“Wild World” by Bastille is an album that reflects on the ordinary happenings and problems we face in the everyday world. “Wild World” has a unique sound that can’t be found anywhere else.
Bastille is known for the 2013 hit “Pompeii.” “Wild World” came out 2016, but it is such a beautiful, monumental album that it still deserves recognition.
The use of audio clips tells the listener something deeper than what the lyrics say. It’s an aid to the meaning lead singer Dan Smith is trying to convey. Though the lyrics on the page already speak volumes, the audio clips provide deeper insight. This album has a lot of social commentary and brings attention to how wild our world actually is.
The second track of album is a song called “The Currents,” and it’s about a person in power being a bigot. The lyrics start out by saying: “Roll up another cigarette, using the minute that it takes, to think about the power of your words, we’re living in the currents you create, we’re sinking in the pool of your mistakes.”
The audio clip in this song also hits hard with the philosophy of this song: “When anybody preaches disunity, tries to pit one of us against the other, you know that person seeks to rob us of our freedom and destroy our very lives.”
The 15th song on the album, “Way Beyond,” is an interesting take on the world today. It tells of how everyone is desensitized, more focused on social media and doing things for views. It proposes the hypothetical question, “If we don’t post it, does it happen?” The song compares the news to movies and makes the comment “Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.” The song ends with an audio clip bringing light to the way some news channels handle crises “Television viewers have the choice of watching the tragedy play out from the safety and comfort of their living rooms, but victims have to respond to the pressure of the media while still in shock.”
And a song that’s relatable: “Campus.” This song is about college. It’s about the most frustrating things about it, the loneliness, and the search for originality. It makes the point of how college is comprised of the knowledge of other people’s research and how we use that knowledge to bring ourselves up in the world. The chorus is probably the catchiest portrayal of how it feels to go through a semester: “I watch it all fall apart, heaven help me.”
Other notable songs in the album are “Blame” with its powerful electric guitar and “Glory” with its uplifting melody and sentimental lyrics. This album is so good and diverse it can be played all the way through without feeling like the last song is a repeat of the song before.