“Love and the Lack Of It” (General Electorate Version) Playlist [reposted from Facebook]
The General Electorate’s SYNTHETIC BONES album is an homage to 80s synth pop, but it isn’t until track 3, “Love and the Lack of It,” that the synth moves into the forefront of the arrangements (at which point it mostly stays there for the rest of the album). LATLOI is also the first of two tracks on this album that are remakes of songs that originally appeared on The Random Hubiak Band’s BLEACHED BONES OF TITANS album from 2015. Structurally, it’s the most complex song of the bunch. I will also say that I was never fully satisfied with the synth pop version, mainly because it’s one of four songs I recorded vocals for while I still had pneumonia (but it’s the one in which the vocals were most difficult), so the vocals aren’t as crisp as I’d have liked.
(That didn’t deter Carlos Castañeda Jr. from doing an awesome remix which is currently only available on the hard copy of the album, although once I have a full complement of remixes of more tracks, I will do a digital release of all the remixes.)
“Love and the Lack of It” is also the poppiest of the synth tracks, although “Affected Disaffection” is pretty close in terms of having a pop arrangement. After those two songs, the album only gets progressively darker until the avenging digital angels arrive at the end of the album to wipe humanity’s hard drive.
Consequently, though, the songs in this mix are the happiest and poppiest of all the mixes. It’s no surprise that Erasure is part of the mix, nor Vince Clarke-era Depeche Mode and Pet Shop Boys (indeed, the Pet Shop Boys 1993 album VERY served as an inspiration and template for this arrangement). But you’ll also find some of New Order, The Human League, and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark’s poppiest hits in this playlist, as well as some rarer tracks by Gary Numan and Missing Persons. Additionally, a few contemporary songs by Patrick Wolf and (from their foray into synthpop, Dope Machines) The Airborne Toxic Event appear.
You can listen to this playlist for “Love and the Lack Of It” RIGHT HERE. Do it. Do it now! Listen. Listen again and again. Make your friends listen. Share the playlist everywhere!
LOVE AND THE LACK OF IT LYRICS:
Love and the lack of it. Love and the lack of it. Love and the lack of it.
I am a product of my childhood’s end, The disillusioned disciple of love’s perjured professions, Novice to nostalgia, nursing wounds that will not mend With no salt to cauterize these hemorrhaging confessions, No idol to exalt, no vessel for my projections. I only come to you seeking solace and protection for a little while.
Love’s just another place to loser yourself and find yourself Amidst the space to recuse yourself, deny yourself. And if you manage to free yourself, unblind yourself From the shackles of convention and the tentacles of fear And the one-way reflection of narcissism’s mirror... What then?
Love and the lack of it. Love and the lack of it. Love and the lack of it.
The activists are no longer active; they’re all dreaming or asleep, Sleeping the sound sleep of the delusional and self-righteous, Counting slippery stepping stones and obedient little sheep, While wooly little wolves tend the helpless flock And the clergy’s got a Devil’s contract hidden underneath its frock.
Money’s just another way to drug yourself, to bind yourself To all the obligations that unplug yourself, unmind yourself Until you cannot see within yourself from behind yourself And the shackles of convention and tentacles of fear And the one-way reflection of narcissism’s mirror... .What then? (Love and the lack of it)
I see the cycles repeating again, but the public memory fades. Everybody’s looking for a short term solution. Everybody’s looking for a quick fix. It feels like 1984 again. We’ll do massive quantities of coke and vote Republican. (Love and the lack of it)
Love and the lack of it. Love and the lack of it. Love and the lack of it.
So if it’s gonna end, I guess it’s been a well-deserved demise, A self-fulfilling prophecy and I’m just a Cassandra Calling from the wilderness, my voice unrecognized. No victory to evince, no power to command you, My sight cannot convince like the mountebanks grandstand you. Took so little to enthrall you, just the power to understand you that you didn’t have.
But love’s still here when you can see yourself to find yourself.
Yes, you can find the power still to free yourself (remind yourself!). Disillusionment resets yourself (rewind yourself) From the shackles of convention and the tentacles of fear And the one-way reflection of narcissism’s mirror.
Love and the lack of it. Love and the lack of it. Love and the lack of it.