Oliver Marson

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,”.

Songs like ‘Andalusian Girl’, a parody of a lads holiday gone wrong, and ‘The Richest Man in the World’, a satirical ode to the world’s billionaires, were inspired by Marson’s favourite author, Thomas Pynchon. “Pynchon is famous for his depictions of apocalypse and decadence. He has this theory that times are at their most decadent right before there is some form of societal collapse, which I think is where we are at now”.

The album ends with ‘Flowers of Evil', a song about late capitalism and going through the motions. “It asks the question, can we really change? Conversely, mistakes are what make us human and drive progress, so the album can also be seen as a celebration of the imperfections of human nature,” says Marson. “In short, life is complicated, challenging and often confusing but there is poetry in that!”

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!”