“Affected Disaffection [General Electorate Version]” (reposted from Facebook)
“Affected Disaffection” is the second track from The General Electorate’s SYNTHETIC BONES album that is actually a re-imagining of a BLEACHED BONES OF TITANS song. Besides turning a glam rock song into a synth pop song, we changed the key, so it’s really a completely new creature. (Then again, I think we changed the key of “Love and the Lack of It” as well.) It’s also the most modern-sounding arrangement. To that end, this playlist extends the synth pop artistry to include several currently popular artists (Passion Pit, MGMT, and M83). “Affected Disaffection” is also the shortest song on the SYNTHETIC BONES album, clocking in at 3:09. Thus it is actually an ideal track for radio play if you happen to be a radio DJ or know anybody in the business!
The song itself, though, is about the jaded nature of our culture today: too cool to care or even show emotions. So the array of old-school artists here are either writing/singing about that phenomenon, or they are known for adopting that persona themselves. We have Erasure’s “I Love Saturday,” about a love lost to the need to pretend that love isn’t all that important and the ever-ironic Pet Shop Boys giving us their version of “Always On My Mind” on the same topic. Depeche Mode’s “New Life” and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark’s “Genetic Engineering” embrace a new outlook on life at the expense of all that came before. Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love” explores what happens when love grows cold enough to poison, and Devo’s “Triumph of the Will” adopts the persona of rape culture itself, which doesn’t distinguish between desire of an object and its subjugation from geniune love. The Eurythmics’ “I Love To Listen to Beethoven” and Gary Numan “Cars” remind us that rampant materialism leads to the death of inner life.
Incidentally, the entire song “Affected Disaffection” was inspired by a line from Edith Wharton’s HOUSE OF MIRTH, in which Lily Barton “lean[s] back in a luxury of discontent.” In fact, that last phrase does, indeed, appear in the song itself. Lily is the consummately jaded individual. She cares only for cheap thrills and expensive luxuries and has no inner life to speak of beyond her desire to acquire. In essence, she is the early 20th century counterpart to the 21st century character of the song. The photo above, meanwhile, is from 1989 Pennsylvania Governor’s School of the Arts, when I got four awesome friends to feign indifference just long enough to strike a Calvin Klein Obsession-style pose for the camera, after which they went back to being exuberant in their discussion of what artistic endeavours they’d be pursuing on that day.
You can listen to the FULL PLAYLIST HERE.
AFFECTED DISAFFECTION LYRICS:
Get a load of the princess with the jaded smile, Always walking the miracle mile to the curse of the purse. Exhausts all the colours of her chameleon range ’Til she’s no way left to change and no new role to rehearse. Carries loose convictions: They’re her passport and coin, Accessories that speak of where she’s been to or is going.
You have seen it all. Rome could fall. It wouldn’t cast a pall on you. You have seen it all. Even the siren’s call would fail to enthrall you.
Her only true religion is affected ennui, Cultivated apathy, so checkered her record! Says she travels faster cuz she’s lost her dead weight. What that is, though, is up for debate and she’s got the last word. The luxury of disconnect and discontent, Calendars of empty days to show what she’s spent.
You have seen it all. Rome could fall. It wouldn’t cast a pall on you. You have seen it all. Even the siren’s call would fail to enthrall you.
You know there’s miracles residing in the mundane, but you’ll never change. You know there’s miracles residing in the mundane If you’re open to the pleasure and pain.
Affected Disaffection is the mask that you wear Until you really don’t care. It’s the numb you become.
You have seen it all. Rome could fall. It wouldn’t cast a pall on you. You have seen it all. Even the siren’s call would fail to enthrall you.