Army Of Lovers
Say Goodbye To Babylon

"A great poet, a truly great poet, is the least poetic of all creatures. But lesser poets are enchanting. And the worse their poems, the more attractive they seem to me. The mere fact of having published a volume of second-rate sonnets makes a man irresistible." Obviously, as with everything Oscar Wilde has Lord Henry Wotton say, these statements should be weighed, taken with a grain of salt; yet, based on my feelings and especially my personal experience, I am sure that they contain an undeniable kernel of truth. Words that struck me deeply and, however bizarre (or perhaps not) it may seem, my thoughts immediately turned to Alexander Bard, to what his art of questionable relevance and even more questionable aesthetics represents for me. This fascinating character is not just a composer/songwriter but also a sort of intellectual, a philosopher, a man of profound intelligence and vast culture; he could have been anything, a writer, a playwright, a "serious" musician, but my impression is that if it had actually gone that way, he would have been bored to death. So he invented these short-term "projects," Army Of Lovers in the first place, disguised as D'Artagnan, then as Hitler, then as Oscar Giannino (or perhaps the other way around?); "naturalness is a pose, the most irritating one there is", again according to Lord Henry, and it is a pose that has never belonged to Alexander Bard, he much prefers theatrical representation, creating characters and playing them.

There is art-rock, there is art-pop, but what about art-eurodance? It exists, oh it exists, but the only one to propose it was Alexander Bard with the Army Of Lovers; he started in the late '80s with an apparently innocuous single, "When The Night Is Cold", Jean-Pierre on piano, La Camilla (without silicone prostheses) on guitar (!?!?), and Alex singing with such a timid and graceful voice. Then everything changed, "Disco Extravaganza," the debut album, is something wonderfully imperfect, disorienting, and at times almost delirious, I'd like to write something about it but, believe me, it's anything but simple; just a year later, in 1991, "Massive Luxury Overdose" arrived, and with it the "pop breakthrough," the boom, propelled by a formidable single (and music video) like "Crucified". MLO in itself is not the Armada's best work, which will give its best with the subsequent "The Gods Of Earth And Heaven" and "Glory, Glamour, And Gold", but within its tracklist, alongside some still slightly out of focus and overly '80s episodes, it presents extraordinary peaks: "Crucified" of course, then the definitive versions of "Supernatural" and "My Army Of Lovers," "Candyman Messiah," "Walking With A Zombie," and, above all, "Say Goodbye To Babylon".

Testament of Alexander, Book I, Chapter II, Verse VIII: "Say Goodbye To Babylon". Well, yes, the music of this fellow is not only a drug but also a religion, the continuous references to a para-spiritual imaginary is one of the most characterizing components of his style, and this song is one of many examples, and then it sounds decidedly better than saying "Say Goodbye To Babylon" is the eighth song of "Massive Luxury Overdose," the second album by Army Of Lovers, his first musical creation. I've already said it but it doesn't matter, go with the redundancy, also perfectly Bard's style. Yes, but what is Bard's style? An interesting subject of study, both from the point of view of composition and songwriting. As a composer, I spontaneously associate him with Jim Steinman, both allergic to the concept of sobriety, both like to propose themselves through an intermediary, pulling the strings from behind the scenes, both creators of an unmistakable trademark by exaggerating already existing styles. An Alexander Bard text is recognized at first sight, like all lyricists he has his own clichés; if you find references to religion or occultism mixed with massive doses of hedonism and sensuality and a strong tendency to more or less cultured citation as well as self-citation, perhaps with some occasional interlude in French or Hebrew then you can't go wrong, it's surely the work of Alexander Bard.

The song itself? Solemn and melancholic at the same time, obviously in a splendidly kitsch manner: La Camilla, absolute mistress of the scene, feels perfectly at ease in the role of a sinful inhabitant of the corrupted city mourning its fall, nostalgically recalling its ancient glories, the choral refrain provides momentum and solemnity, making "Say Goodbye To Babylon" a sort of reflection and parody of "Va Pensiero," a chilling, blasphemous association, and anything but casual: Alexander Bard had precisely this parallelism in mind, I'm sure of it."Xerxes tore every wall apart, left our home with a broken heart, blood in Euphrat but life goes on, say goodbye to Babylon. Life was good in the site of life, all that's left is eternal strife, baby's riding a neuton bomb (inevitable self-citation), say goodbye to Babylon". The sad end of the golden age, but not all is lost, Alexander Bard and his worthy associates propose to pass on the heritage and splendor of this lost utopia. Babylon belongs to a biblical imagery of enormous evocative power, and everyone interprets it as they prefer, everyone is free to delve into the Mystery as they see fit, far be it from me to elevate myself as an "intermediary," however, considering the historical period, the intuition that comes most immediately to me is a reference to the decade just past, the '80s. The association eighties/Babylon, the Great Harlot, the origin of all evils and all vices, triumph of corruption, certainly has an exciting potential, in an ironic or semi-serious way.

Certainly "Say Goodbye To Babylon" was a turning point for Alexander Bard, this song is one of the very first episodes in which he experimented with a level of composition completely detached from dance in general, giving form to an imaginative art-pop with strong kitsch connotations; not trash mind you, AB is an excellent producer even of conscious and carefree rubbish but not in this case; SGTB, then its ideal sequel "The Day The Gods Help Us All", or again "The Ballad Of Marie Curie," "You Come A Long Way Baby" and finally the album "The Plutonium Cathedral" by Vacuum, the incarnation immediately following the AOL, represent the visionary pinnacle of his work, a work to which, in one way or another, it is truly difficult to remain indifferent and which to be fully understood requires an approach much more careful and analytical than it might appear; for Alexander Bard appearances are important, but ultimately only as a pretext.