“Over” by Chvrches, Wednesday, October 4, 2023

October 04, 2023

The state of the album--a collection of tracks, unusually at least 30 minutes in length, often a minimum of 9 tracks (though that idea has certainly been challenged)--is constantly being questioned. The structure that dates back to vinyl and solidified in the CD era. Singles are nothing new, dating back to the phonograph at the end of the 19th century. In the vinyl age, singles fit on a seven--, ten-, or twelve-inch record. But in the 1960s, music markets started to focus on LPs or long-playing albums. The concept of buying a single song was foreign to me in high school when most of the music I consumed was on full-length albums and the occasional EP, a format between the length of a single and an LP.

TELL MYSELF THAT BOYS WILL BE BOYS. Chvrches is an album-oriented band. They have released four full-length records, with the most recent being the deluxe edition of Screen Violence, the so-called Director’s Cut of their concept album. The band finally was able to tour the album in 2022. Lead singer Lauren Mayberry told Consequence Sound that the band usually “gather[s] songs over months and years and then make[s] a full record.” But she explained that “Over” was part of a “mini era” between, not connected with Screen Violence. Chvrches is certainly not alone in preferring the album format. Adele and Taylor Swift have expressed their fondness for the format, even releasing few to no promotional singles before an album is released. I’m too a fan of albums, but I wonder if it stems from the physical music age when it was a pain in the ass to change CDs. I would rather listen to ten tracks by one artist than constantly change CDs. Of course, iTunes brought back the single along with the iPod.

TELL ME IT WAS ALL A DREAM. While Chvrches may claim that “Over” is a mini era, detached from their previous work, I feel that the song is a post-album single that could easily fit on another deluxe edition of Screen Violence. Musically, the song isn’t much different from the band’s electronic post-punk sound. Lyrically, the song touches on similar themes of trauma and sexism like “He Said, She Said” and “Good Girls..” but unlike the tracks on Screen Violence, “Over” is a song about trying to erase trauma rather than confront it. Lauren Mayberry begins the song by saying “Sometimes I just drive / Till the night turns off my mind.” By the chorus, she tells the listener to “Wake me up when it’s over.” Dealing with trauma is hard work that we don’t always feel up to. We are constantly told that we need to fight as hard as we can, but when the world is burning we can’t deal with it all the time. Sometimes it’s healthy to forget about it. We want to hit the snooze button until the nightmare ends. Unfortunately, September has ended, and at some point, we have to face it. Just five more minutes…

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