“Dead American” by Anberlin, Tuesday, November 5, 2024
Some listeners have criticized Anberlin albums for sounding the same. Many of the band’s albums, especially earlier releases, follow a formula. This formula is usually a hard rock opener, a radio-friendly chorus-driven song, back to hard rock, a mellow middle album, some rockers in the center, and a lengthy closing track. While the vestiges of the formula remain throughout their discography, they began to experiment more in their later career. Anberlin's 2012 record Vital was an update on the band’s mostly guitar-based sound as many of the songs were synth-driven. The band experimented more with Vital’s repacked album, Devotion, delving deeper into hard rock and electronic pop.
HIDE THE DEMONS THERE UNDER YOUR DRESS. Stephen Christian said on the Your Favorite Band Podcast that Anberlin repackaged Vital as Devotion, taking the commercial failure from Universal Republic Records to Big3 Records, hoping to push the opening track, “Self-Starter” to the radio. Devotion, unlike many repackagings, could hardly be called a cash grab given the extra content the standard version of the album included, seven songs total: four b-side tracks released to iTunes (“Unstable”), Best Buy (“Said Too Much” and “No Love to Speak”), and a track only released in Australia (“Safe Here”), as well as tracks recorded for Devotion (“City Electric,” “IJSW” and today’s song, “Dead American”). The seven additional tracks heighten the extremes of Vital’s genre-bending. “Dead American,” “Said Too Much,” and “Safe Here” push a hard rock sound reminiscent of the band’s early career, the two latter with a synthesized twist, while the former is a pissed-off political song about late-form capitalism. But more interestingly in the era of Vital and Devotion is Anberlin’s shameless venture into pop music.
SAVED YOUR BODY BUT YOU’RE LOSING YOUR SOUL. “Dead American” was a Christian Rock radio single and the song was accompanied by a music video, though it has been uploaded through a fan account and was taken down from the band’s YouTube at some point. It’s a bit of a disturbing music video that depicts the band members fighting and killing one of the members carrying him in a rolled-up carpet to the trunk of a ‘90s Oldsmobile, Pontiac, or other General Motors clone. It’s hard to say which one was killed because all members appear in different shots in the car. Later they put on masks as if they are going to rob a bank. The video ends with the car in flames. Anberlin fans have interpreted this video as the symbolic end of the band, even a teaser for the announcement the band would make the following January. “Someone Anyone,” Vital’s lead single, failed to chart. The footage for the music video was scrapped and used for the B-side “Unstable,” making a very confusing plotline. Marketing “Self-Starter” was cursed by the anti-rock trend on Alternative radio. For the band’s final single, they decided to do whatever they wanted to for the music video. These rough, Florida redneck music videos would be the style the band would use in their post-break-up music on videos like “Two Graves,” “Walk Alone,” and “High Stakes.” “Dead American” is a song about dreams going unrealized. It’s particularly pointed at the “dead American dream,” exported to almost every country. It’s a point when Anberlin wanted to call it quits. It seems impossible to break away from the want of money. We need it for everything and every year we need more. But at what point do we have enough? How hard should it be just to get by?
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