Movies in the 1990s therefore struggled to agree on a
dangerous antagonist to engage in the apocalyptic tit-for-tat of “blow up
everything until the final reel, and then be blown up yourself” template.
Viruses threatened to kill us all in Outbreak
(1995) and 12 Monkeys (1995);
Aliens arrived on a mission to exterminate everything in sight in Independence Day (1996); while giant
lumps of rock twice worried audiences in Armageddon
(1998) and Deep Impact (1998).
While things were far from perfect in the late nineties,
much of the music from the period expresses a sense of frustration which the
seemingly comfortable and nonchalant status quo. A sense of anomie pervades the
work of some of the most interesting musicians of the period, which often
combined with a generalised sense of a fear of something as the year 2000 approached. This is portrayed perfectly
in today’s song from the Dismemberment Plan’s 1999 breakthrough album Emergency and I. Here, the apocalypse
can at least be seen as a real event in a mass of unreality – as, contra-Fukuyama, it at least
it imagines that change is possible. Referring to the possibility of the sun burning
out, the apocalypse here serves as an event that will jolt the Western world
out of its inherent complacency to realise exactly what matters. The “8 ½ minutes”
of the title refer to the amount of time light takes to get from the sun to the
Earth. If the sun went out, we’d only
have those minutes remaining. With only eight and a half minutes to survive,
would we realise the emptiness and pettiness of everyday life and focus on
those we truly loved? Or would we, Strangelove
style, start making crazy plans to survive the end of the world (better start digging…)? It’s an
important question, and asked well.
Yet as with many apocalyptic films, TV shows and songs of
the past ten years, despite imagining the end of the world as we know it – in fact,
even thinking that it might be something to break up the dull routine we find
ourselves in – “8 ½ minutes” is driven by nostalgia for “what we’d lose”. The
apocalypse here, as in Derren Brown’s recent “experiment” of bringing about a
Zombie apocalypse for one individual, doesn’t even remind us of our own
mortality, but of how lucky we are to be blessed by the friends and family who
surround us. While this is a laudable aim, the possibility of apocalypse to
imagine fundamental change gets lost somewhere in the mix with this kind of
attitude, which paradoxically valorises the society it attacks. This remains,
as we will see in coming days, a problem for more recent apocalyptic songs as
well…
8 ½ Minutes (Morrison, Caddell,
Axelson, Easley, 1999)
Oh, launched all the world’s nukes
this morning
Hoping it would kick-start something
Some of them went off course and hit the moon instead
It was kinda pretty.
Hasn’t been a whole lot of looting
On the other hand, oh, it’s fucking freezing
Someone on TV said something about going underground…
Guess we better start digging.
Hoping it would kick-start something
Some of them went off course and hit the moon instead
It was kinda pretty.
Hasn’t been a whole lot of looting
On the other hand, oh, it’s fucking freezing
Someone on TV said something about going underground…
Guess we better start digging.
What were you doing for those
eight and a half minutes?
Was it mean, was it petty, or did you realize you were sorry
And that you love them?
Was it mean, was it petty, or did you realize you were sorry
And that you love them?
I saw an astronomer break down on
CNN
He said, “I’m a scientist, not your fucking clergyman!”
And no one’s going nowhere ‘cause the cars are all frozen
They give the power plants ten days
He said, “I’m a scientist, not your fucking clergyman!”
And no one’s going nowhere ‘cause the cars are all frozen
They give the power plants ten days
What were you doing for those
eight and a half minutes?
Was it mean, was it petty, or did you realize you were sorry
And that you love them?
Was it mean, was it petty, or did you realize you were sorry
And that you love them?
But the sky is like a dome of
black metal flake
And stars bleed together in phosphorescent lakes
And a dead black disk slides silently overhead
It’s fucking beautiful is what it is.
And stars bleed together in phosphorescent lakes
And a dead black disk slides silently overhead
It’s fucking beautiful is what it is.
What were you doing for those
eight and a half minutes?
Was it mean, was it petty, or did you realize you were sorry
And that you love them?
Was it mean, was it petty, or did you realize you were sorry
And that you love them?
When I die I’m going to heaven
Leave it to the cockroaches and the 7-11s
But it’d be nice to think we could get it right down here just once
Leave it to the cockroaches and the 7-11s
But it’d be nice to think we could get it right down here just once
Listen on Spotify: Apopalypse: Apocalyptic Advent Calendar
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