There’s a lot of talk these days about a “male loneliness epidemic.” This may very well be a serious crisis, and I don’t mean to be flip, but men complaining about feeling sad and isolated is, of course, not a new phenomenon. Listen to music from the 1970s and early ’80s, and you will hear some of the all-time loneliest-sounding sonsabitches spilling their guts into very expensive microphones.
In the introduction to my recently published interview with Bill LaBounty, a master of this particular vein of emo AOR, I wrote, “LaBounty wasn’t making music to help listeners through bad breakups. He was instead creating the ultimate soundtrack for wallowing.”
The tracks on this mixtape feature wallowing aplenty—heartsick guys luxuriating in their own very deep feelings. Some try to look on the bright side but can’t see through the haze of melancholy. Others seem consumed by bitterness, jealousy, even fantasies of revenge. Whatever it is that’s bothering them, these fellas are getting it out of their systems and onto magnetic tape.
Maybe, just maybe, these songs point to one possible cure for our modern-day male loneliness epidemic: a guitar.
