Yungblud: Idols
(Locomotion Entertainment / Island Records)
Out Now
Returning with his career-defining fourth album, and fresh from Bludfest, his self-curated festival of reasonable prices, with his two previous albums going to number one, Yungblud offers a state of the nation redress via his own life story. MK Bennett watches on.
It was the woke revolutionary Marshall McLuhan, not Tupac Shakur, who said, “I am an intellectual thug who has been slowly accumulating a private arsenal with every intention of using it. In a mindless age every insight takes on the character of a lethal weapon. Every man of good will is the enemy of society.” Yungblud is, at the very least, a man of goodwill. A hero to Gen Z’s neurodiverse and otherwise, a man who fosters connection and community, but a man who has been forced to understand the dichotomy of adoration.
In Louise Bourgeois’s Deconstruction Of The Father, Reconstruction of the Father, there is an argument concerning the rebuilding of the self through destructive tendencies, among other things. The killing of a particular male ego, the killing of a sacred deer, choices without intent. If Yungblud intended to become a role model, it is a burden and a joy, clearly, and one he wears with a resigned sigh and a smile. Sisyphus had his rock, his punishment for revealing the secrets of the Gods.
Consider punk not just as three chords and an attitude, but as a culture that evolves and shifts, sometimes in fashion and sometimes not. As a cultural movement, then, it can only partly be about the expected music, the volume, the speed, and the expressed anger; it must also be other. In that sense, the kid from Idaho via Dennis Cooper’s Idols and the kid from Doncaster are seeking the same thing. If there has been a worry that the music has become secondary to the sainthood, that the elephant in the room is integrity versus content, then his own Idols is an answer, both to himself and his critics, alert and firing squad ready.
Hello Heaven, Hello is stadium-sized, a big declaration of intent that more or less dares you to doubt him, U2 circa Zooropa, it is both knowing and heartfelt, a song to sing with your lungs full of festival air, when you close your eyes and feel the drums drop in. It may well be studied, but done this well, it doesn’t matter; it will be adored. As an album opener it is a giant leap forward. Ambitious and extravagant, it goes full Elton John rock opera about three minutes in, and it is glorious. By the time of the string-filled third act of this nine-minute gem, you realise he is taking this assignment very seriously, reaching for his heaven in an attempt to make his magnum opus.
Idols Pt. 1 is excellent modern pop, reminiscent of a dystopian 21 Pilots, with strings to the front. The lyrics are hopeful yet cautious, self-aware, and relaxed after the rollercoaster of the opening track. The brilliance of the line “I wear too much make-up to see” lingers long after the song ends. Not for the first or last time here, he is stretching for Black Star era Bowie, a hell of a watermark to even attempt, but his willingness to throw himself into everything he does is one of the reasons he finds that devotion everywhere.
Lovesick Lullaby returns to classic Yungblud with upbeat pop-rock, featuring a narrative and a dopamine-driven realisation that you always come back to yourself. It’s Britpop in a good way — Supergrass meets Blur. Occasionally, he wears his influences obviously, Zombie sounds similar to The Cranberries’ track of the same name, and yet it’s so well made, the strings once again carrying the emotion with the vocal, that it seems churlish to bring it up. The ghost of Lydon’s 70s attitude sits on every word, because you simply can not question his authenticity. He means it, like The Manics meant it, like Biafra meant it, like Strummer meant it.
“I’ve always wanted to build a world where I could exist to escape what was going on around me.”
Buried in the soft shoe, passive-aggressive, middle-class Jeremy Kyle persona of a well-known TV series is the above quote, while the bumbling host skirts common decency, a clue to Yumgblud building a safe space for himself and others, his Black Hearts club, saviours who need saviours. So, the music expands, grows bigger, but never bigger than the personality itself.
The Greatest Parade is another guitar song of good taste, a slight MCR shimmy, and another excellent lyric about living in the moment, living la vida loca, with a fabulous outro, while Change is another big number among the big numbers, a piano-led and yearning thing that explodes into a clever chorus. These huge theatrical numbers suit both his voice and his intention, a pointed path to his future. The whole album is reminiscent in tone and theme of Alice Cooper’s vastly underrated 1979 album From The Inside, a concept album that came about after he checked himself into an institution, the pressures of fame and playing golf with presidents proving too much.
Monday Murder veers close to late-period REM, a wistful melody weaving in and out of chiming guitars, while Ghosts is a beautiful mid-tempo stomper once the drums kick in, which is where the song settles into itself. These are the mechanics of modernity, particularly in terms of radio play, an album where every track seems to have its own video, its own aesthetic to send out into the world. Ghosts also has a magnificent stadium-sized ending, part Guns n Roses, part classic Who, including a Daltrey-like scream. He seems most comfortable when letting go, bypassing the thought process and just doing.
The Hansa Studio’s recording of Ghosts is apt; there are many small nods to the three kings, Bowie, Pop and Reed, especially the aesthetic of the black and white, half-naked Yungblud in the marketing and the songs generally. He is trying to talk to everyone, whether you trust him or not. Fire is proper old school 70s rock, riffing away into the ether, over before it’s barely begun. Rewind this one and start again; it still seems way too short. War is a big and emotional rock number similar to 30 Seconds to Mars; the heaviness of the guitars are treated into oblivion but still push through.
Idols Pt 2 is a bare confessional, just Yungblud and a Bowie-adjacent piano, 90 seconds of close-miked loveliness and maybe the most affecting thing here, stark simplicity and the truth as he knows it. Supermoon temporarily ends the album, as this is merely part one of a double, sensibly arriving at a later date. Supermoon sounds like Transformer-era Reed, as once again, the genius of Mick Ronson rears its head and smiles. It is a relaxed and strong end to the album, confident in its influences and how good Yungblud is.
Up until now, his heart has always been bigger than his music, but this is him becoming the rock star that’s needed, and that he needs to be. That no-filter attitude, a self-created framework to work within, is starting to pay off. The semantics of change are an anger, an energy, a million tiny revolutions.
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All words by MK Bennett, you can find his author’s archive here plus his Twitter and Instagram
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