Jamie Lenman — The Atheist | Album Review
Lost on the right path.
We are dealing here with a thoroughly ambivalent work. On the one hand, the lyrics and the uninspired, one might say Nickelbackesque rock aesthetics do not seem deep at all. On the other hand, there are occasional flashes of lines that suggest that there is actually potential here. This becomes especially clear in the last three tracks, which almost make us conveniently forget the rest. Almost everything about them moves in the correct direction; among other things, motifs from “Also sprach Zarathustra” (Thus Spoke Zarathustra), but also from “Der Antichrist” (The Antichrist), are used and in the context of the last title, combined with a strange voice-over.
“You really think there’s a heaven and hell
Well, maybe there’s a planet Krypton as well” (This Is All There Is).
These are the first words we hear when the album begins and, like the title of the album The Atheist, they hint at the work’s general critical stance towards God (we will examine the content of the critical stance in the further course, rather than the stance itself). This statement, however, is no longer provocative or original in any way. It has already been used enough by pop culture and utilized by numerous musicians, so that the feeling could arise that the flip side of this thesis is the more provocative one. So instead of proclaiming that there is no God, we should firmly believe in God for that very reason. But this would itself presuppose non-belief, since the provocation only arises when the basic assumption is the same, namely that there is no God. Therefore, at this point, even if it is not an original move, we must at least credit Jamie Lenman with the correct approach. We must not, in relation to Nietzsche, become the old saint who “hasn’t yet heard that God is dead!” (Nietzsche 2021, 366).
This album’s connection to Nietzsche is particularly clear in another title. In “Talk Hard” it states:
“So turn yourself into a bolder person
There’s nothing to be gained from acting so demurely” (Talk Hard).
So we should become a bolder person who is not so demure. The connection to Nietzsche’s Übermenschen (roughly: superior humans) thus becomes an immanent part of the work. However, there is a clear distinction that Nietzsche makes that undermines the closeness to the Übermensch that I noted earlier. Nietzsche says the following in the third part from Zarathustra’s Preface:
“Once the sacrilege against God was the greatest sacrilege, but God died, and with it these sacrilegious ones also died.” (Nietzsche 2021, 366).
Nietzsche thus clearly contradicts here the mere courage that the reticent lack; after all, Zarathustra himself is an outcast, not, however, because society rejects him, but because he could only come to a moment of insight in solitude. So instead of emphasizing mere boldness, it would be better to emphasize one’s own insight and courage in solitude instead. However, this contradicts with what Jamie Lenman says. Another discrepancy arises when we read Nietzsche further. Because he subsequently states that the new sacrilege respects the inscrutable more highly, “than the sense of the earth” (Nietzsche 2021, 366f.). Here the connection between Nietzsche and Adorno is clearly recognizable. According to Adorno, science merely replaces the dead God, and this is exactly what happens on this album at a later point (albeit with a humorous twist).
In the song “Bad Friend”, Jamie Lenman commits another formal error that threatens not only to cut the connection to Nietzsche, but also to everything he has said before. There he sings:
“The favours and the things I do
They give me power over you” (Bad Friend).
And then a little later:
“I’m unkind, unaware” (Bad Friend).
The problem we now face is the apparent lack of critical distance. Although Nietzsche opposes neighbourly love because he sees in it a neglect of the self and therefore advises “to the next-flight and the farthest-love” (Nietzsche 2021, 405), but flight is completely absent from Jamie Lenman’s lyrics. It feels more like he is describing a toxic relationship here, however, about which no real reflection sets in. One of the most crucial theories in Nietzsche’s work, is the “will to power”, which is supposed to herald a constant rethinking. The old must always be overcome. That is why we should not blindly follow Zarathustra, no, it is precisely the constant challenging of his theories that makes us critical thinkers in the first place. But this kind of reflection is shut out by Jamie Lenman from the outset when the lyrical self proudly proclaims that it is “unaware”.
The following tracks all float in this sphere of insufficient critical examination. There are moments that seem to be a reflection, but in the end these traces of thought are lost in the sand. Aptly, Jamie Lenman himself provides us with the question that most closely reflects our intellectual confusion:
“And honestly, I’m still unclear how we ended up here?” (Song On My Tongue).
It is probably no coincidence that this critical reflection begins with the next song. This is evident, for example, in moments like this:
“Like I will always love you, you can never love me back” (This Town Will Never Let Us Go).
For the first time, this distance that stands between the two individuals is brought into a frame. However, we have to interject again, since this passage also postulates a love that lasts forever, that never ends. Nietzsche rightly sees it differently when he states:
“One can promise actions, but not feelings; for these are involuntary. Whoever promises someone to always love him […] promises something that is not in his power.” (Nietzsche 2021, 161).
But we must recognize the ambivalence at this point, as the involuntariness of the feelings are obviously dealt with by Jamie Lenman. His only mistake is not to separate the feelings from the actions, but we can overlook that. It is much more important to recognize and reveal the step in the “correct” (more reflective) direction.
The last song of the album is by far the best, and yet it gets tangled in the same pitfalls as the songs before. This becomes especially clear when Jamie Lenman sings, “Arm yourself for a war of doubt” (War Of Doubt). This is problematic, firstly because it suggests that this “war” is only just beginning, although, as Nietzsche proves, it has long since taken place, and secondly because it creates a right — wrong dichotomy that contradicts a never-ending critical approach.
We must now inevitably confront the seemingly scientific audio sample. A quick search reveals that the person speaking is an actor named Norman Kaye and the quote is from the film “Bad Boy Bubby”. The quote follows the same pattern as the album. The first premise, that God is dead, resonates with us and Nietzsche, but the subsequent premises, be it a toxic relationship that exploits its own power, or the admitted existence of an inner God buried within us, “we arrange our lives with more order and harmony than God ever arranged the earth” (War Of Doubt), the dead god just gets replaced by something else. Nevertheless, the conclusion that follows ultimately agrees with Nietzsche’s. A small consolation, because a conclusion without the necessary premises to support it has no value, it simply implodes.
In the meantime, we can of course ask ourselves the legitimate question: why look at the whole thing with Nietzsche at all and not with Foucault, for example? There are two reasons for this: i.) Because Nietzsche is known for having diagnosed the death of God. ii.) Because in “Also sprach Zarathustra” Nietzsche turned away from his previous nihilism and rediscovered the potential in us humans. And don’t we feel the same way about this album? We see the potential, we see what could have been possible, but we also see it failing right in front of our eyes. What remains is a working conclusion surrounded by ineffectual premises. The work thus invalidates itself. It ultimately ensures its own nullity. And we? We only listen and miss the chance to hear.
Citations:
(*) Friedrich Nietzsche (2021). Also sprach Zarathustra. In: Derselbe. Friedrich Nietzsche. Gesammelte Werke (363–614). München.
(*) Friedrich Nietzsche (2021). Menschliches, Allzumenschliches [Erster Band]. In: Derselbe. Friedrich Nietzsche. Gesammelte Werke (117–362). München.
* Translated source from German by myself.
