The Ballet Blames Society

I spent thirteen hours in a car yesterday, which was not particularly fun, but on the bright side it gave me a chance to listen to The Ballet‘s I Blame Society album over and over and over again. It’s the third, and poppiest, release from the very queer Brooklyn trio. Led by the scruffily handsome Greg Goldberg, a soft-spoken sociology professor from Connecticut, the group’s songs mainly fall into that sub-genre of indie-pop where sad people overthink their feelings. Which is normally tolerable only in very small doses, but luckily the excellent production makes this one a keeper.

“Meaningless” starts with an ambiguous gay wedding lament: “I’ve got no wedding dress, I’ve got no diamond ring. / I’ve got no crowd to address, I guess my love is meaningless.” “Is Anybody Out There?” addresses the more isolating aspects of suburbia: “When I said that I wanted to be alone / I didn’t mean that I wanted to be alone / Is anybody out there?” On “Difficult Situations“, maybe the best song on the album, the sadsack narrator recognizes that he’s sabotaging his own life for no particular reason. “I should be happy, I’ve got everything I want. / Friends and family, the boyfriend. / It could be chemical, I guess it could be something that my mother did to me. Or didn’t do.”

The keyboards and synths are consistently lovely and rather dreamy, as are the heavily (but tastefully) Autotuned backup vocals. But Goldberg’s half-spoken, half-sung laments could not be more grounded in reality, and overall it’s a very, very laid-back album. By the end you will have both an ear boner and a friend crush on everyone involved in its making.

I Blame Society is less overtly gay than The Ballet’s 2006 debut Mattachine! (named after the society of politically minded gays in fifties New York) or its 2009 follow-up, Bear Life (which had song titles like “Rough Trade” and “I’m Going Through A Personal Transformation”; there was even a clip of Sean Cody dialogue on one track.) Both of those albums are on Bandcamp now and highly recommended.

The new one came out about a month ago and the band is currently touring the UK. There don’t seem to be any plans for American shows in the near future, sadly.

– Lawrence

Here’s the video for “Is Anybody Out There?”, which is composed of clips of Pink Narcissus:

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