Music can be a powerful tool when it comes to spotlighting important issues. This is definitely a belief of musician and activist Evan Greer. The fist-pumping follow-up to her exceptional 2019 album she/her/they/them (one of the best protest albums of 2019) can be viewed as an extension of her work as deputy director of Fight For the Future, a nonprofit that campaigns for digital and privacy rights and challenges internet censorship.
The intent becomes immediately evident with the title. Even though only one track “Surveillance Capitalism” addresses the issue directly, the title serves as a reminder, even if listening to an apolitical song about missing shows (“Back Row”) or a love song about being separated due to the pandemic (“Willing to Wait”). There is also a certain subversiveness in making the album available on Spotify (even though I’m sure Greer would prefer if you support it through Bandcamp).
This is a hard review to write because it is difficult to type while fighting the urge to pump your fist. The album opens strong with a trio of anthemic pop-punk gems (“Back Row”, “The Tyranny of Either/Or” and “Surveillance Capitalism”). The second track “The Tyranny of Either/Or” is the album’s first explicitly political track, which Greer describes as a “punk rock open letter to transphobes of all varieties to just piss off and let us live our lives in peace.” (The song was previously featured as a daily dose of protest).
“Surveillance Capitalism” can be viewed as the album’s mission statement. The hard-hitting tune also makes effective use of sound bites of anti-surveillance activists such as Chelsea Manning and Ursula K Leguin.
This is followed up by a slight change in musical direction with “Taking Down the Tent,” a rollicking folk-punk ditty that appears to refer to an autobiographical experience of living in a tent as a youth.
The next song on the album “Emma Goldman Would Have Beat Your Ass” is a scathing indictment of “woke liberals” who support digressive ideologies. This anarcho-punk gem features the album’s most singable lyric: “You should have listened to Crass / Emma Goldman Would Have Beat Your Ass.”
After whipping listeners into a frenzy with a furious banger, Greer decides to change the mood with the mellow love ballad “Willing to Wait.” The tune will resonate with anyone who has had relationships impacted by the pandemic. Fittingly a song about being separated from loved ones due to Covid is followed up by a tribute to John Prine who sadly succumbed to the virus on April 7, 2020. Closing with an infectious punk cover of the Prine classic “Angel From Montgomery’ is a satisfying conclusion to an excellent album.
Spotify Is Surveillance, is out April 9th on Get Better Records.