When I first heard The Monitor, the second album by New Jersey band Titus Andronicus, I dismissed it as a punk-rock take on Bruce Springsteen that would provide a bit of short-term fun. I underestimated the power of the album to get under your skin, to open itself further with every listen, and, of course, the phrase ‘punk-rock take on Bruce Springsteen’.
I heard it first over a year ago, and listening to it now, the Springsteen-references are not just a lazy way to describe an album, but actually the key to what the album is trying to say. Springsteen himself embodies the traditional, New Jersey working man. He speaks to blue-collar Americans in the way that politicians wish they could, because he is a working class American. One of the reasons for The Boss’ enduring success, it was once said, is that you can almost imagine that when he isn’t touring, Bruce actually goes back to his hometown and works in a factory with the same people he grew up. At the end of his shift, he goes to the same bar he always has and drinks PBR with those same people again. That is not the case, obviously, but perhaps more than any musician who sings extensively about his roots, he has maintained his pre-fame identity.
The working-class of New Jersey, and all around America, that Springsteen writes about and embodies, has been romanticised in much the same way that British miners were before Thatcherism – it wasn’t a glamorous life, or a desirable one, but it was their life, an honest life that was driven by a ‘honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay’ philosophy. It was the generation eulogised by Frank Sobotka in series two of The Wire, when he says ‘We used to make shit in this country, build shit.’
That quote represents the point where Titus Andronicus and other bands which count Springsteen as their inspiration split. The Gaslight Anthem, with a lead singer who worked for nearly a decade in a car factory before becoming a singer, are in love with the image of Americana that Springsteen promotes. Titus Andronicus, however, see things much differently. Their New Jersey is that of the sons and daughters of the people depicted in the songs of Springsteen and The Gaslight Anthem – some of the many victims of globalised capitalism and the crisis of identity which resulted from it.
The process of globalisation, which has really been happening throughout history, gathered momentum in the second half of the twentieth century. It was bad news for the working class of New Jersey, as their jobs were transported to the other side of the world as using Eastern-based wage slavery became an economic reality for multinational companies. The next generation, the Titus Andronicus-generation, were promised a new start, increased levels of economic freedom, free information, and everything else.
But globalisation, in a bid to create a global identity, tore up the roots that once gave people a real sense of self. Under Thatcherism and Reaganomics, class was apparently dissolved into one.
The real problem this created was that, when it opened new windows for young people, globalised capitalism made sure it bolted any doors closed, and moved those doors out to countries where it is legal to pay people less than a dollar a day. A vacuum of jobs for young people was created, and those that belonged to families of the working class apparently saw their history being erased by ‘trickle-down economics’ which never fulfilled their promise.
The Monitor is filled with references to depression, anxiety, alcoholism and worthlessness – they form the feeling of emptiness that comes from the lack of fixed identity. At the same time, the album reflects what, if anything, was good about globalised society – the spread of knowledge. Titus Andronicus is a consciously-cleverer album than any of those of Springsteen – it’s a concept album based on American history, is strewn with references to myriad other influences. The band name even comes from a relatively obscure Shakespeare play.
If The Monitor was given a human embodiment, it would be the slightly pretentious, university-educated son of a former New Jersey steel factory worker. The clash between the references and the dark lyrics, and the audible influence of traditional American anthemic rock, is the playing out of a struggle between this generation’s past and present.
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