Continuing to channel some residual “Infant Marie energy” from 2025’s Happiness Is Going to Get You, Allie X has offered up her first single/new music of 2026 with “Midnight for the Masses.” A song that addresses, let’s say, the simultaneous pain and pleasure of being numb. More to the point, of deliberately numbing out to avoid cold, hard reality. And, in this “modern world,” there is no shortage of ways and means with which to achieve such numbness. In this regard, Allie X’s elegy, of sorts, for humanity (or at least a humanity that could function without needing to be distracted 24/7) is reflective of what Aldous Huxley presented in Brave New World: a society so preoccupied with “amusing itself” and being “entertained” that it forgets entirely about “real issues,” least of all concerning itself with them or how they might result in a cataclysm from which no human can return.
For why would anyone want/bother to concern themselves with that when they could instead “numb out”? Whether that’s with media, drugs, sex or any other addictive “substance,” Allie X prays the rosary of her own creation with “Midnight for the Masses.” A play, of sorts, on the phrase “midnight mass.” Except with X’s phrase, the intent is to suggest it’s the final hour for humanity as it stands. As it exists now. For, like many others, Allie X seems well-aware of (or is at least waking up to) the fact that this iteration of modern society is on the verge of collapse at the rate it keeps going.
And yes, there are those who would argue that various Henny Pennys have been shouting for years that the sky is falling, yet, on the surface, it still hasn’t. But that’s the thing about “the end of the world”: it isn’t sudden; it’s gradual. Hence, the famed T. S. Eliot quote, “This is the way the world ends/Not with a bang but a whimper.”
In the post-neoliberal world, that whimper has been going on quite loudly since the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher set off a chain of political events that continue to reverberate to this day. As such, there’s a certain kind of poeticness to Allie X, who also produced the song in addition to co-writing it with George Pimentel (a.k.a. Das Kope), commencing “Midnight for the Masses” with such a distinctly 80s sound before diving into the first line that declares, “I need some sleep.” In other words, “I wanna be numb,” “Give me my fuckin’ pacifier,” etc. For Allie X, that proverbial pacifier/drug is quickly revealed to be marijuana (though there’s no doubt that she, like most, has others—pacifiers, that is) as she sings, “I smoked the weed/And then I kissed the beast.” That beast being, perhaps, Numbness itself as X drones the chorus, “I need pain relief/Can I rest in peace?/It’s homeostasis/Midnight for the masses/I’m killing my sadness/Midnight for the masses.”
To be sure, this is the kind of apathy that can be found in the version of London ruled by the World State of Brave New World, where “pain-free” existence is how the government keeps all of its soma-popping citizens from rebelling. Instead, they’re happy to conform, and the government’s job of subjugation and suppression is done for it with such numbing agents. Numbing agents that, as Allie X might describe, are still somehow never quite enough to fill the void inside as she laments, “You still want more/It’s not enough to score.” For “the score” is only half the thrill. And, oftentimes, once you get what you think you want, it’s never nearly as satisfying as you thought it would be anyway. Not unlike John in Brave New World wanting to and then actually visiting “World State” London after hearing so much about it from his mother, Linda, who is originally from there, but had John in a “natural-born” way (instead of through an artificial womb like those under World State dominion) and, therefore (among other reasons), decides to raise him on a “Savage Reservation” in New Mexico. This being just one of the many qualities that separates John from those who have lived in this version of London for so long that they can’t even see the extent of their numbness to the entire human experience, let alone how fucked up it is.
Addicted to pleasure and diversion, the current society isn’t very far off from what Huxley predicted through his dystopian pièce de résistance. Except that “dystopia” is merely reality now. And garden variety at that. Or, as Allie X sums it up, “It’s pigs and whores/Licking it up off the floor/You still want more.” More entertainment, more drugs, more of anything that will “take the edge off.” The edge off of what? Why, living itself of course! Which has only, ironically enough, gotten harder the “easier” it’s supposed to have become thanks to the technological advancements that have made it all but impossible for any of one’s hours not to be filled by something entertaining. Not only that, but also increasingly impossible to remember how to interact in a “natural” way at all with other human beings (or what’s left of the humanity within those beings). And yes, as Allie X characterizes it, it is homeostasis.
For, as the term is defined from a biological perspective, it’s “the process that living organisms use to keep their internal environment stable and balanced, even when conditions outside change.” But a more figurative constant state of equilibrium or “standing still” (though, more likely, lying still…while binge-watching a show) that allows one to adjust only to what’s “optimal” for themselves and their own comfort is not key to survival, but, in fact, assures that no one will survive in the end. Alas, it’s just so difficult to care when it all feels so good, so convenient despite all the badness surrounding one everywhere. So yeah, no wonder Allie X is already singing her “midnight mass.” Her requiem for this culture of zombies (yet another reason it’s a timely release for October).
+ There are no comments
Add yours