“AMERICAN CARNAGE”
An Album Four Years in the Making.
It takes guts to “speak truth to power.”
It’s an entirely different thing to “sing truth to power.”
Jeff Mustard Wrote & Produced a Six Track Album during 2020
The album and the individual song lyrics are “100% Alternate Facts Free.” Historically and Factually Accurate, each song tells another tale of the insanity not just of the Trump administration but as importantly the existence of systemic racism that has percolated just under the surface of American society for centuries that has recently exploded to the surface of our country’s popular culture triggered by George Floyd’s murder and the deaths of other innocent black and brown people who are tragically and senselessly killed.
HISTORIC RACISM – A STORY BEST TOLD, POWERFULLY, IN MUSIC
Equal Rights, Social Justice, and Civil Rights for African Americans are at the height of our nation’s consciousness for the first time since the Civil Rights movement of the 60s. Police officers’ murder of black men and women in our society seems incessant, unwarranted, and sadly, more rampant than ever. The George Floyd Murder and other high-profile deaths that have followed since Mr. Floyd’s tragic killing on May 25, 2020, has created not just an inflection point in our society but a passion and long overdue vigor for Equal Rights for African Americans. This struggle that has plagued our nation for hundreds of years has found the sentiment of oppression and slavery in African Americans’ hearts, minds, spirit, and soul reflected for generations in music – in blues, soul, and Gospel. The sound of slavery can be heard in the “call and holler” of black men and women picking cotton on plantations. The sound of slavery can also be heard in the pleading pain reflected in Gospel Music.
The Six-Songs album contains the following tracks.
Insurrection……..……Promo and full track release date – AVAIL NOW!
Under the Thumb…..Promo and full track release date – AVAIL NOW!
Corona Blues………….Promo and full track release date – AVAIL NOW!
Survived 45…………….Promo and full track release date – AVAIL NOW!
Corona Criminal…….Promo and full track release date – AVAIL NOW!
Confederate Free……Promo and full track release date – AVAIL NOW!
Nation Born……………Promo and full track release date – TBA.
THE NATION LIVED PAINFULLY THROUGH THE CAPITOL RIOT. THE SENATE INVESTIGATES THE HORRIFIC CHAOS.
NOW COMES THE SONG THAT MEMORIALIZES THIS ENTIRE FIASCO.
“INSURRECTION” — A SINGLE OFF A SIX-TRACK ALBUM, “AMERICAN CARNAGE,” IS THE SONG THAT POWERFULLY CAPTURES THE MOST STRIKING ASSAULT ON AMERICAN DEMOCRACY IN MORE THAN 200 YEARS!!!
A powerful female-driven solo piece, inspired by artists like Alicia Keys and Katy Perry, Insurrection has a distinguished Contemporary R&B style with a unique twist of pop music. Written during 2020, the lyrics were revised with a new Pre-Verse Intro inspired by the January 6th “insurrection on the Capitol.” Comprised of four verses, one Chorus/Hook, and a Bridge, the 323 words song, delivered at 87 BPM lands at 4:19. Although in the neighborhood of a ballad, the song straddles a pop vibe. With catchy and surprising musical elements that marry perfectly to the lyrical social message, Insurrection is not just about the horrific events of January 6th, but more broadly, paints the [FACTUAL] picture of the 45TH Presidency and how the United States, the people of this country, and the world at large viewed the Trump Admin.
Tracks: Full Track | Promo Lyric 1 | Promo Lyric 2 | Promo Lyric 3 | Promo Lyric 4 | Promo Chorus
Tracks: Full Track | Promo Lyric 1 | Promo Lyric 2 | Promo Lyric 3 | Promo Lyric 4
Set to a R & B vibe, at 120 BM, and tracking at 3:42, UnderThe Thumb incorporates elements of the past, embracing retro and drum machine hiphop beat, with a sub-style, while also exhibiting an orchestral feeling and progressiveness. In the country’s cultural climate, there has never been a better, or more compelling time to reveal the horrible truths of Americas past – namely – slavery. Under the Thumb is just such a song. The 250 words that comprise this song are a musical and lyrical accounting of the nation’s founding, AND the systemic racism that followed for centuries; as the opening verse reveals:
“Finally set free after centuries, this legacy, nothing but slavery,Yes, our forefathers founded this nation, but their tactics, an abomination, The privileged professed that it was all for the best, an offer you’d tender, but never give as time passed.”
While the song delivers unvarnished historical truths, it also addresses the reckoning inspired by the George Floyd Murder, reflected in the following lyrics:
“The wrong that was done, to a race under the thumb, to the truth, now succumb, Modern Society, now numb.”
Corona Blues is a revival of classic Delta Blues tradition, incorporating a male/female duo with a “holler and call” repartee between a “husband and wife.” With a classic acoustic country blues vibe, combined with slide guitar and a touch of a traditional Southern feeling, at 72 BPM, the 293 words deliver a powerful message capturing the “tensions and troubles” in the 3:24 track of people living through Covid Times and the intensity and stress of “Covid Fatigue” experienced by couples living through extended periods of “lockdown.”
The Bridge, Sung as a Male/Female Married Couple reads:
All you do is complain,
Old man, you a drain,
Woman, you nuthin’ but a pain.
Need me some space, gotta get outta this place.
Survived 45
Album Cover Art Coming Soon
Click Link – Hear the Full Track Now
Survived 45
Writer/Producer Jeff mustard, at once stirred and unnerved by the events of January 6th, wrote “Survived 45” as a lyrical summary of the Donald Trump Presidency. A dramatic song, the 263 words deliver a somber message at 70 BPM commencing with: “It was 2015 Trump arrived on the scene making announcements, pronouncements, saying the craziest things, hoping he would be king.” That’s just the first half of Verse 1.
The song addresses a number of the dark moments of the 45th presidency culminating, of course, with the lies and bumbling of the Covid Crisis. The Chorus: “Make America Great is what he said, Now look at all the people who are covid dead.” Suitably, these painful words are amplified by the haunting orchestral strings contrasted against catchy piano tones, drawing the listener in by the song’s message combined with an infinitely memorable melody. The music was specifically created to accompany the critical and painful vocal parts. The song/music begins soft, drawing in the listener, and gradually builds to a crescendo revealing the full extent of the horrors people endured during this Administration as the song drives toward its climax with a clear-eyed and unvarnished view of the handling of the Pandemic.
Corona Criminal
Album Cover Art Coming Soon
Click Link – Hear the Full Track Now
Confederate Free
Confederate Free is a song, lyrics, and music, written and composed specifically to tap into the deepest vein of pain so powerfully expressed in guttural appeals to the “Lord” that can be heard in churches, particularly throughout the South – the undisputed territory of slavery. The poetic irony and justice of a Gospel performance that addresses the hypocrisy of this country’s founding, the original falsehood of equality, and the rise of consciousness in the face of historic and systemic racism presently in the country is the premise upon which Confederate Free was written. Delivered at a steady, but measured 80 BPM, the 400 words of the song delivers a message of 400 years of slavery in a 5:31 minute soundtrack.
Nation Born
Album Cover Art Coming Soon
Nation Born
This is a song supportive of the Anti Confederate Statue Social Activist Movement unfolding across the United States. It’s a “history” song of the “hypocrisy” of the “men that founded this nation, their tactics an abomination, a constant humiliation, of human degradation.” Chorus: Despite all the flaws that gnawed at the nation, you ignored the truth of this country’s creation”. The song is in pre-production and will be out shortly.