A couple of days ago, my best friend and I had a rather long conversation surrounding the merits of the word “grit.” We were in agreement that it is a great word, not just because it is enjoyable to say (the way that ‘t’ just hits the tip of your tongue,) but also because it so well captures the beautiful messiness of life. As my friend phrased it, “Grit is when the shitstorm that you’re currently in doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing.” Boy, did I have a song for her.
“Let the Youth Go Mad” is everything we like about the word grit. It is messy, it is chaotic, but it is nonetheless important. And fun. What’s even better is how genuinely involved Broke is in the content of their music; this is not the stuff of typical complaining teenagers. From the description on their website, “Having no outlet other than their music and joined by their common opposition to mainstream Danish pop culture they decided to call their band Broke, a word reflecting the state of their hopeless and demoralised generation — let alone their own financial situation.” While the wording is bit self-aggrandizing to be sure, when in alignment with their music Broke reveals an understanding of the darker side of modernity that so many of their musical contemporaries either sugarcoats or misses altogether.
And they couldn’t have made a better decision for this track in their collaboration with MØ, whose albeit slightly more melodically inclined sound touches on all the same subjects and tones. MØ’s piercing, stop-in-your-track voice combined with Broke’s artful manipulation of beats is truly a stellar combination. The sound is an exact illustration of why our generation now uses “rage” as a verb for partying rather than an emotion. They get the fun in being angry. It will be interesting to see whether the Danish duo can sustain this edge; so far it definitely seems to be working out for them.
Broke’s mixtape is currently available on iTunes or vinyl, and if you want to be truly disturbed, check out the music video for “Let the Youth Go Mad.”