DATE | WEEKS |
June 5, 2004 | 3 |
George Orwell is not a guy I feel like writing about right now. Considering we're just months away from an election that feels incredibly dark in its significance, I'd rather not dwell on the aspects of totalitarianism Orwell outlined in his most famous novel, 1984. But hey, I'm the one who chose to write this column, and I've got to bring Orwell up if we're gonna discuss "Talk Shows on Mute". I have no one to blame but myself.
In full disclosure, I've never read 1984. I did read Animal Farm when I was in school, and that book, with its theme of how a revolution intended to bring equality can be corrupted by those who lead it and result in nothing changing, still lingers with me.
"Talk Shows on Mute" makes references to both of those novels and was released at the height of the War of Terror, the Bush administration's ill-conceived response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. There was a genuine fear in many Americans that we would become the very totalitarian state Orwell described in 1984. The Patriot Act hastily became a law in the aftermath of those terrorist attacks and seemed to spit on the rights enshrined in the Constitution. We still haven’t fully arrived at that totalitarian state, but these days it feels like it won’t take much to push us over that edge.
“Talk Shows on Mute”, the second single from Incubus’s 2004 album A Crow Left of the Murder…, taps into the unease of the government surveilling its citizens, and does it from an interesting angle. Brandon Boyd claims he got the inspiration for the song while he was on an airplane, literally watching TV on mute. Out of boredom, he started narrating what the characters were saying. Eventually he came upon the idea that televisions could one day watch the people watching them. He’s not far off on that idea, as anyone who’s ever covered a laptop camera with tape will tell you.
I always thought it was about how the entertainment we consume is distracting us from noticing our rights being taken away. It turns out that’s half of the 1984 reference. “Take a bow, pack on powder. Wash ‘em out with buzzing lights. Pay an audience to care.”
Boyd seems to get at the idea in the pre-chorus: “Still and transfixed, the electric sheep are dreaming of your face. Enjoy you from the chemical comforts of America.” That “electric sheep” line is a direct reference to the Philip K. Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which eventually served as the basis for Ridley Scott’s 1982 film Blade Runner.
Eventually, Boyd directly references Orwell in the chorus: “Come one, come all into 1984. Yeah, three, two, one, lights, camera, transaction.” In the novel 1984, most homes have two-way televisions that the government uses to monitor its citizens. There’s always been a moral panic about television, but it’s usually about depictions of sex and the language used in shows. Ironically, that seems like something the totalitarian government of Oceania would be deeply concerned with.
For me, though, the relevance of the song might stem more from the rise of smartphones and social media as something addling the minds of those who consume it. Or the notion that an app like TikTok has become a potent source for some to deliver misinformation to the people spending hours on the app.
The song itself is stripped down and Boyd’s vocals are somewhat laconic. He doesn’t sing with any urgency in his voice the way he does in Incubus’ other chart-topper, “Megalomaniac”. Maybe that’s his way of conveying that we’re too late to stop this future from happening. That’s a deeply depressing interpretation of the song, but with the benefit of 20 years of hindsight, for me, that’s the best I can come up with.
I think for me in 2004, liking this song so much felt edgy. It felt like I was aware of the bullshit going on that I couldn’t control. Looking back, I don’t know if I should feel foolish for thinking that, or if I should cut myself some slack for being young. I guess both things can be true at the same time.
The music video for the song references Animal Farm, Orwell’s other cautionary tale about totalitarianism. The clip appears to take place in a universe in which animals are dominant and humans treated as dumb pets only good for entertainment. Incubus play the song on a variety show hosted by a wolf-like creature who eventually transforms into a human, to the shock of the audience watching. Floria Sigismondi, who also directed the video for “Megalomaniac”, gives the video a grainy quality, as if we’re watching on an old-time TV from the 1960s.
“Talk Shows on Mute” was another big hit for Incubus. The video got lots of play on Fuse and MTV2, and the song reached #3 on the Modern Rock chart. Strangely, there were no other singles released from the album. Maybe the higher-ups thought that no other songs from the record were as radio-friendly or relevant, but you would think that after two successful singles, they could give a third the old college try.
Incubus did keep busy after the album cycle wore down. They toured behind the album in 2004, and then contributed three songs to the soundtrack the 2005 film Stealth. Stealth was about an unmanned Navy fighter jet that gains sentience and almost causes a war with Russia. I thought it seemed silly when it was released, and reading the plot on Wikipedia, it sounds positively batshit. The movie bombed (no pun intended) at the box office, but one of Incubus’ songs, “Make a Move”, got some airplay on alternative radio, and peaked at #19 on my chart that summer.
(Another song from the Stealth soundtrack will eventually appear in this column.)
Incubus dialed back on politics with their next album, and maybe that was for the best. That was never their lane to begin with. Brandon Boyd tapped into a subconscious anger he and many others in the country were feeling, and they channeled it into a really good album. For some, those flames burn bright, but that’s not true for everyone. And that’s usually OK; otherwise most of us would probably go insane.
Despite that, Boyd and the rest of his bandmates still knew how to make good music that always caught my attention. We will see Incubus again in this column
EXTRAS
I really can't give you much for this section. "Talk Shows on Mute" is not a song that can be used easily in a TV show or movie, and there are no notable covers that I can find. So here's Incubus performing the song on Letterman in 2004.
THE NUMBER TWOS
Before Eminem got famous, he joined a Detroit hip-hop collective called The Dirty Dozen, which later shortened their name to D12. After he got famous, he basically became the leader of the group. D12 clowned this hierarchy on their deeply silly song "My Band", which peaked at #2 behind "Talk Shows on Mute".
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