Good Neighbours – ‘Blue Sky Mentality’ album review: Montage music for boring lives
Good Neighbours have come through with the album of the year! (If you love the kind of music that could play in the background of package holiday adverts).
How do I describe it…you know in the movie The Matrix (spoilers for The Matrix), you have Neo, and he’s working this little job, and everything is fine, and nothing bad is ever going to happen ever. That’s a nice reality that he can live in if he so wishes; however, he takes the red pill (or the blue pill, it’s been a while) and decides to live in the real world rather than becoming a part of The Matrix. The music that Good Neighbours make is what I imagine everyone who decides to stay in The Matrix listens to.
I should stress, when I say “stay in The Matrix”, I mean hypothetically, as in the one that exists in the movie, as opposed to the strange version that conspiracy theorists tend to talk about in the modern age. My metaphor is running away from me, but what I’m trying to say is that the kind of music we hear on this album, Blue Sky Mentality, is so devoid of heart, soul, any form of realness, that it feels like the kind of music that would be made in an artificial world where problems don’t exist, as opposed to the real one.
I’m not saying that every piece of music made needs to be a reflection of the real world, far from it. People always listen to music that helps with escapism, that opens the door to a brand new world in which people can let their hair down and revel in the good times, but even this kind of music, which is created with escapism in mind needs to be done so with an element of authenticity in the mix, and Good Neighbours don’t do that.
The whole thing sounds fake. The songs come across as though the writing process has been conducted the wrong way round. Songs start on a travelling montage on Instagram, in the crowd at a festival, rather than finding their way there naturally. They don’t appear to channel happiness or good times, instead, they seem to be aware that that’s what they want to channel and then work backwards in an attempt to mirror the emotions involved in such a feeling. The whole thing comes across as empty.
Does it sound bad? No, not at all. The vocals are nice, the songs are catchy, the production is great, but it’s hard to really appreciate any of that because of how devoid of emotion every single song is.
I think there are going to be plenty of people out there who like this album and play it repeatedly, but I don’t know if it’s the kind of thing you can sit down and give your full attention to. Full attention is the kind of thing you give an album you want to connect with, and while musical connection is a beautiful thing, I don’t believe you’ll find it here. If emotional music is a delicious bowl of soup, this album is a fork that you’re trying to eat it with.
You can suck some residue off those chromium prongs if you so wish, but why bother when there are plenty of spoons out there?
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