Premiere: A Pop Album All About Facebook and the NSA


As his stage name, Big Data, might suggest, producer Alan Wilkis’s sound is heavily influenced by our tech-laden world. And on his extremely catchy debut album, he goes all-in with songs inspired by Edward Snowden, the Internet of Things, and even Facebook’s mood experiments.


“With each song on 2.0, I set out to explore a specific issue or moment in technology,” Wilkis says. “And lyrically they are often voiced from the perspective of the ‘bad guy’ in the narrative.”


How so? Well for the Snowden-themed song, “Snowed In,” the thoughts and statements of the NSA are “in the tone of a spurned or betrayed ex-lover,” Wilkis says. And the Internet of Things track frames our relationship with gadgets as being romantic but “verging on extreme codependence.”


To give all those narratives a voice, Wilkis assembled a roster of collaborators that includes Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo and WIRED favorite Twin Shadow. “I had the immense privilege of collaborating with a host of incredible vocalists on 2.0,” he says, “and at the end of the day I just hope these songs make you smile, dance, and think a bit.”


Check out 2.0 below. The album drops March 24.



No comments:

Post a Comment