Call It What You Want

Album: Torches (2011)
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Songfacts®:

  • Los Angeles indie rock band Foster The People's third single finds frontman Mark Foster singing about how in today's society, people are too ready to conform instead of being themselves and doing their own thing. It's probable the song was influenced by the band's irritation with the music industry's attempts to pigeonhole them. The single was released October 31, 2011.
  • Mark Foster wrote the song with British producer, Paul Epworth, who has also worked with the likes of Adele ("Rolling In The Deep") and Florence and the Machine ("Shake It Out").
  • The song's music video was directed by Venice Beach native Ace Norton whose resume includes clips for Does it Offend You, Yeah?, Death Cab for Cutie and Bloc Party. The imagery includes Mark Foster shooting six female fans, whose shirts spell out "Foster", with his hand in the shape of a gun. Norton explained its concept to Interview Magazine: "The video is about the void you create in our life when you have everything you want. How with success, people tend to fill that void with meaningless things. It's about the creative extremes we go to when time passes by us at light speed; how boredom gets our minds racing into beautiful tangents. It's about the surrealism of the mundane."

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