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Jul 14, 2020 By Christopher Roberts Will Butler

Will Butler from Arcade Fire has announced a new solo album, Generations, and shared its first single, “Surrender,” via a self-directed video for the new song. Generations is due out September 25 via Merge. Butler uses the “Surrender” video to comment on the pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests, and also to call for police and prison reform, via subtitles. Watch the video below, followed by the album’s tracklist and cover art.

Butler released his debut solo album, Policy, in 2015, and put out a live album, Friday Night, in 2016, both via Merge. Butler produced Generations, recording it in his basement studio in Brooklyn. The album was mixed in two parts, in Montreal by longtime Arcade Fire engineer Mark Lawson and with Brooklyn-based producer Shiftee mixing the other half.

Butler had this to say about the new song in a press release: “‘Surrender’ is masquerading as a love song, but it’s more about friendship. About the confusion that comes as people change—didn’t you use to have a different ideal? Didn’t we have the same ideal at some point? Which of us changed? How did the world change? Relationships that we sometimes wish we could let go of, but that are stuck within us forever.

“It’s also about trying to break from the first-person view of the world. ‘What can I do? What difference can I make?’ It’s not about some singular effort—you have to give yourself over to another power. Give over to people who have gone before who’ve already built something—you don’t have to build something new! The world doesn’t always need a new idea, it doesn’t always need a new personality. What can you do with whatever power and money you’ve got? Surrender it over to something that’s already made. And then the song ends with an apology—I’m sorry I’ve been talking all night. Cause talking like that, man, not always useful.”

Also read our 2015 interview with Butler about Policy. And read our review of Friday Night.

Generations Tracklist:

01 “Outta Here”
02 “Bethlehem”
03 “Close My Eyes”
04 “I Don’t Know What I Don’t Know”
05 “Surrender”
06 “Hide It Away”
07 “Hard Times”
08 “Promised”
09 “Not Gonna Die”
10 “Fine”

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