puts his head back in his hands. “That is, if I even survive it.”
“What, are they making you skip classes for it?”
“No, worse: they’re making me listen to a band I hate.”
Mike winces. “Yikes.”
“Yeah.”
“That sucks.”
“Right?”
“Can’t you just, like…push it off?”
“I did. For three semesters.” The professor wanders in with a mumbled greeting and a steaming cup of coffee in hand, and Will lowers his voice in anticipation of the lecture beginning. “That’s why I have to do it now.”
“Maybe it would help if somebody went with you?”
Despite having flirted with each other mercilessly all semester during this one shared class of theirs through review sessions and pre-lecture passing periods alike, they haven’t hung out much outside of it, so to be faced with the possibility of something that could potentially be labeled as a date between them is shocking. For a moment, Will can forget about the future torment awaiting him Thursday evening at The Purple Hall’s listening stage, and he thinks that maybe, just maybe, having somebody to talk to over the drone of the lazily-played guitars could make the evening slightly more bearable.
“Yeah,” Will finally says, a grin stretching across his face. “Of course. Yeah, that’d be awesome!”
Mike returns the look twofold, and one of his legs begins to bounce. “Awesome! When is it?”
As the lecture begins, Will resorts to a torn piece of notebook paper, like he’s a kid passing notes in class again to survive the boredom. He scribbles The Purple Hall - Thursday 7 p.m., then hands it to Mike, who responds with a quizzical look at the paper, then scratches something out and hands it back to Will.
The Purple Hall - Thursday 7 p.m. 6?
Will shoots him a thumbs up, prays it wasn’t too awkward, and then folds the sheet of paper up and sticks it in his pocket.
He can survive two hours of pure date goodness before he has to go through the misery of listening to that group.
The pros: this is one of Will’s favorite music venues, there’s several bands to look forward to tonight, and Mike seems wholly invested in the idea of this being a date, if his leaning closer and the playful hand on Will’s knee mean anything.
The cons: Will has to listen to the fucking Fellowship of the Ring in approximately ten minutes.
He's been able to put off any thoughts about it, for the most part. After all, The Fellowship isn’t set to perform until 8–he and Mike had met at 6 as planned, and Will has spent the first hour and a half trying to be blissfully unaware of the torturous fate awaiting him.
Even as his skin begins to crawl at the thought of having to hear those plucky, out-of-tune guitars and the lead singer screeching about the Gulf War under the guise of Star Wars references, he does feel a little settled. Mike’s fingers are surprisingly warm, and the alcohol they’ve been nursing makes his chest glow like a furnace. It’s easier to laugh, to be focused solely on Mike and these wonderful, looping conversations they’ve found themselves caught in.
“This one’s good!” Mike half-shouts over the drum solo of the current act, consisting of just a drummer and a bassist crooning over their heady rhythms. They’re called the Jazz Squares, or something like that. Whatever.
At least they’re not The Fellowship.
“The drink or the band?” Will queries. His own head’s spinning with the beer he’s been sipping on for the better part of an hour, and he already feels lightheaded. Sure, he’s a lightweight, but Mike’s got something to do with these pulses of courage thumping in his chest, right?
“Both!” Mike takes another long sip from his Jolly-Rancher-blue mixer. Will had asked him what was in it earlier, and all Mike had responded with was Coconut-something and a whole lot of rum!
They’ve talked about so much already–their families, their majors, their hobbies. Mike comes here a lot, he reveals, and he mentions that he plays guitar, too. He keeps it a playful secret when Will asks for more information, though: How long have you played? Do you write, too? Are you in a band, because I could put you in the zine if you wanted–
It’s a surpriseee, Mike had drawled in response, a stupid grin twisting his mouth as his fingers had vacated Will’s knee momentarily to ruffle through his hair instead.
And if it hadn’t been for the fact that Will still can’t believe he scored a date with the guy he’s been mildly crushing on but very much overtly flirting with for the past three months, he might’ve kissed him right then.
As the Jazz Squares’ set finally dies down to some spotty applause (this is more of an alternative scene, after all, but a gig is a gig), Will lets out a groan. Melodramatically knocking his forehead into the table, he sinks his arms down and draws out his notebook from his bag.
“What’s that for?” Mike asks, eyebrows so high on his forehead that they’re lost behind his bangs.
“For that review I have to do,” Will grumbles.
“But isn’t that act on in, like, two hours?”
Will blinks a couple of times. He supposes he hadn’t actually told Mike which group he was here for, but he thought the fact that he originally proposed a meet-up time of 7 would have communicated enough that it was somewhere around then. “Um, no? I didn’t say anything, I guess, but I think they’re up next.”
Mike’s fingers begin to nervously tap on what remains of his electric blue potion. As his and Will’s gazes snag together for several heady seconds, he purses his lips, then throws back the rest of his drink, swallowing the last of it in just a couple of gulps.
Will slowly draws his notebook out, flipping to the page he had specifically marked The Fellowship of the Ring with a disheartened, frighteningly life-like frowny face scrawled next to it. “Is something wrong?”
Mike drags his wrist across his mouth, smearing any remaining drops of blue onto his leather jacket’s sleeve. “So this band you hate that you have to review…It’s The Fellowship of the Ring?”
“Yeah.” Will taps the top of his paper. “I didn’t say anything, but…yeah.”
“Oh.”
“Why?”
“Um.”
Will quirks an eyebrow up. “I mean, do you like them? That’s fine, of course, I mean–people have different tastes and what-not. I’d just have to seriously question your judgment in all matters music-related, I guess. Possibly in other matters, too.”
“Um,” Mike repeats, fingers now tapping a dangerously fast staccato against their bartop table. It makes the remaining beer in Will’s bottle slosh around. “Um…This is bad.”
“What? Are you a super fan or something?” Thanks to the alcohol, Will feels bold enough to scrunch his nose up with disgust. “I mean, fine, whatever. But seriously, if you want a second date, I’m gonna take you to a record store so you can hear some actually decent music. If you’re impressed by that fucking band’s reductive bullshit, you’ll be absolutely amazed by a group like The Clash or Smashing Pumpkins or–hell, even fucking U2–”
“Excuse me!” the MC calls over the mic; when the feedback whines, he takes a second to tap at the mic, then announces: “Calling everyone’s favorite up-and-coming group, The Fellowship of the Ring, for soundcheck! Their set starts in five!”
The club erupts into raucous cheers. Will has to hide the involuntary groan of annoyance he lets out behind his hand.
Mike casts a nervous glance at Will, then pushes his chair out and looks like he’s going to walk away, the buttons on his jacket clicking together. He nearly trips over the sagging laces of his Converse, and through the tears in his jeans, he almost looks like he’s shaking.
“Hey, wait!” Will says, reaching forward and grasping Mike’s wrist. It makes his date stop, a blush creeping up into his cheeks, and Will tries to push down his distaste for the band and lets out a sigh. “Listen, I’m sorry–I was being stupid. It’s just a band, after all. If you like them, that’s fine, and I will…” he swallows here, and it hurts, taking on this insurmountable task of trying to push his music-snob’s pride down. “I won’t make fun of you for it. I promise.”
Mike blinks a couple of times before a reassuring grin overtakes his features. “Uh…Nope. That’s okay, Will. It’s not for everyone. I wasn’t like…trying to run out on you or anything.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. I’m still gonna be here.”
“Then why are you getting up?”
Mike points at the stage, where a drummer with a riot of sandy brown curls and bassist with flaming red hair are setting up their instruments, their eyes scanning the room in search of their infamous guitarist and singer. “Didn’t you hear? We have soundcheck. The set starts in five.”
Will slowly nods. “Yeah. Then the next act starts, and I have to scratch down whatever notes I can think of for them, and then we can get back to our date.”
Mike stares at him for several seconds.
And then, Will has a big revelation. One that makes him wish he’d never been born.
“Oh, shit–”
Mike’s grin turns into something playful, his eyebrows shooting up beneath his bangs. “Can’t wait to read your official review of my fucking band’s reductive bullshit!” he says with a two-fingered salute, then spins around to make his way to the stage. He’s bathed in the dim lighting of the stage, hunching over his guitar the second he straps it around his chest, and Will wonders how somebody who's brave enough to wander around in a leather jacket and a fucking Care Bears shirt and look that good could be involved in a band that’s just–
This bad, Will finishes for himself as Mike strums his first cord, the electricity of his sticker-smattered guitar shaking the walls of the club, and he begins yet another signature Fellowship song that’s nothing more than various John Hughes and horror movie quotes juxtaposed over warring drums and guitars.
With a sigh and a headache pounding at his temples, Will tears out the page from his notebook, crumples it into the tightest ball he can, and tosses it into the trash can by their table. He avoids looking at the stage at all costs, lest he and Mike catch eyes, and he tries to think of how he can salvage any of this and reconcile these two parts of himself: the one that’s screaming But he’s so fun and attractive! and the other that’s screaming And his band fucking sucks!
But, most of all, Will tries to ignore the noise The Fellowship of the Ring calls music, even though it’s bleeding from the speakers and onto the walls, infecting the people in the venue and making them cheer like it’s the Super Bowl and their team’s down by two points.
What a fucking first date.
track 2: beware, doll, you’re bound to fall
Honestly, Will would have skipped all of his classes today if it weren’t for the fact all of his professors are apparently conspiring against him and what little social dignity he has left after last night, because he has tests or papers due in each of his classes.
He’s currently standing in the middle of the history building’s second-story hallway, students and professors alike passing by his figure hunched against one of the walls, staring at his essay about Reconstruction that he’d finished a week before it was due. Now, he’s questioning whether his thesis was wrong from the start and whether he should start the whole thing over.
It would be a nice distraction from whatever the hell had happened last night. He’s spent every moment since he left The Purple Hall trying to blight it from his mind’s eye, but no matter how much he tries to ignore it, it just keeps coming back stronger, like the urge to scratch a mosquito or ant bite when you know you shouldn't. Yeah, he could just ask for an extension from the professor, hole up in his shared apartment with Jonathan for the next week, and maybe when he’s done, he can drop out of school. His mom had always been so leery about her youngest going off to the big city to study–he could finally fulfill her dreams for his life by moving back to Indiana and finishing up school there, somewhere far far away from the likes of–
“You left before the set was over.”
Shit.
Will’s fingers crinkle around the paper he’s already half-revised in his head, and he winces a little as he looks into the gorgeous, sunspot-dark eyes of one Mike Wheeler, frontman for the worst band to ever grace this earth.
And despite the embarrassment currently tearing his insides to shreds and making his face grow hotter than the furnace in a steel factory (add mentions of the Industrial Revolution to the Reconstruction paper, he mentally notes to himself), Will manages to drop his mouth into a light scowl and say, “That’s an interesting way of saying hello.”
Mike huffs, sending a spray of his wavy bangs flying off of his face. He looks like he didn’t even bother to take a shower after last night; in fact, Will’s pretty sure he’s wearing the same exact clothes he had on for their date. “Did you not like it?”
“And an even stranger way of saying how are you?”
Mike crosses his arms, but even beneath his heavy frown, Will can detect the barest hint of a smile The Fellowship’s frontman is suppressing right now. He even has to purse his lips to keep his mouth from quirking up before he begins, “I just didn’t know if something happened, or if it was–” he gestures a hand around, like he’s searching for a word.
“Bad?” Will supplies.
Mike huffs. “No. We don’t play bad gigs. I meant more like…” He knocks his head from side to side. “Not to your liking?”
At this point, Will feels lucky to even still be on speaking terms with this guy, especially since he had run out of the gig about thirty minutes into their set. He’d tried his damndest to see it through, but his hatred for The Fellowship is too unbearable, even at the expense of losing a date with the most attractive man to have ever asked Will out–hell, one of the only men to have ever asked Will out.
Which is saying a lot, okay–Will Byers was willing to give up one of the only dates he’s ever been on in his life because he hates The Fellowship’s music that much.
But now, his pulse ticks up; he feels as if he’s threading a delicate line of silk through a cloth or walking on the thinnest tightrope known to mankind. It’s the line between truth and respectability, even after doing something as douchey as running out on a date because apparently the other person has made it their life’s work to torture Will one three-minute song at a time.
So Will decides, right then and there, as the halls of the history building empty of students now shuttering themselves away in their respective classrooms, that one little lie can’t hurt him too badly. It’s not like this guy is gonna want to go out with him again–the least he can do is try and save face and maybe they can still share some flirty banter before the semester ends and they inevitably part ways for the rest of their lives.
“Um…Yeah, sorry. I forgot, but my brother’s been kind of sick, and he called the bar asking me to come home. He wasn’t doing too well.”
Which isn’t a complete lie, since Jonathan does have a pitiful immune system, and his allergies kick his ass all year, so he’s always kind of congested and coughing. Not that he was last night, though, considering he’d stumbled into their shared apartment at 3 a.m. after a night out with all of his work friends.
But Mike doesn’t have to know a thing about that at all.
“Your brother was sick?” Mike’s head has dropped a little now, and he stares at Will through his greasy bangs, his mouth parted in confusion.
It’s a mouth that Will had, regrettably, dreamed of kissing last night. Now, he can’t imagine it without half-assed lyrics by The Fellowship spewing out of it. “Yeah. He wasn’t feeling well.”
“You didn’t say anything about that before.”
“I didn’t want to worry you.”
Mike frowns. “Well, you did anyway. I looked all over for you afterwards. I even waited an extra hour until the bartender told me you’d left.”
Now, Will feels a horrible, pinching sense of guilt somewhere between his chest and his gut, one that pulls at the fibers of his shoulder muscles, too. He’s never had a proper first date before–you don’t tend to get those when you’re gay in small-town Indiana–but he knows enough to know that you’re not supposed to run out on them. He could’ve at least waited until it was over to tell Mike he needed to leave and then never bothered to speak with him again, but now, it’s like he tore out the last few pages in a story, and both of them are left wondering what should come next. There’s suspense and feelings put on pause, and it’s all because he’d run out like some grade-A asshole from an episode of Seinfeld.
So Will opens his mouth, embarrassment flushing his face and a thousand apologies resting on the tip of his tongue, just waiting to tumble out into some incoherent, babbling mess.
But Mike beats him to it; with a devilish smirk, he says, “Besides, you missed the best gig of your life. What you saw alone probably proved you wrong. I’ve heard you’re a tough reviewer in that zine of yours, but I bet we’re gonna be the first act to get five stars.”
All sympathy leaves Will’s body in a rush, replaced by wounded pride, and he guffaws as they enter the door together, Mike holding out a stiffly cordial arm to let Will pass through first. “Well, I hate to tell you, but you’re astronomically wrong.”
“Come on! It was fantastic! I was on fire!”
“He was!” a random student pipes up, her eyes lovingly stuck on Mike. Will recognizes with a faint urge to vomit that she’s the one with a tattoo of their logo. “You guys were awesome last night!”
There’s a spirited chorus of cheers from around the class, everyone apparently having been in attendance at the gig.
Mike holds a hand out as if to say See? Everyone loves me.
And in that moment, Will takes whatever feelings of goodwill he had felt towards Mike–as well as whatever strange, fluttery sensation he makes shoot across Will’s stomach every time they lock eyes–and he shoves them somewhere deep and inaccessible in his chest. It’s a line drawn in the sand or yellow tape stuck over a crime scene, a warning to not cross under any circumstances. His mouth drops into a scowl, and he grips his faulty Reconstruction Era essay in a shaky fist as his gaze zeroes in on Mike, pushing out the buzz of students cheering for his performance, congratulating him, admiring him. As if they all think The Fellowship is some truly enlightened purveyor of artistic merit just because they sound like everything cool nowadays.
It’s official: Will is going to prove him wrong.
“Alright, class–quiet down, now,” the professor drones in his nasally voice as he begins to shuffle up and down the aisles. He can’t be any older than forty, but the weight of a PhD and tenure makes him move and act like he’s at least seventy. “I’m gonna collect your papers,” he snatches Will’s up, eyeing its creases and smudged ink funnily, then skips over Mike to continue gathering the other papers from the rest of the students, “and then, we’re gonna get back to the most exciting topic on planet earth: the Industrial Revolution.”
Amidst the dry chuckles and groans that shoot up across the room, Will leans over to Mike, who instinctively tilts his head closer; the smell of greasy hair beneath a cloud of cologne almost makes Will gag on his words, and yet, he still has to tamper down the shot of heat that races down his spine now that their shoulders are nearly brushing. He clears his throat and asks, “Why didn’t you turn a paper in?”
With a smirk, Mike leans back, and Will hates how much he misses the warmth of his skin. It’s as if Mike can tell, too, because he takes a pen Will has never once seen him uncap in his life except to doodle on the duct tape around his Converse, and he languidly twirls it around a lock of his unwashed hair. “He gave me an extension, since he knew I had a few important gigs coming up.” The corners of his mouth tilt up the slightest, just beginning to show the points of his canines, and he adds in a whisper, “Even the professors like us.”
Will tightens his grip on his pen until he’s pretty sure the cap’s about to fly off, then pries his attention away from the attractive–wait, no, evil–person next to him. His eyes land on the chalkboard, where the professor is languorously scratching a random mix of dates and names on the board, but Will can’t separate letters from numbers, capital letters from lowercase ones. No, all he sees in his field of vision are the beginning notes of his review, printed on crisp paper with fresh ink, being handed out to students all over campus with his seething review about Mike’s band tucked away inside, ready for dissemination to the entire student body.
He’ll show Mike. He’ll show him real good. Sure, his paper on Reconstruction might suck, but the first draft for his review is already writing itself in his head to the soundtrack of their professor’s ever-buzzing drone.
track 3: INTERLUDE: voice of rage and ruin
Heartless
The Fellowship of the Ring performed a lackluster gig at The Purple Hall on Thursday evening to a packed crowd of adoring fans–well, all but one, I suppose. Hi, that would be me, your favorite campus zine’s music reviewer.
(Well, we’re the only campus zine, as far as I know, so we kind of have to be your favorite, right?)
Any in attendance at this university know about The Fellowship of the Ring–they’re a near-ubiquitous, almost cult-like presence that has taken over the headphones and hearts of students from Anthropology to Zoology. Whenever I’ve asked my friends and fellow students about The Fellowship and why they like them (why oh why do they like them?), they always list similar things: the music itself speaks to them, makes them want to run or dance or, in one student’s memorable case, overthrow the imperialist world-order the US has established itself as the head of; or, they like the lyrics, how they speak to the troubles and desires of youth today in a language they understand; for some, the music is alright, but it’s the charisma that makes the group so memorable.
You see, I have to ask people to explain this to me, because I simply don’t get it. And since I am the reviewer here, I get free reign to do as I please, so I am here to present a counterargument to the popular narrative. That’s what college is about anyway, right? Expanding our horizons? Accepting new things?
Well, here’s one horizon I would like to expand on this campus: The Fellowship of the Ring is not great. They are not even good, or passable, or worthwhile for putting on as white noise to, I don’t know, stab yourself repeatedly in the eyes with a blunt instrument. Maybe bamboo or a spork, depending on how you’re feeling.
Now, why do I not like The Fellowship? I’ll give three reasons, all related to the points above.
Firstly, their music does not make me want to dance, or sing, or do anything joyful. I’m not saying music has to be perfect or studied as a fine art–hell, most of everyone’s favorite artists were self-taught–but it has to be intentional. If it sounds off-key or distorted or different for some reason, then there should be a reason. The Fellowship’s out-of-tune plucks and off-beat drumming are not artistically innovative or forward-thinking, but a clear stylistic choice made in the hopes that it will catch people’s attention, not to serve the actual music. They’re marketing their brand of sound in a way to drag people into thinking they’re some care-free, we’re-just-like-you group that they want you to think they are, and all of you buy it like it’s stouts of watered down beer at the bar during happy hour.
My issues with their lyrics follow much the same line of critique: where’s the intentionality behind it? Smashing movie quotes over a track isn’t writing–it’s cobbling together a bunch of stuff you know people will like because you know it guarantees you an audience. Some students will balk at me, “But they talk about the real and daunting political issues of our time!,” to which I say, maybe corner one of their members sometime and ask them where The Gulf War was fought, because I guarantee it will be wrong. How do I know? Because they fucking get it wrong in their song (Kuwait isn’t located in the Gulf of Mexico, guys). Their explorations of whatever cultural and generational malaise we’re experiencing in this decade aren’t any deeper than a rain puddle either, seeing as they can’t draw it out in any visceral way. Why say “There’s nothing to do?” when you can talk about all the things you wish you could be doing, that you aren’t doing, that you won’t do: why delineate it all to a simple “there’s nothing” when, clearly, in the land of plenty, there’s always something. Again, it lacks intentionality–the words don’t feel urgent in the singer’s mouth, like Bono singing about The Troubles in Ireland or Prince crooning to his lover through a sheen of purple rain, but rather like it’s a pretense he has to put on to get all of you to listen to him.
And it works. Every. Single Time.
Which brings me to my final point: the band’s charisma, if you can even call it that. Everyone loves these people! They have a set-up that’s been popularized by Nirvana and growing all the more popular by the day, a bare-bones threesome composed of guitar, bass, and drums. And, yes, all three members are charismatic, in a sense: they’re clearly excited and happy, and they give a lot of energy, but what strikes me most about them is how they lack heart; their eyes are open but dull, their shouts frantic but unmoored. They look more like the Rolling Stones going on tour, doing the same thing they’ve done five billion times before, than the up-and-coming grunge act they try to style themselves as. There’s no fight in them, but a comfort that comes from knowing that people will listen to them just because they’ve managed to figure out the formula for how to stay relevant and still sound a little original.
And that’s the truth of the matter, I guess: I don’t like The Fellowship because they’re not a band trying to make music, but a group of people playing instruments and looking for attention, a bunch of noise that misses any cohesion that passion and heart give to a band. And without that central organ, the whole body falls apart: without heart, these performances are just a bunch of dead-eyed movements that happen to make noise, a useless pandering to humanity that debases both the artists and the listeners. That’s what the music industry is built on, at this point–look at what gets played on the radio nowadays–and they know this, and they use it to their advantage because they know everyone will come running to them as the next trendsetters.
For their lack of intentionality, sincerity, and honesty in their art, I give The Fellowship of the Ring 0 stars, a first for this publication, and I certainly hope the last.