If you're going to rip a novel title in entirety and commit a level of intellectual property rights infringement, you couldn't pick a more ironic source than a novel by the
greatest champion of property rights.
In an act of unconscionable unoriginality,
We the Living (the band) lifted their name directly from Ayn Rand's novel. The band claims to be influenced by Ayn Rand; apparently borderline plagiarism is their homage? Unfortunate. Unless the reference is to the novel's setting in post-revolutionary Russia and, like the Red Army, the band thieves and appropriates without consent. In which case, spot on guys!
Seriously, despite the blatant bite, the band name
could legitimately have been a well-meaning (but poorly expressed) act of deference. The real question now: is there any pay-off from the band in the form of Objectivism-inspired material?
 |
| These guys? |
You'll find lyrics identical or strikingly similar in content to this throughout the lot of the band's works:
"
This is the sound of you falling in love,
Can you feel it?"
Basically, the kind of vague sentimentality that would make even the most inane pop artists roll their eyes.
Then there's the self-pitying whimpering idiomatic to the indie genre where the band seems to have found their fan-base:
"
I wanna tell you about me,
Let you know who I am.
But you don't care."
A song about falling in love with a person who doesn't care about you at all? That might actually be the opposite of Objectivist lyrics.
And musically, what're these guys like? No need to describe them. You've already heard this band. Even if you've never listened to a single We the Living song, you've heard every song they've written a hundred times over. So if you're curious about this band just on the name alone, save yourself the time and the disappointment: We the Living (the band) is an uninspired mess of recycled ideas.
If you just can't help yourself, here's a sample:
As luck would have it, the band broke up in 2010 citing a lack of passion to produce music. Burning out after only 3 years of producing generic songs with repetitive concepts, one has to wonder: did they have any passion to begin with?
The bad news is that these guys don't create Objectivism-inspired music in any capacity. The good news is that at least they won't be associating wretched nonsense with one of the finest works of literature any longer.
