Postmodern love, Postmodern love...
I was hurt too much (You weren't hurt enough)
I was broken, that's my flaw! (Nobody broke you at all!)
(This is your warped story, these are your warped lies, not the story of the ones that you left behind, the ones with brain trauma!)
(The ones that you left behind, and they wanna—no!—they gotta hold on to that brain trauma!)
(The shape of their bruise is all that they have left of you!)
Postmodern Love SongsI was broken, that's my flaw! (Nobody broke you at all!)
(This is your warped story, these are your warped lies, not the story of the ones that you left behind, the ones with brain trauma!)
(The ones that you left behind, and they wanna—no!—they gotta hold on to that brain trauma!)
(The shape of their bruise is all that they have left of you!)
—"Brain Trauma, Pt. 2 (Postmodern Love)"
The album is divided into four distinct "parts":
- Part 1: Anxious Attachment is about people who idealize the concept of a soulmate and have extreme bouts of "oneitis".
- Part 2: Avoidant Attachment is about the avoidance of commitment in a relationship out of a fear of abandonment.
- Part 3: Fearful Attachment is about unhealthy dependency on one's romantic partner, or finding substitutes for that dependency in the form of a Companion Cube.
- Part 4: Secure Attachment is about actual healthy relationships...or is it?
A full-length music video of the entire album
was released on March 18th, 2025.
Tracklist
Part 1: Anxious Attachment- "Love Is Ali(v)e" (2:50)
- "It's Fine! (Denial)" (1:49)
- "Oneitis (Anger)" (1:36)
- "More Subscribers (Bargaining)" (2:40)
- "Wanting to Die (Depression)" (2:36)
- "Brain Trauma, Pt. 1 (Acceptance?)" (1:54)
- "I Love the Way You Love the Way" (2:10)
- "Love Me Less" (2:25)
- "Our Entire Relationship Was a Social Experiment" (0:43)
- "Deadfishing" (1:51)
- "Brain Trauma, Pt. 2 (Postmodern Love)" (1:41)
- "It's Unseasonably Warm Again" (1:31)
- "Girl of My Dreams" (1:26)
- "There's Something Wrong with My AI Girlfriend's Face" (1:36)
- "Covalent Bonds" (2:16)
- "If I Could Hear About Your Day" (1:43)
- "I Love You Unironically" (2:19)
Tropes
- Album Closure: "I Love You Unironically", the last song, is an uplifting tune which includes references to every other song on the album (and in the music video, clips of every other song's footage during the relevant verse) and is meant to represent the singer finally finding a healthy relationship where he doesn't need to approach it from a postmodern perspective. Until the very end.Normally here is where I'd make a joke about how love's a lie and we die alone
But you're the girl of my dreams, no need to die, you're my covalent bond but I'm not atomized
With you I'm fine, fine, fine, fine, fine, fine, I'm ok, not bargaining, my heart is warming inside
I embrace my oneitis, love me more, not less
It's not a social experiment or a dead fish
And you love the way I love the way you love the way I'm throwing my AI girlfriend away
Your love has healed my brain trauma, every day I hear about your day, yeah, I wanna - Album Title Drop: The concept of "Postmodern Love" is sung about in "Brain Trauma, Pt. 2", which also has it as a subtitle.
- Aroused by Their Voice: Deconstructed in "If I Could Hear About Your Day", where Greg just enjoys listening to his girlfriend talk about anything, no matter how mundane, because it means she's comfortable sharing these things with him as his partner, and that brings him more security and peace of mind than anything else could.
- Bait-and-Switch Sentiment: In "I Love The Way You Love The Way", there's a line where Greg seems like he's about to give a list of everything he loves about his girlfriend before he just says "....anyway!" and moves on. In the music video, he hands her a piece of paper that she turns around to reveal is just a drawing of himself.
- Commitment Issues: All of "Avoidant Attachment" is about this, but "Deadfishing" especially is about a guy who really wants to break up with his girlfriend but doesn't have the balls to have hard conversations, so he hopes that by avoiding any and all deeper commitment (or "flopping like a dead fish") whenever he's confronted about it will eventually get her to leave on her own accord. It works, but it's clear he was just using this whole song and dance as a coping mechanism, and the girl's verse points that out even though it falls on deaf ears.
- Companion Cube: "There's Something Wrong with My AI Girlfriend's Face" is about a guy slowly realizing that his AI girlfriend isn't a real human and is consuming his entire life before getting sucked back in by a new firmware update.
- Five Stages of Grief: The five songs after "Love is Ali(v)e" deal with the fallout of rejection and the nasty places it takes the human mind by outlining them as denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance, with the twist that the "acceptance" is to be distant and aloof with one's romantic partners to avoid getting hurt when they inevitably leave.
- Foreshadowing: In "Love Me Less", when describing his fantasy, Greg mentions wishing he could love a girl "truly, unconditionally, unironically". This precedes the last song on the album, "I Love You Unironically". In the music video, it's further tied together by the same background graphic of the word "unironically" appearing in both sections.
- He-Man Woman Hater: "Oneitis (Anger)" is about Greg falling down an internet rabbit hole and the "incel pipeline" after being rejected, very rapidly becoming someone who hates women and justifies it with weird pseudoscience just because he was rejected once.According to the forums I've been reading online, none of the fault here appears to be mine! It's Hers! (x7) It's—ANGER!
- Ignored Epiphany: At the end of "Deadfishing", Greg's current girlfriend breaks up with him, laying out for him why he's afraid of real commitment and confrontation and that he'll stay that way forever unless he actively decides to change. Greg sounds remorseful for half a second like it got through to him, but then he goes right back to the immediate gratification of having successfully gotten his girlfriend to break up with him by being vague and distant.She's gone!...Heh! Works every time! (GIVE 'EM NOTHING!)
- Insecure Love Interest: Played with interestingly in "Love Me Less". In this song, Greg has a girlfriend who truly loves him, but he finds this exhausting and suffocating and wishes they could just have casual sex instead. However, by the end of the song he starts fantasizing about a girl he could really be in love with, only for her to turn the tables and pull the exact same line of thought on him, crushing him.
- Ironic Echo: In "Covalent Bonds", Greg sings sarcastically about how "You don't need friends, just one girl, just one girl to make your world", lifting an identical line from "Love Is Ali(v)e" at the start of the album where Greg is singing about how all his problems would fix themselves if his crush loved him back.
- It's All About Me: "I Love the Way You Love the Way" is about a Narcissist who's clearly in love with himself and is more enraptured by the adoration his girlfriend gives him than actually being in love with her as a person, to the point that he loves the way he can see his own reflection in her eyes. In the music video, this is further represented by his "girlfriend" just being a puppet that looks like himself.
- "Just Joking" Justification: "Our Entire Relationship Was a Social Experiment" is a play on this concept, with Greg singing about how he wasn't actually invested in his two-year-long relationship at all and it was all a gigantic prank, with no regards to how the other party feels.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: In "Girl of My Dreams", when the girl of Greg's dreams tells him that he should write a song about her, he quickly responds "Done!" because that's exactly what you're listening to.
- A Lesson Learned Too Well:
- In "Oneitis", Liam's advice to Greg that he should stop wallowing in despair and anger and take this as an opportunity to improve himself, Greg interprets this to mean that if he becomes really famous and successful his crush will love him back, moving on to the third stage of grief (Bargaining) in the process.
Greg: Weeeheeheee! I'm gonna get a million subscribers on YouTube.com!- In "Brain Trauma, Pt. 1 (Acceptance?)", instead of coming to the conclusion that he tried with one girl, failed and should just move on because there are so many other chances to find love, he instead arrives at the resolution that he's been hurt so badly that he'll make sure to never get too attached to any one girl again lest they break his heart as well.
You taught me a lesson, wisdom and such, you gave me a lesion with your poison touch
You taught me a lesson, one I'm still thinking of, thanks to you, I'll never love too much - Living Emotional Crutch: All of "Fearful Attachment" deals with people who lean too heavily on their lovers for emotional support (e.g. "It's Unseasonably Warm Again" is about a guy who used his ex-girlfriend to distract himself from his anxiety about global warming and the geopolitical situation), which is bridged into "Secure Attachment" by "Covalent Bonds", a rant-as-song from the perspective of a friend who feels scorned by his friend becoming extremely distant and closed off after getting a girlfriend but then having no support network when she dumps him and crawling back to his old buddy like nothing changed. The song even has a secondary overlapping chorus at the end that says "Nobody should be anybody's everything".
- Love Hurts: "Brain Trauma, Pt. 1 (Acceptance)?" has the singer resolve that despite being rejected, he'll cope with the lingering pain of being denied his affections...by making sure to never open himself up so much or commit so hard that he'll be hurt by love again.They say love hits you hard, love injured my brain, I'm concussed, now I must love my brain trauma
It's all I have left from you, and I gotta—no, wanna hold on to that brain trauma
Now that you're gone, the shape of this bruise is all I have left to remind me of you - Loving a Shadow: As part of how "Love is Ali(v)e" deals with the overidealization of love and romance, the singer projects a bunch of qualities onto the target of his affections that she may not have just because he's idealizing her from afar.I'm fillin' in the blanks of what you're probably like! (What you're like!)
And I like what you're probably like! (What you're like!)
I probably love what you're probably like! (What you're like!) - Master of the Mixed Message: In "Deadfishing", the singer really wants to break up with his girlfriend but never learned how to have hard conversations, so he attempts to get her to leave him of her own accord by giving her a lot of weird signals and then not elaborating on them or talking them out.You haven't complemented me on my appearance lately! (No I haven't! *Bleh!* No I haven't! *Bleh!*)
When you said you loved me, you couldn't look at me! (No I couldn't! *Bleh!* No I couldn't! *Bleh!*) - Metaphorgotten: In "Love Me Less", an analogy Greg makes quickly spirals out of control:We could be like...two ships, passing in the night.
Instead, in my head, it's a lot more like...you're a PIRATE SHIP, FUCKING BOARDING ME, RAIDING MY SUPPLIES, NOW WE'RE BOTH AT SEA, ALL ALONE AND ADRIFT AND YOU'VE RUINED BOTH OUR LIVES AND I WANT TO ESCAPE AND I DON'T KNOW WHY YOU CAN'T— - Minimalistic Cover Art: The album cover is just a heart symbol flanked by quotation marks. In other words, "Love" is in quotations, which makes perfect sense given that the album is about deconstructing love through a postmodernist lens.
- Not Good with Rejection: "Anxious Attachment" concerns a guy who asks out his idealized crush and then is sent into a severe downward spiral when she says no, coming out the other end far more cynical and jaded in "Brain Trauma Pt. 1 (Acceptance)".
- Repeat It Until You Believe It: "It's Fine! (Denial)" is a song all about Greg trying to rationalize how getting rejected by his crush is a good thing and that he hasn't been negatively affected by it at all simply by repeatedly reassuring himself that everything is fine.She doesn't love me back, and that is that!
She doesn't love me back, but at least I asked!
I faced my fears, I patched the cracks! I'm definitely not gonna get hung up on it for days, weeks, months and years and years and years and years and years and years and years— [etc] - Ridiculously High Relationship Standards: "Girl of My Dreams" deals with the idea of a guy spurning any potential real relationships he might have because he's developed such an idealized version of his perfect woman in his head, represented as an evil-sounding deep voice that gaslights and manipulates him into avoiding approaching any other women by convincing him they're not good enough.I'm the one that's best for you, and she's not your precise ideal,
so step into my loving arms, and out of the flesh, warm skin too real! - Shout-Out: In "Love is Ali(v)e", Greg mentions that he's deliberately avoiding thinking about "99 problems [he's] sweeping under the rug" in his belief that asking out his crush to solve all his problems, a reference to the Jay-Z song "99 problems" (the intentional Irony in the allusion being that in that song, Jay-Z is glad that out of all the problems he has, a woman isn't one of them).
- Somebody Doesn't Love Raymond: "More Subscribers (Bargaining)" is about the third stage of grief, Bargaining, which takes the form of Greg thinking that maybe he can win back the girl of his dreams if he becomes super rich and famous by becoming a successful YouTuber. Over the course of the song he gains over 500,000 subscribers, but in the end realizes it won't work at getting her to like him.Maybe if I pop up on your feed, you'll realize I'm all you need, this is the third stage of grief! (More subscribers!)
Maybe if I pop up on your feed, you'll realize I'm all you need, THIS IS THE THIRD STAGE OF GRIEF! (I'M BARGAINING! I'M BARGAINING!)
[...]
'Cause I've got so much love from every direction, but you're the only one I wanna give my affection to
'Cause I'll never have you, no matter what I do, I'll never have you - Sudden Downer Ending: "I Love You Unironically" sounds like Greg has finally found true love with someone and doesn't need to hide behind a facade of postmodernism to justify his framework any longer, until the very end where it calls the whole song (and the whole journey that the singer has gone through over the entire album) into question.All of this and more is what I'd sing to you (x3)
All of this and more
(spoken) If any of it were true. - Thinks Like a Romance Novel: "Anxious Attachment" is about a guy who thinks that all he has to do is ask out the girl of his dreams and then everything in his life will magically fix itself. When she says no, his life goes into a deep downward spiral as he becomes despondent at the notion she'll never be his.Romance is real, and love's alive!
At least, that's what the stories told me since the age of five! - Unreliable Narrator: "Brain Trauma, Pt. 2" (Postmodern Love) has Greg becoming self-aware and being confronted with how his actions in "Avoidant Attachment" have severely hurt his romantic partners (in a way that is conveniently absent from his retellings of them in the songs), trying to excuse it all by saying that he has "brain trauma" but clearly becoming mortified with himself at the end.
- Yandere: The titular girl of Greg's dreams in "Girl of My Dreams", in an effort to make a point about how clinging to an unrealistic fantasy of a soulmate will cut you off from ever having an actual relationship, is portrayed as insanely clingy and emotionally abusive as well as having a creepy deep voice. In the music video, she even chases after a clearly terrified Greg and the end realization he has is framed as him desperately having a phone conversation with someone.Now I'm starting to think that the girl of my dreams
Might not necessarily want the best things for me
Now I'm starting to think that the girl of my dreams
Might not necessar—
WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING TO!?!?
No one, honey!
