Results for “consumerism and moral decay”

Songs

The Punishment of Luxury

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark

A synth-pop sermon on the moral decay that comes with excess, taking its title from a 19th-century painting to frame consumer…

consumerism and moral decay complacency versus freedom disgust and judgment

Child of Vision

Supertramp

A pointed critique of consumerist, media-saturated culture delivered as a one-sided argument between a narrator and an unnamed…

consumerism media manipulation generational conflict

Motorcycle Emptiness

Manic Street Preachers

A relentless indictment of consumer culture set against a soaring, almost stadium-rock melody, the song stages a war between its…

consumerism alienation cultural decay

Are You Ready?

Wire

Wire builds this track almost entirely from a single interrogative structure, hammering out a litany of yes/no questions that…

complicity and complacency consumerism/branding as identity moral and existential reckoning

Your Flag Decal Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore

John Prine

A darkly comic anti-war satire that follows an ordinary, flag-happy patriot from a seedy magazine rack to the pearly gates,…

war and complicity empty patriotism consumerism and commercialized faith

Be Careful of Stones That You Throw

Hank Williams

This Luke The Drifter recitation-style song tells a small parable about a gossiping neighbor and the woman she condemns,…

hypocrisy gossip and reputation moral judgment

Hellacious Acres

Kris Kristofferson

A carnival-barker satire that reimagines hell as a theme park, complete with billboards, ticket lines, and celebrity attractions…

moral corruption as entertainment consumerism and commodified sin celebrity and infamy

Los Angeles

X

X's title track is a portrait of a woman driven out of Los Angeles by her own curdled hatred, told with a flat, reportorial…

racism and xenophobia alienation from place moral ambiguity

Deep Dark Truthful Mirror

Elvis Costello

A bruising address to someone who won't confront their own dishonesty, wrapped in dense, surreal imagery of boxing, city…

self-deception cruelty as entertainment urban decay

Sin City (B Side)

Uncle Tupelo

This is Uncle Tupelo's take on the Flying Burrito Brothers standard, a doom-laden vision of Los Angeles as a modern Babylon…

moral corruption of wealth apocalyptic judgment urban decay

I Believe in Father Christmas (Without Orchestra)

Emerson, Lake & Palmer

Greg Lake's holiday single dresses disillusionment in the trappings of a carol, using the language of childhood Christmas wonder…

loss of innocence disillusionment with religion and consumerism war and unfulfilled peace

Stakes Is High

De La Soul

A weary state-of-hip-hop address from De La Soul, cataloguing everything the group has grown sick of in mid-90s rap culture…

disillusionment with commercial rap materialism and misplaced love urban survival and violence

Hive

Earl Sweatshirt

This is a dense, technically showcasing posse cut built around interlocking internal rhyme and layered ad-libs, moving from pure…

technical bravado and lyrical dominance poverty and urban decay violence and gun culture

I'm Amazed

My Morning Jacket

A falsetto-driven meditation built entirely from the phrase 'I'm amazed,' the song lists private tenderness alongside public…

media distrust personal devotion vs. public decay spiritual/moral drift

The Other Side of Summer

Elvis Costello

A deceptively sunny, Beach Boys-styled pop song that uses its bright surf-rock arrangement as a Trojan horse for a scathing…

media and celebrity culture environmental destruction disillusionment with 60s idealism

TV Party

Black Flag

A satirical chant-along that mimics a beer commercial while describing total surrender to television and passive consumption.…

media saturation apathy and withdrawal conformity disguised as fun

Technologic

Daft Punk

A vocoded voice recites nothing but two-word imperative commands describing consumer-technology actions, looping and…

consumerism technological overload dehumanization

Blogging

Wire

Wire recast the nativity story as a satire of digital-age commerce and self-promotion, splicing biblical imagery with the…

technology and faith commodification of belief surveillance and self-branding

I'm Afraid of Americans

David Bowie

A jittery industrial-rock sketch of a generic American everyman named Johnny, whose consumerist appetites and hollow…

cultural imperialism consumerism paranoia and dread

Call Me Up

Gang of Four

A clipped, funk-inflected critique of consumer leisure culture, where a narrator recites the empty slogans of 'having fun' while…

consumerism alienation competition as ideology

Fresh-Garbage

Spirit

A short, chant-like song built around a single grotesque image: humanity's leftover, half-digested experience as literal trash,…

consumerism waste and excess psychedelic-era social critique

I Found That Essence Rare

Gang of Four

A clipped, ironic catalogue of Cold War-era media images -- bikini models, tabloid scandals, smiling political photo-ops --…

media manipulation false consciousness consumerism

Tennis Court

Lorde

A teenager on the edge of sudden fame catalogs the boredom and low-grade dread that come with getting what she wanted. The song…

fame and self-consciousness adolescent ennui performance vs authenticity

Everything Now

Arcade Fire

Arcade Fire turns the ABBA-adjacent disco hook into an inventory of surfeit: a world so saturated with information, content, and…

information overload consumerism emotional numbness

Mr Pharmacist

The Fall

A garage-rock cover turned into a sneering pharmacy transaction, where polite consumer language barely disguises a drug request.…

addiction disguised as politeness consumerism garage-rock pastiche

At Home He's a Tourist

Gang of Four

A clipped, funk-inflected post-punk track that treats leisure, culture-consumption, and sexual routine as forms of alienated…

alienation under capitalism commodification of leisure and sex self-improvement as anxiety

I'm Sticking With You

The Velvet Underground

A deceptively childlike singsong from Moe Tucker turns into an odd meditation on loyalty without limits, where devotion to a…

unconditional loyalty childlike innocence vs. danger identity merging with another

Brackett, WI

Bon Iver

A hushed, elliptical piece built from fragmented images of rural decay and seasonal change, standing in for something closer to…

decay and memory rural isolation seasonal cycles as emotional metaphor

Devil's Gonna Git You

Bessie Smith

A blues warning delivered as a curse: the narrator threatens a philandering partner with damnation, using the devil as a…

infidelity and betrayal moral reckoning female assertiveness

Baltimore

Nina Simone

A song-portrait of urban decay, written not by Simone but performed on her 1978 record of the same name, in which a wounded city…

urban decay poverty escape and displacement

Turpentine

Brandi Carlile

A meditation on a friendship or relationship curdling under the weight of time, told through the image of good wine spoiling…

loss of innocence decay of intimacy nostalgia

Other Side of the Game

Erykah Badu

A woman narrates loving a man whose livelihood comes from illegal hustling, weighing pride and dread as she carries their child.…

street economics and survival love under pressure pregnancy and continuity

The Cold Hard Truth

George Jones

George Jones builds this song around a striking conceit: the truth itself shows up as a character, confronting a man about the…

personified truth/conscience infidelity and self-deception moral reckoning

Battery Kinzie

Fleet Foxes

A short, dread-laced folk song about arriving too late for a lost love, told through images of bodily decay and a locked door.…

loss and abandonment decay and mortality possessiveness/control

El Caminos In the West

Grandaddy

A hazy, melancholy meditation on burnout and displacement, set against images of decaying American car culture. The narrator…

exhaustion and burnout alienation from home decay of Americana

Splitting the Atom

Massive Attack

A slow-burning meditation on decay and dissolution, moving from a compromised birth to an economic wasteland to a final image of…

entropy and decay economic collapse fragile intimacy

The Turning of Our Bones

Arab Strap

A meditation on aging desire that literalizes the body's decay into full-blown Gothic imagery, then insists on carnal renewal…

aging and desire mortality and decay reunion after long absence

God's Gonna Cut You Down

Johnny Cash

An old African-American spiritual, reworked by Cash near the end of his life, this is a stark warning that moral reckoning is…

divine judgment mortality moral reckoning

Black Hole Sun

Soundgarden

A hazy, dissonant piece of psychedelia dressed as a pop single, in which a decaying suburban landscape is invited to be…

apocalyptic longing decay and disguise escapism

Sinner or Saint

Sarah Vaughan

This is a devotional address built almost entirely on paired opposites, culminating in a refrain of unconditional love. The…

unconditional love moral duality forgiveness