Dan mangan is the least cool thing 2021
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Being Somewhere, Dan Mangan’s sixth studio album, cuts incisively but never forgets its underlying thesis: It’s cool to care. Mangan arms the rebels in the crusade for tenderness. Out today via Arts & Crafts, the album is a combative plea for mercy from a manic world and its effects on the psyche. Whittling his sharpest pen to date, Being Somewhere is marked by Mangan’s singular wit and a respectful deference to the quagmire of existence.
The big picture cohesiveness of Natural Light harkens to a pre-streaming, album-focused sensibility. Songs bleed together through focused transitions and overlapping interludes. Mangan’s lyrics act as gondolier for the journey, reassuring the listener that it’s cool to care. Dan sings for his kids, for his wife, and for a society in existential crisis. Love songs about a planet on the brink of collapse. Campfire songs for a world on fire.
Dan’s voice and songs have the power to unite and silence a concert hall. A centrepiece of his lyrical prowess is Soapbox, a Guthrie-esq rip into “the lie” of modern society. Though he considers it his preachiest song, Mangan’s determined stanzas unfold like a close friend helping to untangle the complexities of our collective struggle. “I hate that, so often, the thing that is most infuriating about society is also the hardest to explain,” he says.
Dan’s voice and songs have the power to unite and silence a concert hall. A centrepiece of his lyrical prowess is “Soapbox”, a Guthrie-esq rip into “the lie” of modern society. Though he considers it his preachiest song, Mangan’s determined stanzas unfold like a close friend helping to untangle the complexities of our collective struggle. “I hate that, so often, the thing that is most infuriating about society is also the hardest to explain,” he says.
Mangan’s lyrics act as gondolier for the journey, reassuring the listener that it’s cool to care. Dan sings for his kids, for his wife, and for a society in existential crisis. Dan Mangan is a 2x JUNO Award-winning and 3x Polaris Music Prize-nominated musician and songwriter. He lives in Vancouver, British Columbia with his wife and two sons.
