WVAU’s #8 Album of 2014: Perfume Genius – Too Bright

Sean Meehan

Courtesy of Matador Records.

The cliche line about Too Bright is that after two albums of the saddest, most beautifully gut-wrenching music ever made, Mike Hadreas finally let his anger out. While it‰’s true that Too Bright is angrier than anything Hadreas has ever made, to reduce this album to one emotion is to miss the vast majority of it.

What makes Too Bright my favorite of 2014 is not anger, but vulnerability. Vulnerability isn‰’t about sadness, anger, or any other particular emotion. Vulnerability is feeling all of your emotions and having the courage to do so openly and unapologetically. To be vulnerable isn‰’t to be weak, it‰’s to be honest, to be your complete self, to present your biggest insecurities and your proudest strengths side by side and say “this is who I am.” Too Bright is an album that does this better than any other album this year and most albums ever.

Ironically, Too Bright‰’s most vulnerable moment comes in the middle of the song most responsible for the album‰’s “angry‰” reputation: lead single “Queen.‰” The climactic line “No family is safe / when I sashay‰” is proud and even combative. Hadreas chooses to embrace the power given to him by those who see queer people like him as threats to society. But as any queer person will tell you, the embrace isn‰’t easy. Hadreas‰’s voice quivers throughout and almost cracks on the word “safe.‰” Hadreas packs years of pain into one spectacular line. In a year that saw the trend of pro-gay anthems gaining even more steam, Hadreas needs only one immaculately delivered line to offer what I believe is the most honest and most complete picture of what it means to be gay in America that has ever been expressed in song.



While “Queen‰” may particularly resonate with queer listeners, the vulnerability of the album doesn‰’t stop there, nor is it limited to expressing the gay experience. On the track “My Body,‰” Hadreas says “I‰’m as open as a gutted pig,‰” and the album around this line is a testament to its truth. Several songs, especially “No Good‰” and “Don‰’t Let Them In‰” see Hadreas returning to the personal candor about his experiences with love and longing that dominated his previous albums. Appropriately, these songs are also sonically most similar to previous Perfume Genius albums, with little embellishment beyond his voice and piano.

However, it‰’s songs like “My Body,‰” “Fool,‰” and “Grid‰” that mark the album as such a leap forward for Hadreas. These songs are sonically rich, with intricate layers of synth and percussion unheard of in previous Perfume Genius albums. Though their lyrics are more figurative than Perfume Genius fans are used to, this indirectness doesn‰’t make the songs any less vulnerable. Instead, Hadreas expresses musically feelings which would be difficult to put into words. The soaring vocals in the middle of “Fool‰” present a moment of complex beauty, of unrestrained joy that nonetheless is aware of its own fleeting nature. The yells in “Grid‰” couple anxiety with the sheer ecstasy of catharsis. On “I‰’m A Mother,‰” Hadreas‰’s pitched-down, mumbled vocals convey a search for comfort amid complete isolation.



The final song, “All Along,‰” is more or less a return to form, with its sparse arrangement revolving around powerful, personal lyrics. The album ends with the line “I don‰’t need your love / I don‰’t need you to understand / I need you to listen.‰” Normally the line would seem somewhat cliche, but here, it seems the only fitting conclusion to the most vulnerable album of the year. It‰’s reminiscent of the Smiths‰’ “How Soon is Now,‰” where Morrissey’s passionate delivery of seemingly cliche lines like “I am a human and I need to be loved‰” is done with such sincerity and genuine feeling that the lines are transformed from cliches to expressions of absolute truth not only understood, but felt.

The vulnerability of Too Bright isn‰’t a search for love or an attempt to be understood, but a commitment to the right to feel openly and honestly and to the courageous act of being absolutely present and who you are. Too Bright, with its ecstatic highs and gut-wrenching lows, is a testament to this commitment both in its lyrics and its music. Too Bright not only expresses but embraces a depth of feeling that is usually absent not only from music, but from life itself.