Geordie Greep’s “incel musical” is lewd and offensive—and the best album of 2024

There were a number of really good albums and a handful of great ones released this year. But since it was released on October 4, I’ve found myself coming back to this one more than any other.

Many artists try to inhabit a specific character on a song, some try to do it across an entire album. Concept albums they’re called. Some are great. Some are embarrassing. The difference often has to do with how authentically the artist inhabits the character.

If this is the yardstick by which to measure concept albums, then UK musician Geordie Greep’s The New Sound is possibly the best concept album I’ve ever heard.

I hesitate to even call this a concept album because that suggests some degree of artifice, some play-acting and trying to convince. No, this is more like a subconscious torrent. A pitch-perfect psychological profile and character study. A disturbing, appalling, grotesque, but in the end deeply sympathetic and sad portrayal.

Over the course of one hour, Greep takes us deep into the psyche of a certain breed of hyper masculine man. Call them alpha males, incels, edgelords, finance/crypto bros, whatever. Greep dissects them and lays them bare. The results are a wonder to behold.

As you may have already guessed, these are deeply unpleasant characters. They are obsessed with sex and women but are timid and unable to relate to them as humans. These are young men raised on the “manosphere”, that online cesspool populated by Andrew Tate and his ilk. Men whose insecurity has turned into disdain. Who view women as objects to be possessed, used, controlled, and discarded. These men project confidence and swagger but at their core they are snivelling cowards who are terrified of women and other men, other alphas who might view them as a sigma.

This is who Greep has decided to explore on his album. And let me tell you, it’s… a lot. One YouTube reviewer has called the album an “incel musical” and that feels about right. Combined with the hyperactive blend of prog-jazz, chamber music, art rock, lounge music, and Brazilian tropicalia (half the album was recorded in Brazil) that Greep employs here (only slightly more accessible than his former experimental trio black midi) it can all be a bit overwhelming. Or as the review by online tastemakers Pitchfork called it “exhilarating—and occasionally exhausting.”

There are at least a couple layers to get through. As mentioned, the music, played by up to 30 session musicians, veers wildly from complex breakneck math rock (Greep is an insane guitarist) to gorgeous chamber ballads to skronking sax workouts. It can switch between genres in the course of a song, nearly unlistenable noise giving way to gorgeous pastoral and instrumental passages.

Add to this the vocal style of Greep, who often sings either in a Broadway-adjacent croon or mile-a-minute spoken-word barrages, tripping over himself, shouting his lurid streams in a manic-preacher way that beggars belief and is absurd, hilarious, and awe-inspiring all at once.

It took me several listens to just position myself comfortably within the music. Once I did that, I could focus on the lyrics. Then, as evidenced by this conversation over the course of a month with my daughter, bewilderment turned to obsession.

Greep has stated that he got the idea for this album in part from hanging out late at night in bars and listening in on or having conversations with the dudes who came in for drinks.

Overconfidence, braggadocio, douchebaggery. These are small men who desperately want to be large. Who want to be worshipped by men and women alike. Men for whom sex is above all an assertion of power. Greep wondered what “bizarre and horrible” love songs these men would write.

And so we meet the first man, some likely 18-year old who “thinks he’s pretty hot shit” according to Greep

You're all grown up

You have your own stove

And your own pair of oven gloves

You have arrangements and assignations

You keep up appearances and have a reputation

You sit in the park and work on your sonnets

You talk about yourself in the past tense

You have opinions that can't be shaken

And morals firm

This is, by all accounts, a responsible adult. Someone who keeps appointments and has meaningful hobbies.

But also someone who is a bit full of themselves, uninterested in what others have to say except as it validates their own opinion and worldview

Do you know what I mean? Do you know what I mean?

Do you know what I mean? Do you know what I mean?

Do you know what I mean? Do you know what I mean?

Do you know what I mean? Do you know what I mean?

Do you know what I mean? Do you know what I mean?

Is your favourite turn of phrase

You know what I mean, you know what I mean, you know what I mean, you know what I mean

Is your second favourite turn of phrase

Greep continues illustrating the many ways this man is puffed up, moving through some frantic spoken word ranting before putting the lie to it all. He reduces the cocky young man to an admission of his frailties, insecurities, and failures, declaring that soon his own body will revolt out of sheer embarrassment of him. The only way forward is admission and acceptance of the inevitability of irrelevance and death

The first step is acceptance

Admit you have no idea what you are doing

Admit you have no name and no ambition

Admit that you sleepwalk through life

Admit that you sleep only sleepless nights

Admit your best dreams involve being carried

That spirit that enters your room

Those arms that envelop poor you!

That carry you away

In those arms you escape - you dissolve through clouds

London shrinks as you leave it behind

London turns to a model village

And now you are one with yourself

You are finally proud

Admit that you've tried to cry and can't

Admit to yourself - no one else cares

There’s no jury present, there's no reporters

There’s no examination, it's only you

Soon you'll disappear

Soon you won't be here

Soon you'll have all the time in the world

Soon your lips will unwrap

Soon your lips will expand

You’ll pull them apart, up over your head

Soon you'll be inside out

Soon your veins will spring off

Soon they'll spread out for miles

Soon your veins will transport trains all over the world

Soon your veins will be a railroad

Soon your mind will extract itself

And very soon you'll disappear, soon you'll disappear

You’ll be fine, just relax

Soon you'll disappear

That’s the only fact

This deep insecurity fills the stories of other men, manifest in different, sometimes violent, and ultimately self-destructive ways. The museum proprietor who is the subject of “Terra” can’t wait to open the exhibit of human suffering, complete with “Victims of drought, famine, fetuses abandoned” all to be admired. All the grotesquery is merely by way of comparison with his own broken and bleeding heart. He begs his ex-lover to “give it a squeeze” watch it bleed and, in a tortured yelp, to remember him as a great man.

And so it goes. Tale after tale of debauched insecurity masquerading as masculinity. The finance bro who hires a prostitute on his lunch break. The old man relating his exploits as a young soldier who conquered lands, killed enemies, and subjected people to horrific tortures (men boiled alive, father and son forced to fight to the death) yet treated the object of his affection with grace and kindness, inscribing her name on “every tree, every train, every drop of rain” as a token and evidence of his magnanimity. The man whose fantasy of ditching his girl centers around housewives and children gawking at him as he rides away on his Yamaha motorbike with a “brand new V-Max engine.”

Prostitutes appear frequently. These are the only women these “alphas” can relate to. Women who will do whatever the men want for a price. In many of these encounters, the role of the prostitute is to inflate the ego of the men. Too terrified to cultivate real relationships with women, these men pay prostitutes to play-act adulation. In the bizzarro funk of lead single “Holy, Holy” the absurdity of this charade is portrayed in minute detail

I could tell you were lonely

From the moment you walked in

From the way you had your makeup on

From the way you'd done your hair

From the way you sat down next to me

From the way you ordered your drink

From the moment you put your hand on my knee

I knew I’d have you with ease

The cocksure man continues his wooing, asking the woman if she knows his name. He’s holy around the world, some sort of deity in his own mind, loved by women and feared by “all the revolutionaries, all the jihadis too”

Do you know my name?

Of course you know my name

Everyone does, it's true

It's true, it's true, it's true

That I'm known around here

The barmaids know my name

I've had them all before

You are new, I'll have you too

It's time to give in

From the shores of Havana

To Moscow and Tokyo

In French Guyanese, in Cantonese Everyone knows my name

His advances, bragging, and banter ratchet up notch after notch until finally he invites her to the bathroom while making an absurdly lewd quip “I bet your pussy is holy too”.

We are left aghast and disgusted. We want to slap him. Surely she did?

The song turns inside out and the big reveal comes, showing just how desperate and small this “holy” man is. The whole act was planned with the prostitute in advance

I'll arrive at around 7 p.m.

And I want you to get there no later than ten

I want you to be dressed like a sophisticated tart

With too much makeup on, will that be alright?

And I want you to sit down next to me, as if by chance

I want it to seem like we've never met before

How much will that cost? I want you to look unsure of yourself

And I want you to look at me as if I'm attractive

I want your eyes to say, "Take me"

And I want your lips to be unimpressed

I And I want you to ask the waiter if I really am who I say I am

And I want you to blush

I want you to shoot a smug look at the other girls

To make them jealous I chose you

When I tell you your pussy is holy I want you to slap me and then kiss me

Make sure everyone's watching, kiss me and then walk away

Walk to the bathroom, I'll follow after

Don't worry, we won't do anything

We'll just loiter there 15 minutes or so

Then I'll choose your new lipstick and we'll walk back out

And I want you to tell me I'm a perfect dancer

And I want you to tell me I smell great

I want you to make me look taller

Could you kneel down the whole time?

How much will that cost?

I want you to put your hand on my knee

Will that be alright?

I want you to look at me as if you're lost

How much will that cost?

Thank you so much

We'll meet the same time next week

And the next week after that too

And the next week after that

And the next month, and the next

The alpha is revealed for what he truly is, a begging, insecure dullard whose only wish is to have his date amplify his masculinity in front of others, especially other women. The man who lusts for power and control is reduced to begging the woman to play-act her adulation to boost his feeling of importance. The prostitute, ironically, has the power in this exchange, because she can refuse any of his requests if she likes. Greep’s is a masterclass in portraying the desperate cowardice that is at the core.

Deep down though, what these men really long for is connection. They have no idea how to relate to women except as sexual conquests, but Greep gives a peek into the sweetly normal fantasy world some of his characters imagine and wish for outside of the hour they have paid for. Even the sweetest and most tender sentiments, however, can’t help but be hijacked by the creepy paternalism and control that has become central to their personality

To have you and know I'll never see you again

To want you outside of this room

To take you dancing, to take you out

To get married, to make you mine

To see you with regular clothes on To earn you, to love you

To look at your face and feel no shame To have no ounce of pity

To know you have no eye on the time

To love you without regret

For an hour, you're everything

But only an hour

To know what you think

To hear your true voice

To hope your heart beats for me

For an hour, you're everything

What a sweet hour

To see you without your makeup on

To see you cry and sleep

To hide in your closet and see you at work

To see if the rest are like me

To stay behind after

And hear all the gossip

To see how the business works

For an hour, I wish for all this

But only an hour

For an hour you're everything

What a sweet hour

To hear you sing in the shower

To take you abroad

To meet your parents, see your home

To show you my family

To take you to see my favourite films

To see what you think of Proust

And to read all of your favourite books

And to watch you fuck other men

To let your breast warm my hands from the cold

And not afterwards have sex

To see you naked and leave you alone

To hear you moan and walk away

To help you in any way I can

To give you whatever you need

To put you through school

To get you a job

To bribe professors and police

For an hour, I know I'll do all this

But only an hour

To kiss you while fully clothed

To go sledging in the snow

And to pretend I met you anywhere but here

To wish I met you anywhere but here

To tell my mum I love you

To tell the world I need you

To never tell your secret

To never tell your secret

To pretend I've more to say to you than, "How much?"

To pretend we've more to do together than fuck

To be with you for more than an hour

To be with you for more than an hour

To act as if I'm any different than the rest

Pick me I'm different than all the rest

To act as if you care

To act as if!

In the penultimate track “The Magician”, over 12 minutes of gorgeous orchestral rock Greep portrays just how alien women are to these men. The men don’t understand them. They hide from them. They run from them. They feel used by them. They hate them. They can’t sleep because of them. They chase them through imaginary forests. They accuse them of faking orgasms (or in the case of Ben Shapiro, assert that the female orgasm doesn’t exist). They plead with them to help them make sense of their dreams, the only place where anything seems real

What's left of the lover

Who doesn't exist?

Who knows not how many fantasies

Involve her kiss?

What’s left of the dreamer

Who dreams, and dreams, and dreams, and dreams, and dreams

But thinks he isn't dreaming

Thinks he is free?

And what of the endless, heedless, ennui?

Will it leave me be? No!

When the smoke clears, it remains your name

When the smoke clears, it remains, it remains

When the smoke clears, it reigns, it reigns

When the smoke clears, it's all I'll have left

The critical nature of the dream state for these men, where they are loved and adored, powerful and sexually dominant, is underscored by the last song. For this, Greep sings a traditional arrangement of a Frank Sinatra ballad “If You Are But A Dream.” After all that has come before, this song takes on a desperation and melancholy that almost makes the listener feel bad for the cast of alphas. If this made-up reality where women adore them and men fear them isn’t real, is in fact a dream, then they hope to never wake up. Their sad pathetic lives are too much to face. They’ll take the dream. If not that, death is preferable.

With The New Sound Geordie Greep has provided more than a character sketch. Indeed, this already too-long review only scratches the surface (not even touching on the symbolism of the album art).

It’s tempting to project these people onto Greep himself, but he denies any personal or confessional element to the characters that populate these songs. He has said he has noticed an uptick in this type of persona in recent years and wanted to explore it further.

These men are, unfortunately, all too familiar. The manosphere has exploded in popularity, thanks to right-wing influencers and podcast bros like Joe Rogan. Trump’s election win was due in part to young men breaking hard for him over Harris.

These are men who have been left with no real options or forced into the rat race of a capitalist socio-economic system that exploits, extracts, and casts aside, whose lives and livelihoods are precarious and who have been convinced that feminism and women are to blame for their problems. They want women but only to show them they are in control. They believe that women want to be abused and manipulated. They view Trump’s ability to sexually assault with impunity as a sign of power and strength. Matt Gaetz, Nick Fuentes, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, Tate, Shapiro, Trump. Shades of all of these men are found here. These are the posterboys of the new Republican party, the next generation of conservative MAGA heads. The people going up to random women and shouting “your body, my choice.” Men who use their power to strip women of their rights and humanity. Who try as hard as they can to reduce women to the objects of control they desperately want them to be. We would do well to try to understand them.

In his musically insane and staggeringly insightful album, Greep shows us who these men really are. Scared, insecure, and longing for connection. Greep pulls back the curtain on the cowardice behind the braggadocio. He shows us the scared little boys behind the cocky men. He lets their humanity peak out from their carefully-constructed shell personae. And he makes us almost feel sorry for them. Almost.