Saves the World, Sunny

Let's start right now: is it "mu:nə" ("MOO-nah") or is it "mju:nə" ("MYOO-nah")? It's definitely all caps, that's for sure.

It's good. I liked it. We've had our fair share of female-led power-pop indie-rock synth-forward hybrids in Record Club. I can't remember them all, but we've definitely had them. I think this is in the top 50% of those acts. It's competent, well-written, it's fun. The lead single is fun.

I was thinking about what I want to say about this album besides "it's pretty good," but that it didn't resonate me. I gotta think of the album review's hook. It's:

The core of the album is sandwiched between two tracks. It opens with this soft piano number about growing. Fine. I think that's the theme of the album. "MUNA saves the world." It's a very bold thing to say. But that first track is meant to be inspiring and healing. And the last track is what I call the "O.A.R." situation—a six-minute song about putting the band together. Which is also pretty good. It's got many of the clichés that I've had in my life, like: flirts with communism, reads Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, try bad drugs and get in bad relationships... (go down on a girl, yes, exactly)...

And then in the middle, it's however many tracks about the five stages of grief in relationships. There's the denial track, there's the bargaining song, there's the anger one, there's depressed one, there's a couple about getting over it, and then the lead single is about loving yourself. I forget the exact wording, but it opens with a line like "So I got the news that I'm gonna die by myself in my room, and everyone hates me as I read about it on my phone" or something like that.

Which I guess sums up the feeling that the fans that they really connect with—who really do seem to be superfans. I have a new housemate, Ben, and I learned yesterday that he's a MUNA superfan. He was at the concert a couple weeks ago with his girlfriend. He loves them. And this is all I know about the guy. But something about the music is connecting with him on a deeper emotional level.

And then as I scratch back the paper a little more, you go on Wikipedia and whatnot, it's: "save the world" actually means "save yourself." You are the whole world in a particular way of thinking about it, and you have to fix yourself before you can fix anything else. And then you peel that back a little bit, and you find that a lot of the lyrics and a lot of the social media stuff is speaking directly to the "stans." (I used to think that was a pejorative term, but now I think it's used endearingly?) So all this is very interesting, and I think that's the difference to me. I also hate my life and am sad all the time, but maybe not in the particular tenor that is summed up in "Number One Fan."

As such, it's good, but not, like, emotionally great. I wish it was. I have bands that have that for me, and some that don't for others, and vice versa. 

Overall, I'd give it a 3.5 out of 5. If I wanted to be bitchy, I'd say... this was put out in 2019, right? That's the four-year period we call "post-trump, pre-COVID," a particular political moment that can't be reproduced, and any art that comes out of that necessarily reflects that.

And the next album, which comes out in 2022, which also had a to-the-fans line of "If even one of these tracks gets you through something, then it's all worthwhile." That's very... that's nice. But it just doesn't ring true for me. To me, it rings corny, which I feel bad saying!

What do I think might be required to fully buy into this band? I think that, despite having the same "crazy night of poker" experience that's in that last track, you need to resonate with the themes, especially the relationship themes. The album is implying that in order to heal yourself, you need to get over all your relationships. One of these relationship songs will apply to you. But I guess none of them actually really apply to me? I mean, I've had heartbreak, and I've had tough relationships, but none of these apply to me directly, and thus, the album doesn't quite hit me in the heartstrings.

Is all art for everyone? Should all art resonate in the same tenor and frequency? I would think no. Because if some art hits you harder, that necessitates that others won't. To balance it out. But it's a good question. I don't know either. Maybe it is just a crutch to wrap up a review.