Page - 84 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 05/02

cussed above; in this case Williams is surrounded by flames as he flees the bomb blast terrified. Without any doubt the new millennium was a good pretext for apocalyptic discourse. Williams sings of a superficial society that “lives for lipo- suction” and will “overdose for Christmas” but “give it up for Lent”, warning of our demise due to moral collapse. However, he lampoons the lux culture that some have proposed helped make him into an international music star. So, he might fall within what he attacks, evidence of the opportunistic dimension of dystopian producers. The song is a well-constructed piece from mainstream pop-rock, with a catchy refrain and Williams himself playing the character of a wealthy banal womaniser. After the September 11 attacks in 2001, social fears expanded on renewed grounds, frequently turning back to the desolation of the Cold War years. Black- alicious’ rap duet “Sky is Falling” (A–11) took the emblematic title of three films (two of them released in 2000), several novels and two music albums. It is a dystopian rap, with some racial allusions, lamenting the state of a world morally corrupt from top to bottom. The song unambiguously invokes the book of Reve- lation, but above all warns of a pervasive ethical breakdown that is preparing the way for worse times to come. The refrain sounds cheerful and almost naive while the lyrics are gloomy, in a typical contrast of the biblical-dystopian genre. Some verses run: “The sky is falling, life is appalling / And death is lurking, niggaz killing each other”. “Stay strong” is the final verse and contains the only support given to the listener. The recommended video clip (see A–11) fuses uninterruptedly natural and human violence, suggesting a full chaos. It is not an official Blackali- cious release, but a montage by the YouTuber SilentRockProduction (in 2010), which I have chosen because it reveals the tensions and fears experienced by the audience in their assumption and re-elaboration of dystopian songs. Mr. Lif’s “Earthcrusher” (A–12) was released both in I Phantom (Definitive Jux, 2002) and as a live version in Live at the Middle East (Ozone music, same year). It is a bitterly mocking song: “At last / the day of the blast / disaster / wel- come to the hereafter”, as if the destruction of the world was a festive event. Mr. Lif tackles humans’ headlong demise within a political context, lamenting nuclear proliferation. After 3’15’’ (studio recording) we hear people crying, bombs and shots, and a devastated female voice crying, “Oh my God”. This song is another hypercritical prophecy possibly influenced by the 2001 terrorist attacks; the message conveyed becomes highly pessimistic and it has an em- phasis on determined sound effects but, for the same reasons, is destined to trigger social reactions. One year later, the rock band Muse published “Apocalypse Please” (A–13), which included grim registers of an organ, a symbol of the final judgment. As in previous songs cited in this list, some elements were ironical and therefore provocative, like the title itself. Frontman Matthew Bellamy announced, “this is 84 | Javier Campos Calvo-Sotelo www.jrfm.eu 2019, 5/2, 69–94