Tuesday, November 20, 2007

King of Prussia -- Save the Scene (Kindercore, 2008)




Here's anti-commercialism mixed in with nostalgia. The band's name could refer to the site of one of the US's largest malls, and the album titled coupled with the tv suggests a new reliance on remembering media sequences rather than actual life. The fact that the image on the screen is of an open, natural space reminds us of our postmodern life's separation from a traditional reality. It's a world of shopping and viewing, devoid of human contact (no one's watching this tv).

This stark view's presented through some seriously awesome wallpaper that predates me by quite a bit, and that's only suitable for ironically re-done family/party rooms in finished basements, with a lava lamp recently bought from Spencer's on a side table. The ancient tv fits in, and the appearance of one of those twin-knob sets makes me happy even if I never figured out the point of the bottom knob as a child.

The overall effect is disconcerting in its pleasant trappings and frustrated encoded message. The call to save the scene suggests we can recover a fading time, but the tele-visual suggests that idea's merely an illusion. B.B. King had "a good mind to give up living, and go shopping instead," and this album cover points to the moment of eternal entrapment; a scene frozen on screen, captured in art, in which we've ceased living but have not made it to the mall.

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