The impact of the past year's events will undoubtedly leave its mark for many years to come, with the effects touching every part of people's lives. For many, it's practically forced countless hours of introspection, leading people to reevaluate their lives, and for Icelandic artist Máni Orrason, it urged the conclusion that his heart wasn't really in the project he was soon to be releasing. The decision was to abandon the commercialised sounds within and take it in an entirely new direction, and thus a new project, and "Change The World," his first release of the year, started taking shape.
“I kind of knew the day that we wrote it that I wanted this to be the first single as it felt like the missing piece to the puzzle,” shares Orrason in an email statement, speaking to the track’s impact on this forthcoming project. “I feel like after the last year of existing online in a bizarre way and not having released anything that this felt like the loudest, most affirming thing I could make”.
Consistently toying with his own kaleidoscopic aesthetic, his standalone 2020 single "I Go Up" hinted at the imminent shift away from his nostalgic pop provocation on 2019's BABY ANGEL, towards the more guitar-driven sounds of his earlier work. Whilst "I Go Up" captured pop punk's raucous adolescent tone, "Change The World" scales the energy back whilst maintaining the boldness. Shades of iconic anthems from across the decades come through in both instrumentation and lyricism, as Orrason rattles off one memorable line after another, with empowering platitudes on identity and hope that are built to last.
"'Change The World' is sincere to a point but it’s more about my world. I’ve got a lot more cynical about the state of the world and how nothing really changes and the lack of power that we really have,” concludes Orrason. “I can’t change the world, but I can change how I exist within it.”
"Change The World" is available now via Groenland Records.
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