"The Contrarian" is a song by American rock band

A Perfect Circle A Perfect Circle is an American Rock music, rock Supergroup (music), supergroup formed in Los Angeles, California in 1999 by guitarist Billy Howerdel and Tool (band), Tool vocalist Maynard James Keenan. A Perfect Circle released three of their ...

. It is off of the band's fourth studio album, ''

Eat the Elephant ''Eat the Elephant'' is the fourth studio album by American rock band A Perfect Circle. It is their first album release in fourteen years since 2004's '' Emotive''. While early work on new material traces back to as early as 2008, years of slow pr ...

''.

Background

Despite years of slow progress in writing and finalizing content for their 2018 ''

'', their first album in fourteen years, "The Contrarian" came from a particularly productive 36-hour session in 2017. The band's approach to writing songs is typically guitarist

Billy Howerdel William L. Howerdel (born May 18, 1970) is an American musician, best known as a founding member, guitarist, backing vocalist, songwriter, and producer for the band A Perfect Circle, as well as for his former solo project, Ashes Divide. Howerde ...

writing instrumental demos and presents them to vocalist

Maynard James Keenan Maynard James Keenan (born James Herbert Keenan; April 17, 1964) is an American singer, songwriter, philanthropist, record producer, and winemaker. He is best known as the singer and primary lyricist of the rock bands Tool (band), Tool, A Perfe ...

to write lyrics and vocal melodies on if he approves of the material; the instrumental by Howerdel in the case of "The Contrarian" was based around a very short, undeveloped idea by Howerdel, and was much more so written around Keenan's vocals instead. The song's guitar work was inspired by Howerdel's live performance reworking of their ''

Thirteenth Step ''Thirteenth Step'' is the second studio album by American rock band A Perfect Circle, released on September 16, 2003. The album sold well, charting at the number 2 position on the ''Billboard'' 200 in its premiere week, selling over 231,000 co ...

'' track "The Noose", with Howerdel wants to present the sound in a studio track because it wasn't present in the studio version of "The Noose". Some of the rough ideas of the song, much like the song "

The Doomed "The Doomed" is a song by American rock band A Perfect Circle. The song was first released as a single on October 16, 2017. It is the band's first single since 2013's " By and Down" for their greatest hits album ''Three Sixty'', and was the lead ...

", also originated from Howerdel's work on the soundtrack for the film ''D-Love''. A video was released for the song on June 11, 2018. The video features footage from the 3D holographic video released with the deluxe box-set edition of the album, compressed into a 2D image, similar to how the band had done with their single " TalkTalk". The video was directed by

Steven Sebring Steven Sebring (born 1966) is an American photographer, filmmaker and producer. His 2008 documentary '' Patti Smith: Dream of Life'' earned him a Sundance Award for Excellence in Cinematography and a Primetime Emmy nomination. He also directed th ...

. The video features a number of abstract and eerie images, including

magicians Magician or The Magician may refer to: Performers * A practitioner of magic (supernatural) * A practitioner of magic (illusion) * Magician (fantasy), a character in a fictional fantasy context Entertainment Books * ''The Magician'', an 18th-ce ...

puppeteers A puppeteer is a person who manipulates an inanimate object called a puppet to create the illusion that the puppet is alive. The puppet is often shaped like a human, animal, or legendary creature. The puppeteer may be visible to or hidden from the ...

and

octopuses An octopus (: octopuses or octopodes) is a soft-bodied, eight-limbed Mollusca, mollusc of the order (biology), order Octopoda (, ). The order consists of some 300 species and is grouped within the class Cephalopoda with squids, cuttlefish, ...

. ''

Revolver A revolver is a repeating handgun with at least one barrel and a revolving cylinder containing multiple chambers (each holding a single cartridge) for firing. Because most revolver models hold six cartridges before needing to be reloaded, ...

'' noted that the puppeteer in the video bore "an uncanny resemblance to president

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...

Themes and composition

The song opens with the plucking of a

harp The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, standing or sitting, and in orchestras or ...

, before breaking into rhythm track of bass guitar, piano, and a simple drum beat. Keenan croons melodic vocals throughout the song, opening with the line "'Hello', he lied". At the midpoint and end of the song, Howerdel interjects with a

wall of sound The Wall of Sound (also called the Spector Sound) is a music production formula developed by American record producer Phil Spector at Gold Star Studios, in the 1960s, with assistance from engineer Larry Levine and the conglomerate of session m ...

, echo-laden guitar interlude.

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

described the songs sound as similar to the work of

Depeche Mode Depeche Mode are an English electronic music, electronic band formed in Basildon, Essex in 1980. Originally formed with the line-up of Dave Gahan, Martin Gore, Andy Fletcher (musician), Andy Fletcher and Vince Clarke, the band currently consists ...

and

Nine Inch Nails Nine Inch Nails, commonly abbreviated as NIN (stylized as NIИ), is an American industrial rock band formed in Cleveland, Ohio in 1988. Its members are the singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Trent Reznor and his frequent col ...

. Lyrically, the song alludes to the corruption and dishonesty of politicians, with lines such as "Core is black as pitch / Soul is out of tune / Advocate of none".

Personnel

– vocals *

– guitar, bass, keyboard, * Jeff Friedl – drums

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Contrarian 2018 songs A Perfect Circle songs Songs written by Billy Howerdel Songs written by Maynard James Keenan