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Bastille’s “Helter Skelter” Moment? “WHAT YOU GONNA DO???” Track Review

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British indie pop band Bastille just unleashed their newest single “WHAT YOU GONNA DO???,” stylized in all caps with three question marks to, you know, really give you that ~edgy~ feel. This latest song sets many firsts for the group: the tune is arguably Bastille’s most rowdy, punk-inspired anthem to date with a little help from Blur’s Graham Coxon on guitar and vocals; it’s their first song in the key of G major, which is notable considering frontman Dan Smith continually claims that the majority of their discography is “depressing;” it’s the band’s shortest single; and it supposedly features Smith’s highest note that he has achieved with his full chest voice on a studio recording (a G4, in case you’re wondering).

With the intent of making a rock track for the sake of being in your face and as loud as possible, this is relatively Bastille’s “Helter Skelter” outing, albeit much more brief (and of course not comparable to The Fab Four). But although this is the band’s largest step into rock territory, “WHAT YOU GONNA DO???” still has its shortcomings in other aspects.

Lyrically, the tune is nothing new in Bastille’s catalog. It primarily revolves around people being glued to their phones and how the media has the power to influence us because they’ve “got us listening.” These sentiments hearken back to earlier tracks like “Doom Days” or “Power” or “Blame” or “World Gone Mad” or “Million Pieces” or really any other song that tries to offer social commentary in some way since the lyrics are rather broad and widespread (like most of their repertoire). While it’s an important message, Dan Smith seems to have wrung it out dry on paper one too many times. How is this any poetic progression from their last record Doom Days? “WHAT YOU GONNA DO???” merely encapsulates half of the ideas presented on its full-length predecessor, causing it to feel trite and overdone.

Musically, “WHAT YOU GONNA DO???” is something fresh and new but only to an extent. Sure, this is Bastille’s most all-around rock song to date, though one could argue that their “heaviest” tunes come in the form of “The Draw” or even their blander indie rock efforts like “Blame” or “Warmth.” (I am a fan of Bastille, but you must admit that they weren’t really blazing any new trails sonically with 2016’s Wild World. It’s a solid LP, but it wasn’t a groundbreaking new sound in the alternative scene.) “WHAT YOU GONNA DO???” also missed a wonderful opportunity to display a guitar solo from Graham Coxon. It would have perfectly sufficed as a bridge section and allowed the group to squeeze in one more chorus repetition before the end. But instead, they cut the tune short at 2 minutes and 11 seconds after just two go-arounds of the verse-chorus dynamic.

On a positive note, “WHAT YOU GONNA DO???” does give us a glimpse at what may be to come on the band’s next record. While this lead single may have fallen short on a few fronts, it indeed showcases what Bastille is capable of and what direction they might be moving in next. It’s a catchy pop rock rager, meant to feel aggressive and fast-paced. I can’t dock the band too much since they did achieve what they set out to do. I just believe they could have pushed the envelope even farther. (Perhaps my standards are a bit high because Bastille is one of my favorite bands.)

Let me know what you think about the new single down in the comments below, and if you’re a fan of Bastille, I post lots of Bastille-related content over on Reddit if you’d like to check it out!

Explaining (Almost) Every Pop Culture Reference on Bastille’s ‘Doom Days’

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This is a post copied from my Reddit account u/0verjoyed. I originally published this post on the subreddit r/BastilleCult. Click here to check it out.

So Doom Days is chock-full of references to historical events, literature, films, music, and more. This is my attempt to identify those references and provide explanations for them. I’m fairly certain this is NOT a complete list because there are probably some I overlooked or didn’t catch on to. These lyrics are all taken from the official album lyric booklet. Feel free to add on in the comments below and give further insight to the ones I’ve pointed out!

Quarter Past Midnight

  • “It’s a quarter past midnight” – Pretty sure this refers to the Doomsday Clock. (Also see the tour poster artwork.) The Doomsday Clock is a “clock” routinely updated to represent how close humanity is to the apocalypse/global catastrophe. The closer the time is set to midnight, the closer the world is to ending. So if it’s a quarter past midnight (12:15), the world is certainly ending and in total disarray.

  • The Sirens – A girl group from the UK, popular in the 2000s. This reference is intentionally ambiguous; one could interpret it as “the sirens,” i.e. police/ambulance/emergency sirens, signaling chaos or “the end of the world.” But it is also meant to be interpreted as The Sirens, the music group being played on the speakers.

  • “Love Will Tear Us Apart” – The most well-known song by the band Joy Division. I find it rather fitting since DD contains the songs “Joy” and “Divide.” This song tends to come up a lot later on.

The Doomsday Clock being set to 100 seconds to midnight in 2020
The Doomsday Clock being set to 100 seconds to midnight in 2020

Bad Decisions

  • “Love me, leave me, rhythm of the evening” – Not confirmed, but I have an inclination to believe that this is a reference to the song “The Rhythm of the Evening” by Gary Numan. “The Rhythm of the Evening” begins with the line “Love me,” and the first verse of the song ends with “The rhythm of the evening / Will tear us apart again,” which harkens back to the Joy Division reference in QPM. (“Love Will Tear Us Apart”)

  • “London’s Burning” – Although this isn’t officially distinguished in the lyric booklet, it could be interpreted either at face value or it could be a reference to the song “London’s Burning” by UK punk rock band The Clash. The song was written by Joe Strummer and Mick Jones. May I also mention that Dan (as a solo artist) and Bastille participated in the Strummerville Summer Sessions in 2009 and 2011, respectively? Strummerville is part of the Joe Strummer Foundation which promotes new music in the UK.

  • Groundhog evening – This more than likely refers to the 1992 film Groundhog Day where the main character becomes trapped in a time loop, repeating the same day over and over again. This relates to the lyrics “We lost track of time.” (Also, the film’s cover has a giant clock on it, so there’s that lol)

  • Kubrick’s Hollywood – Stanley Kubrick is a renowned film director, particularly successful in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. Some of his films focus on the end of the world, such as the dark comedy film Dr. Strangelove, a personal favorite of mine, which revolves around threats of nuclear warfare during the Cold War that could potential lead to global destruction (apocalypse vibes, you know). One of Kubrick’s most popular films, of course, is A Clockwork Orange, based on the novel of the same name which is set in a dystopian Britain (hi, dystopia in the UK again). This is probably the film Dan was primarily referring to.

The Waves

  • “We Never Never give up on a lost boy life” – Okay, multiple things, so stick with me. First, “Never Never” is capitalized as such in the lyric booklet. I believe this capitalization could refer to the 2003 album Never, Never, Land by UK electronic artist UNKLE. This album contains samples from the songs “She’s Lost Control” and “New Dawn Fades,” which are originally tunes by (you guessed it) Joy Division. Second, Neverland is the fictional setting of J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, home to the Lost Boys. Peter Pan is the captain of the Lost Boys, and Peter Pan is known as “the boy who wouldn’t grow up.” Dan is implying that they never wanted to give up their youth (“Winter of Our Youth” has entered the chat). Peter Pan is also later mentioned in the song “Doom Days” in the punny line “We’re gonna Peter Pan out,” which suggests that Peter Pan is also meant to represent the overall sense of escapism and not wanting to confront the tragedies around them and the troubles of becoming adults. In “The Waves,” this is outlined in the following line: “So here we are escaping from the world outside.”

  • The Twilight Zone – The popular TV series surrounding strange fantastical, psychological, and at times horror-filled alternate realities or unusual sci-fi events. The pilot pitch for the series focused on a time travel adventure. (Have I mentioned the concept of time enough yet?) The series’ creator/producer Rod Serling also wrote the tele-play Noon on Doomsday. Hmmmm

Million Pieces

  • The King – This is capitalized in the lyric booklet, and I’m not 100% certain on what it could be referring to. I tend to interpret it as calling political leaders clowns, but the capitalization leads me to question if it is referring to something specific. (?)

  • “Fear and Loathing” – This may refer to a couple different things. First, the novel/film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which has a lot to do with drugs and hallucinations. The film features the song “White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane. Rabbits are mentioned a couple of times on DD: “We’re gonna rabbit hole down” in “Doom Days” and “I’ll be your rabbit in the headlights” in “Those Nights.” The song “White Rabbit” was influenced by Alice in Wonderland, which can easily be related to drugs and hallucinations. This psychoactive theme plays into “don’t pull me down from the ceiling,” i.e. being high or on an acid trip as a mode of escapism. Also, the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland was constantly running late and losing track of time. Now, this might be just a coincidence, but the second thing “Fear and Loathing” may be referring to is the song “Fear and Loathing” by UK artist Col3trane. The music video for this song is a time-warping narrative, and the title of the project the song is from is called BOOT, an acronym for ‘Breathing Out of Time.’ Can I make the time thing any more obvious? lol If the lyrics in “Million Pieces” are not a direct reference to Col3trane’s song, then Col3trane’s song is just another heavy reference to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

The White Rabbit checking his pocket watch
The White Rabbit checking his pocket watch

Doom Days

  • Something in the Kool-Aid – This is a common colloquial saying to imply that people are essentially being brainwashed somehow. The idiom originates from when cult leaders (ironic, huh) would force their followers to “drink the (poisoned) Kool-Aid” and blindly accept their indoctrination, particularly the Jonestown Massacre incident.

  • Portraits in the attic – A reference to The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. The meaning of this quote is to say that someone’s appearance hasn’t aged or deteriorated over time, that they’ve had their portraits in the attic where they can be kept in pristine condition. In the context of the lyrics, “Last couple years have been a mad trip / How’d you look so perfect?” is the writer asking another person why and how the past few years haven’t taken a toll on them the same way those years have taken a toll on the writer.

  • Final days of Rome – Fairly self-explanatory, but when you look into the reasons why the Roman Empire fell, it really adds some more meaning. Factors that may have contributed to the fall of Rome: poor economy, overspending on the military, government corruption, power struggles and instability amongst political leaders, widespread disruption due to changes in popular religious beliefs, and, last but certainly not least, climate change. Hm, funny how history repeats itself. These reasons are obvious parallels to many of the challenges currently facing society. “Doom Days” also discusses religion to an extent, criticizing traditional religious practices that tend to cherry-pick what they want to believe in and how these practices can wear down the progression of society.

  • The blue pill – This is a reference to the 1999 film The Matrix where the main character must choose between a red pill and a blue pill. The red pill represents harsh reality and unpleasant truths, whereas the blue pill represents the idea of “ignorance is bliss.” Saying “We’re gonna choose the blue pill” furthers the sense of escapism and wanting to remain unaware in order to avoid swallowing the bitter pill of reality. This line perpetuates the ideas from “Million Pieces.”

  • Rabbit hole – This is another Alice in Wonderland reference, i.e. falling down the rabbit hole into insanity or to escape reality.

  • Third act – This refers to the principle of Chekhov’s gun. It is a storytelling tactic utilized throughout literature/drama to ensure that every aspect introduced in the plot is important. The idea of the gun is “if you put a rifle on the wall in the first act/chapter, it must go off by the third.” The third act is typically the climax of the plot, the culmination, the pivotal shift, the breaking point, etc. The gun must go off. By saying that the “doom days” are the third act, Dan is saying that the metaphorical guns people have hung on the metaphorical wall must go off. Traditions and tensions of the past must be confronted. Injustices must change. The sociopolitical climate must shift. So forth and so on. The line continues, though. “Third act, love now.” This insinuates that love will be the thing that brings about change, the thing that sets the gun off. Perhaps love will tear us apart in the best way.

  • Peter Pan – Like I explained earlier, Peter Pan represents the overall theme of escapism and not wanting to “grow up,” which in the context of DD might be more than just confronting adulthood. It could also mean not wanting to confront all the current issues circulating in the world. This is continued with the line “We’re gonna stay naïve tonight.”

Red pill or blue pill?
Red pill or blue pill?

4AM

  • This isn’t a pop culture reference or anything, but I see a lot of people getting the lyrics wrong in this song so I just wanted to clear it up lol The official lyrics for the chorus of “4AM” are “Here, here, my family – you are my familiar, you are my famiglia.” Famiglia is Italian for family. Not sure why Dan wanted to throw some Italian in there, but hey, why not lmao

Joy

  • This one also isn’t a reference to anything, just another lyrics clarification. The word “Joy” is actually capitalized throughout the song, meaning that Joy is more than likely the name of the person Dan is writing about. It’s another intentionally ambiguous lyric since it can be interpreted as the emotion of joy or Joy as a person.

So that’s the list so far! Like I said, feel free to add on to this or contribute any further insight. :) Still avoiding tomorrow.

r/BastilleCult - Explaining (Almost) Every Pop Culture Reference on Doom Days

How Music Artists Are Still Scoring Big Numbers in First-Week Album Sales

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Ever wonder how an album could be certified gold a mere three days after its release? It happened in 2018 when Charlie Puth released his latest full-length Voicenotes. Ever wonder how artists are keeping up true album sales in a digital world dominated by online streaming? There are a handful of surefire tactics that labels are pushing to score those chart-topping numbers. So let’s dive in to some of those that seem to be working the best.

Tour Ticket Bundles

When an artist announces a new upcoming record, they tend to also announce a live tour to promote its release. And a growing trend seems to be including a digital download of the album or a physical CD with each ticket sale. It’s worth noting that most fans will probably purchase the album in one way or another on top of buying a ticket that includes a download or CD, which yes, counts as an album sale. Whether they already pre-ordered it on iTunes or pre-ordered a limited vinyl pressing, they’re still getting an album with the ticket no matter what.

Update: Billboard no longer counts these sales towards chart position.

Merch Bundles

The same sentiment applies here. A digital download is thrown in with a pre-ordered merch bundle, whether you want it or not. It might be a full box-set bundle with plenty of goodies or it might be just a singular t-shirt. This is also the case when purchasing physical copies of a record. 5 Seconds of Summer packaged a digital download with every CD or vinyl record or cassette sale of their newest album C A L M. If you’re someone like me who enjoys ripping a good old-fashioned CD onto their computer, or if you prefer on-demand streaming from services like Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, etc., a digital download is practically obsolete. And yet the artists still get to count that bundled download as an additional album sale.

Update: Billboard no longer counts these sales towards chart position.

Prolonging the Longevity of Singles

It’s customary for artists to release at least one or two singles before an album debuts, unless it’s a surprise album drop (which have performed rather poorly on the charts in the past). These days, though, artists are releasing more and more tracks ahead of an album’s issuing and giving them more time to thrive. If you’re wondering how Charlie Puth managed to pull off a gold certification essentially upon release of his album Voicenotes, the singles leading up to the record were a main driving force. He released the first single “Attention” over an entire year before the album actually came out, allowing the single to rack up millions upon millions of streams. He also delayed the album and unleashed a couple more singles leading up to its postponed release. All the streams from these pre-release singles counted towards album sales during the first week of the LP’s release.

Releasing a Large Number of Singles

As I mentioned, many artists have been releasing more and more singles, both proper and promotional, before an album officially drops. For a standard 12- or 13-track album, a label or artist would typically release two to four singles before the full-length dropped. These days we see artists releasing sometimes more than half the album before it actually comes out, meaning more streams to count towards first-week sales. Panic! at the Disco (or, rather, The Brendon Urie Show) released 6 out of 11 tracks ahead of 2016’s Death of a Bachelor, which nearly spoiled the full album experience for listeners upon release. (Also, the lead single “Hallelujah” came out  8 months in advance of the record.) Halsey recently released her new LP Manic earlier in 2020, a 16-track album with a run-time just short of 48 minutes. And yet she dropped 6 singles before the release, accounting for nearly 20 minutes of the album. All Time Low released 5 singles ahead of their 2017 full-length Last Young Renegade, which was only 10 tracks long. Those 5 pre-released tunes accounted for roughly 18 minutes of a 36-minute record. Not only does releasing a heap of singles allow for more streams before the proper album release, but it also builds more hype and publicity, boosting pre-order sales and general interest.

Releasing Multiple Videos on YouTube

It’s expected that most non-promotional singles will receive the usual music video treatment. In recent years, Billboard has begun counting YouTube views toward sale numbers, only when the video is an official upload from the artist or label. So, as a result, many artists are learning to game this as well by releasing a music video, an official audio video/visualizer, a lyric video, a live performance video, an acoustic rendition video, an alternate music video, and more, on top of the default video for YouTube Music’s streaming. In 2018, 5SOS released a total of 8 videos for their hit single “Youngblood,” ranging from remixes to acoustic versions to a couple of music videos. It hasn’t been proven if all these remixes and live performances count towards numbers for Billboard, but releasing two music videos and an official audio video can certainly reel in some massive viewcounts.

Producing Different Variants of Physical Copies

I’m a huge vinyl and cassette collector, and I have quite a CD collection going, too. I grew up on tapes and eventually CDs, and then everything seemed to go digital. But in the past several years, vinyl records and cassette tapes have made an alarming comeback. Tapes originally seemed to be a cool novelty thing in more underground scenes, primarily among independent hip-hop or electronic artists. Vinyl records were relatively reserved for the most die-hard fans, with limited releases and rather expensive 180 gram pressings. But the “vinyl revival” evolved and consumed the mainstream as well; it’s almost strange these days to see an artist release an album without having a vinyl record available. Tapes have also slowly crept their way into the mainstream—big-name artists like Shawn Mendes, Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, and Ariana Grande have all released best-selling albums and singles on cassette, just to name a few. (Which leads me to wonder how many of their fans actually own a tape deck to play the cassette…)

For collectors like me, it’s instinctual to purchase one copy on vinyl and a cassette copy as well, totaling at least two sales. (As I talked about earlier, these usually come with additional digital downloads, so it’s more than likely four album sales.) But what about all those exclusive colored vinyl variants? You know, the limited edition ones from Urban Outfitters or HMV or Target or FYE? Or when the artist announces another special edition pressing? I usually only go for one record, but it’s undeniable that some fans will go out of their way to purchase all the different pressings. Not to mention releasing 7″ or cassette singles to bait the fans and collectors even more!

Selling Signed or Limited Edition CDs Right After Initial Release

I haven’t seen too many artists trying this one out, but it’s probably the one that gets on my nerves the most. In 2018, 5 Seconds of Summer was slated to score their third consecutive #1 on the Billboard 200 with the release of Youngblood, being the only Australian band to do so. But on release day, Beyoncé and Jay-Z dropped a surprise album, shaking up the Aussie band’s chart predictions. Shortly thereafter, 5SOS announced they would be selling limited signed copies of their deluxe CD, counting as first-week album sales even if the CD itself didn’t ship out to customers for a few weeks. Fans quickly scrambled to purchase a signed copy, including myself who had already bought the vinyl record, cassette tape, and Target-exclusive CD. When the charts were published, 5SOS sure enough scored their third #1 on the Billboard 200. Did the shock-drop signed copies help boost those first-week numbers? Maybe not by much, but it definitely added some to the pile.

In 2020, we witnessed a similar situation. 5SOS anticipated their fourth #1 album with C A L M being released on March 27th. There was little to no competition for that release week—Pearl Jam seemed to be the only worthy contestant with Gigaton, but it was a longshot considering 5SOS’s current relevance and popularity, especially among younger listeners. But a mere week before their album dropped, Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia, expected to release on April 3rd, was leaked and the label decided to move her album’s release date a week earlier to the 27th. With Dua Lipa’s gargantuan streaming numbers from the album’s singles, Future Nostalgia definitely put up a fight with 5SOS’s C A L M. A day after C A L M was officially released, 5SOS pulled the same move they did in 2018 by putting signed CDs up for sale online. This time it was even more enticing: not only was the CD signed, it also contained an exclusive bonus track not available anywhere else. (And, you guessed it, it also came with an additional digital download.) Now I had already bought the deluxe CD (which did not include that exclusive bonus track), two vinyl records, and a cassette tape. Many fans were in the same position with multiple copies of the album already on their hands, and yet they still flocked to purchase the signed CD, riding the hype of a fresh LP. Again, will this truly boost their first-week sales? We’ll have to see.

Update: On March 30th, it was revealed that unfortunately due to a shipping error, around 10,000 copies of 5SOS’s album were sent to customers early, causing it to debut on the Billboard charts a week before their anticipated debut week. Three days after the album released, it entered the Billboard 200 at #62, meaning the album essentially charted before its intended release. It was predicted to debut in the top 10 and is still expected to rise to the top 10 the following week.

Including More Songs on an Album

This is probably one of the most obvious ones. Many artists have expanded their albums’ tracklistings in order to gain more streams, and sometimes these songs have shorter runtimes. Lauv’s latest album ~how i’m feeling~ offered up 21 tunes, and Migos’ 2018 Culture II had a whopping 24 tracks. This is because more tracks equals more streams, plain and simple, even if it means sacrificing quality. An album with 20 tracks is going to score higher streaming numbers than an album with 9 tracks, simply by the principle of quantity.

So there you have it, just a few ways artists are continuing to garner huge first-week album sales. The music industry has become a game of strategy between streaming, radio, and hard copies, and labels are starting to play rather dirty by exploiting fans and finding loopholes to justify another album sale. (i.e. tour tickets, merch bundles, etc.) Is it ethical? Wrong? Understandable? Let us know what you think down in the comments below, and be sure to share any other tactics artists are utilizing!♠