''Midnight of the Century'' is the debut album by

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

band

Blacklist Blacklisting is the action of a group or authority compiling a blacklist (or black list) of people, countries or other entities to be avoided or distrusted as being deemed unacceptable to those making the list. If someone is on a blacklist, t ...

. It was released in 2009 on

independent record label An independent record label (or indie label) is a record label that operates without the funding or distribution of major record labels; they are a type of small- to medium-sized enterprise, or SME. The labels and artists are often represented ...

Wierd Records. The title is a reference to a book by

Victor Serge Victor Serge (; 1890–1947), born Victor Lvovich Kibalchich (russian: Ви́ктор Льво́вич Киба́льчич), was a Russian revolutionary Marxist, novelist, poet and historian. Originally an anarchist, he joined the Bolsheviks fi ...

Themes and references

The song "Shock in the Hotel Falcon" was inspired by

George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalitar ...

's ''

Homage to Catalonia ''Homage to Catalonia'' is George Orwell's personal account of his experiences and observations fighting in the Spanish Civil War for the POUM militia of the Republican army. Published in 1938 (about a year before the war ended) with little com ...

''. "Language of the Living Dead" references the work of Slovenian philosopher

Slavoj Žižek Slavoj Žižek (, ; ; born 21 March 1949) is a Slovenian philosopher, cultural theorist and public intellectual. He is international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at the University of London, visiting professor at New Y ...

. The album's liner notes open with the phrase "

Fiat justitia ruat caelum ''Fīat jūstitia ruat cælum'' is a Latin legal phrase, meaning "Let justice be done though the heavens fall." The maxim signifies the belief that justice must be realized regardless of consequences. According to the 19th-century abolitionist ...

" and contain quotes from

Jacques Lacan Jacques Marie Émile Lacan (, , ; 13 April 1901 – 9 September 1981) was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist. Described as "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud", Lacan gave yearly seminars in Paris from 1953 to 1981, and pu ...

Don DeLillo Donald Richard DeLillo (born November 20, 1936) is an American novelist, short story writer, playwright, screenwriter and essayist. His works have covered subjects as diverse as television, nuclear war, sports, the complexities of language, per ...

Rumi Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī ( fa, جلال‌الدین محمد رومی), also known as Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī (), Mevlânâ/Mawlānā ( fa, مولانا, lit= our master) and Mevlevî/Mawlawī ( fa, مولوی, lit= my ma ...

and

Salman Rushdie Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie (; born 19 June 1947) is an Indian-born British-American novelist. His work often combines magic realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and Wes ...

. In terms of how this functions with the music, Blacklist's singer/lyricist Joshua Strawn said:

...if you want to read my lyrics for the subtexts and hear us as a political band, you can certainly do that and you can practically get a reading list from our songs (
Ibn Rushd Ibn Rushd ( ar, ; full name in ; 14 April 112611 December 1198), often Latinized as Averroes ( ), was an Andalusian polymath and jurist who wrote about many subjects, including philosophy, theology, medicine, astronomy, physics, psychology, ...
,
Omar Khayyam Ghiyāth al-Dīn Abū al-Fatḥ ʿUmar ibn Ibrāhīm Nīsābūrī (18 May 1048 – 4 December 1131), commonly known as Omar Khayyam ( fa, عمر خیّام), was a polymath, known for his contributions to mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, an ...
, George Orwell,
Victor Serge Victor Serge (; 1890–1947), born Victor Lvovich Kibalchich (russian: Ви́ктор Льво́вич Киба́льчич), was a Russian revolutionary Marxist, novelist, poet and historian. Originally an anarchist, he joined the Bolsheviks fi ...
,
Arjun Appadurai Arjun Appadurai (born 1949) is an Indian-American anthropologist recognized as a major theorist in globalization studies. In his anthropological work, he discusses the importance of the modernity of nation states and globalization. He is the fo ...
,
Ramin Jahanbegloo Ramin Jahanbegloo ( fa, رامین جهانبگلو, born 28 December 1956 in Tehran) is an Iranian philosopher and academic based in Toronto, Canada. Biography Ramin Jahanbegloo was born in Tehran, Iran. He has a doctorate in philosophy from Sorb ...
, Salman Rushdie, Slavoj Žižek, just to give you the short list). But if you just like the music, that works too. You don't have to know who
Akbar Ganji Akbar Ganji ( fa, اکبر گنجی , born 31 January 1960 in Tehran) is an Iranian journalist, writer and a former member of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. He has been described as "Iran's preeminent political dissident", and a "wildly popu ...
and
Zakia Zaki Zakia Zaki (c. 1972 – June 4, 2007) was an Afghan journalist for the Afghan Radio Peace (Sada-i-Sulh) station north of Kabul, Afghanistan. Zaki was the first Afghani journalist to speak out against the Taliban after the US forces initiated the W ...
are to appreciate 'When Worlds Collide' by us ..it is form or melody that succeeds first--if the more thought out ideas and agendas work too, they are only able to do so because the rest is already in place and one's appreciation of one shouldn't condition too much your ability to appreciate the othe

Track listing

All tracks written by Blacklist. #"Still Changes" – 3:59 #"Flight of the Demoiselles" – 4:19 #"Shock in the Hotel Falcon" – 4:44 #"Language of the Living Dead" – 4:33 #"Odessa" – 4:39 #"Julie Speaks" – 4:32 #"Poison for Tomorrow" – 3:23 #"Frontiers" – 4:11 #"The Cunning of History" – 3:03 #"When Worlds Collide" – 4:34 #"The Believer" – 4:56

References

2009 albums Blacklist (band) albums {{2000s-indie-rock-album-stub