Arts & Entertainment, Features

REVIEW: MUNA emphasizes self-celebration in “About U”

MUNA, an American pop band, releases their new album, “About U” on Friday. PHOTO COURTESY RCA RECORDS
MUNA, an American pop band, releases their new album, “About U” on Friday. PHOTO COURTESY RCA RECORDS

Everything’s about you.

Or rather, “everything’s about u,” according to the Los Angeles “dark pop” band MUNA. 

Straight to the point but subtly emotional and longing, the statement reflected most of the emotions in “About U,” the group’s debut album.

“About U” came out on Friday, and the group’s “Lay Down Your Weapons Tour” began in Los Angeles on Wednesday, two nights before.

Lead singer Katie Gavin, guitarists Josette Maskin and Naomi McPherson met while studying at the University of Southern California. They describe their music as “dark pop” with inspirations from their backgrounds in progressive rock and ska, evident in the backbeats and lyrics of many of their songs.

The opening track, “So Special,” confesses to the listener the somber lines: “There’s a few bad things I’ve done / That nobody made me do.” The speaker is living by the terms for their own personal enjoyment and “to get over” a previous relationship.

Gavin’s voice carries a feeling of pride and self-preservation throughout the album, but in a way that celebrates self-love rather than boasting.

“So Special” and the second track, “Loudspeaker,” address an unknown ex-lover, and present a story about being heartbroken but prevailing, both despite sorrow and out of spite.

The band described “So Special” in a BBC interview as both “a drunken reckoning of oneself” and “an anthem for the slut-shamed girls of the world” who define and assert themselves despite what others say or think.

Self-celebration is one of the group’s main goals, both within and outside of their music. The third track, “I Know A Place,” was in part inspired by the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida and concerns the band heard from listeners about not having a safe place to be themselves.

The video, which was also released Friday, shows the three women dancing in an apocalyptic setting against images of riot police, their batons and cans of tear gas. At the song’s bridge, Gavin confronts one of the police officers. After pulling off the officer’s gear, she comforts her by saying she “knows a place we can stay” where she doesn’t have to “be afraid of love and affection.”

Aside from the implied same-sex relationship in the video, none of MUNA’s songs use gender-specific pronouns to reflect the band’s dedication to inclusivity and openness.

All three members of the group identify as queer, but do not want to be identified as a “queer” group or treated as if “queer” is a genre of music. Sexual preferences should not make love songs exclusionary in their eyes.

“I wanna see what type of love I can imagine, where I feel powerful and free and whole on my own,” Gavin said in a July 2016 article for Fusion. “I believe in something that’s better than that.”

Many of the songs reflect a longing for meaningful love that one may seek but feel they don’t deserve.

“Around U,” the fifth song on the album, talks about looking back on an old relationship, feeling as if the world has shifted as a result. The story is old as time – it feels like a memory, an auditory déjà vu.

Most of the songs seem inspired by other popular artists. “Crying On The Bathroom Floor,” for example, appears to be a combination of Gwen Stefani and Marina and The Diamonds. The group’s love for Florence + the Machine is also evident in Gavin’s vocal inflections and drawls. Likewise, “Outro” carries feelings of deep, synthesized progressive-rock songs, like New Order’s “Elegia.”

Overall, the songs are evidently very personal, and combined with a lack of pronoun use should appeal to a wider audience, but like most indie or “progressive” pop artists, it still holds the potential to be pigeonholed as too “niche” or “dark.” 

MUNA projects their experiences as queer women as a message to listeners that they are not alone, that their love is valid and that they will always be capable of finding love and a place to express themselves.

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One Comment

  1. I love your message I have a daughter who would the way you think .I was to a totally blooon away.??? love Dario