what Debut is about
This record is really about being tired of going into the world’s largest record store in the hopes to finding something fabulous, and walking out with fucking yet another Miles Davis record because there’s nothing happening that’s challenging.
So you felt that you had to make that music yourself ?
Largely, yes. That was my impulse.
I think pop music has betrayed us. Everybody in the world needs pop music, just like they need politics, their pay, and oxygen to breathe. The problem is that too many people dismiss pop as crap because nobody has had the courage to make pop that’s releant to the modern world. Pop music has become so stagnant. This is really a paradox because it should change and evolve every day. I don’t think anybody has made a decent pop album in years.
I want this album to be pop music that everybody can listen to. I think not sticking to any particular musical style makes the album real. Life isn’t always the same. You don’t live in the same style from day to day, unexpected things happen that are beyond your control. That’s this record. One song is about the mood you’re in walking to the corner shop, another is about being drunk and out of it on drugs in a club, and the next one is about feeling romantic and making love.
Pop is music for a particular moment. You should be able to throw it away the next day but it has be real for that one moment so that as you’re doing the dishes and hear it on the radio, you can relate to it, go deep into it, and know that it matters and makes a difference for you. It doesn’t have to be some existential arty piece, it can just be a song that everybody can sing along to. But it has to touch you deeply for that moment.
That’s how I want people to experience this record. As pop music for 1993.
i-D, may 1993