Vs. (Other People's Heartache Pt. III) is Bastille's seventh album (including EP's). This is the third part of a series of albums where Bastille sings songs original to other artists and the majority of these covers feature a variety of artists. This album is their most recent release and, unlike the others, only includes original songs. Bastille has made this album perfectly angsty and intense for an album about heartache. Every song is fast paced and has a thrilling chorus where the guitar picks up and the heartache is entirely palpable. There's so much emotion in this album that its hard to listen to without feeling something. It is a very cathartic album, in the sense that it makes something sad and unbearable into a rock ballad. The power of the instrumentation and vocals expels all of the unwanted emotions being felt. Unlike sappy, sad albums that make people dwell on unhappiness, this album is like yelling and getting all of it out of your system. And at the same time, Dan Smith and the other artists aren't screaming or yelling, they just have an intensity in their voices that creates that feeling.
Dan Smith has a incredibly recognizable alternative voice. His voice has an unbelievable range, but he mostly stays in a higher key. He has the guttural intonation of George Ezra but the clarity and range of James Bay. That combination makes one of the most well-known alternative artists of this decade. His most recognizable song Pompeii got him to the top of the charts and ever since he has been experimenting with musical techniques, which led to this album. It involves echoing vocals and auto tuning his voice to unreachable low octaves. Even the instrumentation has become more bold through including a string quartet in Fall Into Your Arms and warped drum notes in Bite Down. This album in particular contains an enumerable amount of unique musical sounds that add to the aesthetic of the album. All of the musical aspects are incorporated into the overarching theme of heartache.
The theme is so relate-able that there is a lot of leeway to include different allusions and incorporate new musical techniques. Bastille utilized that freedom and ran with it. Their skill showed through when all of the unrelated and distinct techniques were manipulated into a cohesive record. They utilized references that were so vastly different in culture and related them to heartache. In the song Torn Apart by
Bastille, featuring GRADES and Lizzo, the artist GRADES references Yin Yang through the line “My yin and yang is killin’ me/ gotta get back, back to the synergy." This symbol is immediately recognizable as the balance between good and bad. Yin Yang is a Chinese philosophical symbol that has been around since the 14th Century B.C. In Chinese culture, it represents the extremes of the world that result in balance. In this song it supports the idea that someone's heart has been broken and its knocked their center of balance off. GRADES raps this particular line and it shows how even ancient culture can be used to explain modern heartache.
Another major allusion Bastille made was in The Driver to Romeo and Juliet. This is one of the few songs Bastille performs alone but it is also one of the best. The intensity of the song and the ability of it to go from a soft melody to a vivacious guitar-backed chorus and back again, makes it one of the most memorable songs. The reference to Romeo and Juliet in the line “Shout out from the bottom of my lungs/ A plague on both your houses/
This thing/ It’s a family affair/ It’s drawing out my weakness” adds to the beauty of this song. Shakespeare is one of the most well-known playwrights and therefore this reference is impossible to miss. Also, the storyline of Romeo and Juliet is one of the iconic tragedies and showcases of heartache ever. It's the story of two young lovers from dueling families. The story is tragic because even though there love was true, their circumstances resulted in their deaths. This allusion builds upon the immense broke-hearted feeling throughout this song. Bastille uses this reference to establish how iconic heartache is and relate with the younger generation.
The entire album makes for a whirlwind of emotion from unbearable heartache to a freedom from the pain that's been haunting someone. It's an album that can make up for a bad night or help relate to the pain people have felt. Throughout the entire album allusions to the 90's and 80's can be made through the chosen featured artists and even broader references through the lyrics. The featured artists GRADES, Lizzo, Angel Haze, Rag n Bone, Skunk Anansie, and Braque are from previous decades. They achieved their fame far before Bastille. There are also artists, such as HAIM, that relate to modern generations. Including bands from varying decades adds to Bastille's credibility in saying that heartache is a universal feeling. Bastille was able to make Chinese philosophical symbol and a classic play all relate to the same theme. This album showcases how talented Bastille is in utilizing broad and unique aspects of music and culture and relating them to heartache. He was intelligent enough to choose a widely felt emotion that transcends time and medium and manipulate all of those mediums into one cohesive album. I haven't experienced gut-wrenching heartache in my life so far but through this album I can see how awful it is and how strengthening it is to pick oneself up from that. I can also relate better to the theme of heartache in other mediums because this album gave me insight, I hadn't had before.
Do you know of any albums that incorporate countless allusions to culture that all blend together to support one main theme (ex. Heartache)?
(I did not include any of the videos because they are very strange and definitely don't relate to the songs. If you want to see a ton of cultural allusions unrelated to the album, the video for bad_news is filled with them. The video for Torn Apart is very creepy and definitely inappropriate, with very few cultural allusions.)
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