Betrayed generation

Appears on:

Sonic degeneracy - Vol. II: Psychotic crescendo

(Full-length, 2024)

Fragments of degeneracy

(Split/Compilation, 2024)

Written in may 2017.

Trivia

This is a very personal one: it was inspired by a moment of extreme weakness and uncertainty about the future, seeing how the world had changed since I was little - economic crises, loss of economic stability, the increasing difficulty of finding a job... nothing has been the same since the 2008 financial crash, and for the generation Z I'm not-so-proudly part of, it feels like we've been robbed of the promises we were given when we were younger (progress, self-actualization, finding the job of our dreams etc.). It's a bittersweet, nostalgic song about what the world looked like in the late 90s / early 2000s, with all the economic prosperity, the hope, the optimism and the promises we were spoon-fed with as children - and then the economic crisis, with all the disillusion that came with it (I use the line "a riot of collective indifference" to describe the apathy many teenagers and "gen-Zers" display as a coping mechanism for the frustration they experience everyday, not knowing how they're going to survive when they'll have to live on their own). The lyrics, though, still end on a slightly hopeful note: apathy is not the right answer, and it's important for us to fight in order to change this unbalanced, anti-meritocratic system that only works for an elite of billionaires and Wall Street speculators.

Musically it's a very weird, experimental song, taking some cues from Protector's debut album "Golem" and twisting them into a stranger beast, by adding even more ear-piercing dissonance and atonality.

Lyrics

Childhood memories of generation Z

Grown up in a time of prosperity

Promises and expectations all around us

A bright future on the horizon

So close to the idyllic hedonistic ideal

Of self-actualization and good life for all

Joyful managers and employees taking high incomes

To spend for summer travels with their families

World interconnection, a new global village

Home computers, world wide web for everyone

Shimmering new technologies, colorful commercials

Mirroring our needs and desires

So naive and oblivious to the risks of a system

Built on deregulated markets

Financial superpower, uncontrolled speculation

Led to this last decade of disillusion

Real estate bubble bursting out

Great Recession

Harsh reality kills the myth

Of deregulation

World wide trauma, radical shift

Drastic inversion

Naive teens, childhood disappears

Betrayed generation

Torn from a womb of idyllic promises

Optimism dies

Poverty and precariousness, many lost jobs

Life getting harder

Bankrupt families, the fun is over

For you and your children

Welcome to a darker, more uncertain world

Than the one we promised you

Growing up upon the ruins

Of this civilization

World changing fast for the very worse

Intense alienation

Pessimism and apathy

Becoming a fashion

Bitter mix of cynicism and nostalgia

Betrayed generation

Sickening stench of sad sarcasm

Acid fatalism

Speaking in platitudes about the world

Awaiting them as adults

Millionaires, movie gods, rock stars

No, we won't become

We are slowly learning this fact

And we're very pissed off

Discouraged ones against society

Bitter resignation

A riot of collective indifference

Silent accusation

Grown up during the calm before the storm

Nostalgic reaction

Fed up with lies, disillusioned by facts

Betrayed generation

Fake idyllic dreams from which we have awakened

Now we have to work together to clean up this mess

Regulate the economy, crush the parasites

In a truly meritocratic world they would deserve to fail

We need to stick to the hedonistic goal

Where promises of good life are fulfilled

Transparency is necessary to keep this shit going

Hidden speculation cannot be tolerated

Apathy and indifference won't help us at all

Problems need to be addressed, regardless of all

Take the best of what we have, throw away the worst

Stand against the elite, reclaim your own right

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