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Lyrical Dissonance/Music/Electronic

< Lyrical Dissonance‎ | Music


Electronic / Techno

  • The song "Lamette" ("Razor Blades") by Italian singer Donatella Rettore, is a cheery, danceable song about... cutting your wrists with razor blades, complete with 'plop plop' sounds, intended to be the blood coming out of the wounds.
  • Sunscreem - "Looking At You". Bright, major-keyed, Europop tune about being haunted to death by the images of an ex-lover:
 

There is a hollow in the bed / Where you last slept/ I took a picture/Are you laughing at me/I scratched your records, dear/And threw them in the nearest river/Are you laughing at me?
Still I try/To get by/But I know I'll di-i-ie/Looking at you

 
    • Sunscreem did quite this a lot, in particular their US hit "Love U More" (cover versions of which normally omit the darker verses, missing the point and turning it into a Single-Stanza Song).
  • "Slut Trash" by Decoded Feedback is an upbeat techno-Industrial track about the hopelessness of life as a prostitute.
  • Apoptygma Berzerk's "Eclipse" is unusually bright for an EBM tune, with uplifting trance-style riffs, but it still retains the dark lyrics, presumably about The End of the World as We Know It or the Rapture.
  • Despite its title and upbeatness, "Progress" by Dempa (of https://web.archive.org/web/20131024111956/http://www.spacesynth.de/) is about us consuming the planet to death. "Violence, people dying. Hunger, children crying. Science, making haste. Pollution, toxic waste."
  • "The Human Germ" by Snog. Also about us selfishly destroying the planet:
  • The bulk of the humor in Passenger Of Shit's work relies on the ridiculous exaggeration of this trope—often, cheesy, saccharine or melodramatic melodies score puerile, obscene lyrics of sexual and scatological nature.
  • Moby's "South Side" is a celebratory-sounding song, which makes a certain amount of sense because it's about driving around the city with friends, but certain lines more than hint they're in a very dangerous part of town ("weapons in hand as we go for a ride", "I pick up my friends and we hope we don't die").
  • Emilie Autumn's song "Miss Lucy Had Some Leeches", which is about Victorian Lunatic Asylums... sung in the style of Miss Suzy Had A Steamboat.
    • She also has "Marry Me", who to a sweet waltzy tune, narrates in first person the story of a woman who copes with being trapped in an arranged marriage with an rich older man by indulging in alcohol and having a lover (while denying her husband his "marital rights"). All of this, while waiting for her own death. But hey, at least she has quite the pretty clothes!
    • Emilie Autumn does this fairly often. "The Art of Suicide" comes to mind, a cheery tune about, well, suicide. "Thank God I'm Pretty" also qualifies, a happy-sounding song about being judged solely on looks.
      • "The Art of Suicide" is even worse than that—it's not about suicide, it's about the disturbing implications of romanticising suicide. "Ankles displayed, melodramatically laid...."
  • Wesley Willis primarily sings over pre-programmed tracks from his synthesizer, which usually means really happy-sounding tinny keyboard lines backing up songs called things like "Kill That Jerk" and "Fuck With Me And Find Out".
    • Let's not forget perennial classics such as "Birdman Kicked My Ass" and "I Whooped Batman's Ass".
  • Band Aid's world-hunger-awareness-raising anthem "Do They Know It's Christmas?" may or may not qualify... but The Echoing Green's bouncy techno cover version certainly does.
    • The original version qualifies when you consider that what was intended as a way to raise awareness of world hunger is now played annually as a festive, celebratory song.
  • Assemblage 23 does this a lot. Most of their songs have a really upbeat tune that makes you want to dance, and then you listen to the lyrics:
 

I hate my life I want to die
I was just pretending all this time
A mask I wear so I don't bare
My soul to the cold, harsh world out there
Try to prevail but only fail
Each time on a grander and grander scale
My life is worthless and so am I
I hate my life I want to die

 
    • Even if you get past the lyrics about growing old and senile, society being lost in an eternal present, losing yourself and finding something unsettling in its place, and general psychic malaise, you still have to contend with Tom Shear's Depeche Mode-inspired near-monotone. Naturally, it's at its deadest during the following lyrics:
 

Emotions I once kept concealed
Now flow freely like a river
Life's great mysteries revealed
Love's great promises delivered

 
    • Go on, guess how the chorus goes.
    • "Old" is a power ballad about losing ones memories with age, but sung in a rather light-hearted tone.
  • Goldfrapp's "A&E" is a lovely pop song that is also a break-up song. That would be fine, but for one minor thing: It stands for "Accident and Emergency", which the lyrics also reference. And there are too many references to medicine and hospitals for comfort.
  • Psapp's "The Monster Song" has a really happy melody, but it's actually a song about a person who thinks that there is a monster who wants to eat him.It seems that the music video really catch the essence, using funny cartoons and lots of... blood and graphic violence.
  • "Cinderella's Revenge" is happy and upbeat tune with Cinderella singing about seeing her sisters hang.
  • "Paper Planes" by MIA seems pretty cheery going by the tune, but the lyrics seem to be sung from the point of view of a violent, drug-addled gangster.
    • Ironically, the position is supported by the artist. It appears to be a typical "hustle" song about the artist's illegal operations and monetary gains. It's really about inner-city taxi drivers who have to drive annoying people around in violent areas, but all they really care about is the fare.
    • And the tune is sampled from "Straight To Hell" by The Clash, who, as noted way, way, further up on the page, use this trope a lot (the aformentioned song is another example).
  • The Bronleewe & Bose trance remix of "Cut" by Plumb, which as the name implies, is about cutting oneself (the non-fatal 'self-injury' variety, not the 'suicide' variety).
  • Basshunter does this often, especially on his Darker and Edgier latest album.
  • Renard Queenston does this a lot.
    • For instance, Our Special Place is an incredibly sweet-sounding song sung by a cute electronic voice. The lyrics, however...
 

As I seep into the blackest void of all
I'm nothing, I am no one
As I sleep, I hear them creeping down the hall
They're nothing, they are all gone

 
  • "Aisha" by Death In Vegas; Ax Crazy Iggy Pop seems to be trying his hardest not to kill Aisha.
  • Groove Coverage frequently did this, especially in "Little June", which is an energetic hands-up/hard dance song about a girl named June who was murdered by "a man that she barely knew". By the way, it's very similar to Mike Oldfield's "Moonlight Shadow", which they also officially covered. Another notable one is "The End", whose lyrics are exactly about what its title suggests.
  • わたしのココ is known for an odd hybrid of calm, cheery or uptempo melodies alongside harrowing digital noise—and themes of shame, self-hatred, and extreme depression, all sung by a cutesy-voiced vocaloid. If you didn't speak Japanese, you wouldn't suspect a thing. This is bolstered in their calmer numbers, such as "Please, God," a sweet piano-and-organ waltz in which the speaker questions the point of a life witnessing, but never experiencing love and prays for God to "shut [her] off completely."
  • The Crystalline Effect. "Life Has Failed You", "How I Get Out", "As Long As You Need", and that's just the start...
  • A lot of stuff by steampunk "synthpunk" group Unextraordinary Gentlemen. Much of their music is upbeat or at least dance-worthy, but the subjects of their songs include a traveling brothel, a group of bar patrons drowning their sorrows, an extraterrestrial attack, an undead policeman-turned-assassin, a suicidal airship pilot, and a disease-plagued gutter town. Yeah.
  • Several of Hadouken!'s songs are probably the catchiest Heroic BSODs you'll ever hear.
  • Covenant's "Like Tears in Rain" rubs this trope in, setting its utterly dismal lyrics to a swingy, catchy "Personal Jesus"-style instrumentation:
 

Every street I ever walked, every home I ever had is lost
Every flower I ever held, every spring I ever had has dried
Every man I ever knew, every woman I ever had is gone
Everything I ever touched, everything I ever had has died

 


Electropop

  • Ken Laszlo's hit "Don't Cry" (not to be confused with a similarly named track by Guns N' Roses) is an upbeat Italo Disco track that tells about a guy consoling a girl who got dumped by her boyfriend.
  • "Tik Tok" by Ke$ha. At first it seems to be about dancing, but it's actually about waking up hung over, going out, and getting drunk again.
    • Likewise, Katy Perry's "Last Friday Night" is an upbeat sappy song about similar things. "This Friday night, we do it all again..."
  • Passion Pit's "Little Secrets" is made of this trope. You've got the ultra-happy glitch-pop backing, the soaring falsetto vocal, and a freaking children's choir on one side; on the other, you've got the horrifically depressing, disparaging lyrics.
  • "When I Close My Eyes" by Galaxy Hunter is a gloomy Break Up Song set to a high-energy italo dance beat.


Eurobeat

  • Eurobeat Lovers' "Yozora no Muko" (Over The Time) is a fast, bouncy, Engrish Eurobeat cover of a sad J-Pop ballad, originally by Suga Shikao. By the same label (and singer) who did the Eurobeat cover of TM Revolution's "Hot Limit".
  • Dead Or Alive (yes, the "You Spin Me Round" guys) had a more minor hit back in 1986 called "Brand New Lover". It's a joyful, dancey, Hi-NRG tune... about the singer telling his girl/boy/whatever (with Pete Burns it's hard to tell) that he's bored with her/him and wants to leave.
  • The Eurobeat remix of Newton - "Sky High" (itself a cover of Jigsaw).
  • Eurobeat artist Daniel's "Frontal Impact" is about a Near-Death Experience after a car accident.
  • Oda's "Sex Crime" is a catchy eurobeat number thats about wanting to rape someone. Near the end there's lyrics like you make me want to kill you and the song gets a lot creepier.
  • Marko Polo's "Stop Your Self Control" also involves Victim Falls For Rapist fantasies.

Eurodance

 

Misery deep in the royal heart
 crying at night, I wanna be a part
Prince, oh, prince, are you really sincere
that you one day are gonna disappear

 
  • Italian but English-singing europop/dance singer Alexia has a song with very cheerful and dancey tunes, but quite depressing lyrics about a bad breakup. The song starts with the lyrics "I've never been so sad in all my life"; in the videoclip, she sings this line while smiling and dancing about. Here, see for yourself.
    • And "Me and You", which has a sad intro, then breaks into her standard upbeat style, but the lyrics don't get much better:
 

One day you came and made me blue
Nobody close to me but you
You have the power in your eyes
Today you left me far behind
How could I live without you tell me now
Forever waiting for your love

 
  • "A Shattered Heart" by Young Fire. An otherwise upbeat Eurodance tune about a heartbroken girl: "Like an angel afraid to fly, flying only in her dreams... trying to find her way back home... on the road she walks alone"(don't remember the rest).
  • Double You's "Dancing with an Angel" is a fast-paced Euro-rave tune, and the chorus is Exactly What It Says on the Tin, but the verse lyrics are that of a downbeat "I want you back" type song. Similarly, "Run to Me".
  • One French dance track titled "Angelina" was a big hit in discos (especially in the Philippines), but the lyrics tell of a girl who's dying of an incurable disease.
  • "Stars" by Alex Megane has an Intercourse with You premise disguised by movie-related double entendres.
  • Another jarring dance cover is Kandystand's version of Heart's "Alone".

Synthpop

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