“Cyberstalking” is, objectively, a pretty terrible thing to experience. One Empty Toybox has nevertheless decided that the appropriate response is to make a song about it that sounds like it might be having an unusually good time and, weirdly enough, it works.
The band’s “Cyberstalking” takes a subject that could very easily become a miserable, heavy-handed warning song and instead wraps it in retro synths, sharp guitars, theatrical vocals and enough restless energy to keep things moving. The result is playful without completely forgetting that the thing it is singing about is, well, cyberstalking.
The song began as an instrumental foundation before vocals and lead guitars were added. You can hear that construction in the way the different pieces interact. Rather than everything sitting obediently in its assigned place, the guitars, synths, rhythm section and vocals seem to keep bumping into one another and seeing what happens.
That looseness is one of the track’s strengths. One Empty Toybox’s creative process is apparently rooted in improvisation and the guitar work particularly benefits from it. Around the first minute, a lead guitar section cuts through the arrangement with the confidence of someone who has just discovered the recording button is still on and decided to make the most of it.
The retro sound helps, too. There are traces of punk, synth-pop and electronic rock here, with vintage-sounding synths providing a colorful backdrop for grittier guitar textures. It gives “Cyberstalking” a slightly theatrical, almost cartoonishly dramatic quality, which is useful because the lyrics are dealing with something considerably less funny.
The central idea plays with the language of star-crossed romance. “Modern star-crossed lovers” becomes a recurring image, while lines about “unknowingly hunting each other” and wondering “will we find love this way?” turn digital obsession into a bizarre approximation of a Romeo-and-Juliet story.
Obviously, that comparison has a limit. Romeo and Juliet did not have smartphones, social media accounts, or the ability to discover someone’s location because they forgot to turn off their settings. The modernity of “Cyberstalking” is precisely what gives its concept some bite.
More importantly, the song has a purpose beyond being an amusingly strange musical premise. One Empty Toybox is donating 100% of the profits from the track to Stop Stalking Us, giving the release a tangible connection to the issue it explores.
“Cyberstalking” is therefore an odd little balancing act: catchy but uncomfortable, playful but purposeful, nostalgic but concerned with a very contemporary problem. It does not solve the problem of cyberstalking. It does, however, make you think about it and gives you a guitar solo while it does so.
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About the Author
A tenured media critic known working as a ghost writer, freelance critic for various publications around the world, the former lead writer of review blogspace Atop The Treehouse and content creator for Manila Bulletin.
