Anyone following the lead up to the release of Rich Aucoin’s new album, United States, may have noticed a certain pervasive tone in the singles – amplifying whatever lesson that 2020 is already trying to teach us. Aucoin, known and respected as an artist capable of bringing the party, pumps the brakes with “Walls”, reuniting all of us with the best music videos of all times, Rick “The Franchise” Campanelli, and a message that we’re better together than apart.
The last few videos from both Aucoin’s United States (2020) and Release (2019) have largely ranged between esoteric and dour, and rightfully so. Check the room. Turn on the news. Visit the comments section. As with all great art, Aucoin has turned the mirror back on society. But even the dystopian commentary of Black Mirror knew they had to draw the line somewhere.
Rather than diving deeper into that pit, Aucoin’s latest single, “Walls” acknowledges we’ve got some issues but the situation isn’t entirely without hope – especially if we can all still be unified by the legendary Rick Campanelli.
“After some explicit videos cut from news footage,” notes Aucoin. “I thought it would be good to have a video that was lighter and so we came up with this video as a kind of sequel to my ‘It’ video but instead of classic films, it’s a cutting together of 22 of the most iconic music videos of all time from Beyonce to Weird Al! We had an amazing team and crew putting this all together and it’s really fun to see the artists in the videos break down the walls in between their sets and join each others’ videos and hop from screen to screen on a classic YouTube landscape.
“This song is a call to breaking down the walls which keep us from connecting with one another but physically and metaphorically,” says Rich. “Building off the calls for collective protest change in ‘How It Breaks’, this song is appealing to not make the divisions amongst our groups be so hard cut off for membership and to keep lines of communication and compassion open to enable more and more to join the team. It’s the first time on the album the women and men’s voices are divided up for some call and response with its chorus ‘these walls’ ‘separate our humanity’. The bridge brings light to the fear that’s keeping this opening up from easily occurring ‘terrified, nation-wide, far and wide, great divide’ and the calls to action: ‘we’ll tear it down from the other side, we’ll knock it down from the other side, we’ll bring it down from the other side, we’re reaching out to the other side.'”
“Walls” is the fourth single to be released from Rich Aucoin’s newest album, United States. Conveniently, the album has also been released today, which you can listen to, in its entirety, here.