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Today, London-based art-pop artist Oliver Marson has announced that on October 6th he will release his debut album, Why Did I Choose This? Alongside the news, Marson has also shared new single ‘The Richest Man In The World’.
Praised by Anthony Fantano (The Needle Drop) as a "Funky Boy", Oliver Marson's music exists in the same vein as art rock bands like Sparks and Pulp as well as more contemporary artists like Alex Cameron, Kirin J Callinan and Connan Mockasin. His signature croon, energetic shows and satirical lyrics commenting on the grisly truths of 2020s Britain have earned him a cult following in the UK.
Of his new single, Marson says:
“I wrote ‘Richest man in the world" during lockdown. The song was inspired by a message from my friend saying “Elon Musk is now the richest man in the world” at like 2 am and it just got me how stupid that was with everything that was going on, that this was some sort of measure of success. It really is a ludicrous world we live in and the video was aimed at putting this message across, encapsulating the absurdity of life.
The music video was made in collaboration with Eric J Liddle who worked on the Walt Disco videos. We bonded over our love for Derek Jarman and Peter Greenaway films, so naturally we wanted to do some lavish and decadent within a budget. Luckily one of my mate's parents runs a high end furniture company and his house is basically this crazy mid-century show room and I had done a few shifts for him moving furniture in and out of people's houses in London, so we basically had a day to shoot in this house for free. That's where the madness and fun began. Instead of it being around the actual Richest Man in the World, we just made it so it was centered around me being this sad, Alan Partridge type figure alone in this luxurious house. Eric was all about flipping things on its head. So the Trophy Wife was a much older actress that we found on Mandy. It was a lot of fun and I still laugh when I watch the video."
Marson began writing music at the age of 23 following a serious illness that had left him hospitalised. “One of the things that I held onto was that when I got out of hospital I was going to make a lot of music. I think I felt that if I died then what a waste my life would have been. If anything, for me this period of writing wasn’t about receiving accolades, it was about the journey and the process of becoming something or someone else” he explains.
Why Did I Choose This? is a collection of quirky and eclectic songs that take unexpected turns while managing to remain accessible and catchy. Marson’s talent for combining over-the-top, extravagant 80s sounds with his timeless crooning vocal creates a cognitive dissonance that will resonate with those who feel out of place in today's world.
The album's title is a reference to the chorus of the opening track 'Blue Dreams', a fantasy about Marson burning down the building of his mundane office job. This sets the tone for an album about making mistakes and poor life choices. “It’s about reaching a point in your life where you ask yourself ‘how did I get here?’ A dull career, a dodgy tattoo or a horrible hair transplant. The album tries to offer a release and an escape from life in mundanity,” says Marson.
Why Did I Choose This? is, as Marson puts it, ‘ludicrous music for ludicrous times’, covering themes of sex, death, love, life in late-capitalism and the end of the world. “I think the album takes you on a journey of escapism, but comes back to the fact we are sort of stuck in the reality we are in. It is both a dream and a nightmare,” explains Marson. “It is about the confusion in our lives, the joy, the terror of it all. It is tasteless, glamorous, sexy, confusing, vulgar, fun and, well, it’s pop music!”
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