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Nearly 14 years after their debut album propelled them to global stardom, Foster the People are back with their fourth release, Paradise State of Mind. For fans of the American indie-pop band, it’s hard not to feel a pang of nostalgia.
Mark Foster, the band’s frontman and songwriter, dives once again into his signature philosophical musings about the state of the world.
In 2011, his “Pumped Up Kicks” started out as a demo piece but became a surprise hit, as the song’s cheerful, carnival-like tune contrasted with Foster’s sharp lyrics about the reality of gun violence among youth: “You better run, better run, outrun my gun.”
It wasn’t intended to be a social commentary, but Foster closely follows the news. In this latest album, he again invites listeners to walk in his maze of thoughts as he criticizes, laments and weeps, but also cheers the world.
In fact, he does this right from the start, with the first track “See You in the Afterlife”, singing: “The world is spinning madly […] The headlines got us thinking that we're all gonna die. Then convince us that we have to buy a ticket for the afterlife.”
Has the world gone mad?
“When I was writing these lyrics, there was a lot of reflection on where we were heading as a society. We were grappling with loss, fear, isolation, and you could feel the tension in the air,” Foster told The Jakarta Post over an e-mail interview.
“What worries me the most is how polarized we’ve become as a society. It feels like we’re losing the ability to have real conversations, to listen to one another. There’s so much division, and that’s concerning.”
The pandemic, when Foster wrote most of his songs, was a fitting backdrop to what seemed to be a catastrophic future. These days, the anxieties remain, though dressed in different clothes.
None of these problems are new, he said. “I’ve learned that to tackle them, we need to remember who we are at our core, before all the noise. It’s about rediscovering our humanity.”
This invitation to disconnect from the present and reconnect to a time before all this chaos is certainly palpable in the choice of sounds: ‘70s disco music, a genre designed to evoke collective nostalgia, even for those born after the millennium.
The nostalgia runs deeper in tracks like “Take Me Back”: “Fall in love with yourself again. Like we did when we were children. Before social modifications.”
But past the critiques and the lamentations, he ruminates that there’s no other way out other than to remain hopeful.
“Well, paradise lives in a state of mind,” he croons in the title track “Paradise State of Mind”.
Disco pop
Do tumultuous periods produce the best music?
That may seem the case, as Foster studied the musical and social parallels between the 1970s post-Vietnam war era and today’s chaotic times.
“The ‘70s and ‘80s were such pivotal decades for music. There was this experimentation happening, whether it was in rock, pop, or electronic music, that broke a lot of boundaries. Artists weren’t afraid to push the envelope, and that spirit of innovation really resonated with me while working on this album,” he said.
Funky beats and retro synths weave in and out of the tracks, with some orchestral elements and even a dash of choir vocals. The album opens with a grand, danceable note, but soon turns contemplative and moody. Some tracks resemble poppy summer beats, while others feel chaotic and experimental. Each one, though, will keep listeners dancing on their feet.
“I started thinking about joy as an act of defiance,” said Mark.
While some people may embrace the renaissance of disco music in this album, others have found it an “extreme replication” of the era.
The latter certainly wasn’t the case when Foster the People played in Bali last October. The crowd couldn’t help but dance to the beats of “Feed Me”, “Lost in Space” and “Paradise State of Mind”.
A seven-year gap since the launch of the band’s last album, Sacred Hearts Club, is certainly long enough for any artist to fade into obsurity, especially as the music industry moves at breakneck speed.
But it may be Foster’s talent as a cynical yet poetic lyricist, and his acute awareness of the social and political turmoil unfolding around us, that makes this album relevant.
“It’s important to stay grounded in that sensibility, to really engage with the world around you. Otherwise, we risk losing the human element in the music,” he said.
Michelle is a writer and journalist. She writes about anything from coffee to tech, mostly from her home in Bali.
