If you’ve ever met a person who’s watched American Psycho or The Wolf of Wall Street so many times that he begins to admire the main character, Manhattan dance punk group Hennessey has a song for you. New track “(Let’s Pretend) It’s the 80s” is a new wave-infused bop, brimming with Talking Heads-like guitar work and scaled back synth that are deftly interwoven, yet feel minimalistic in comparison to principal songwriter (and band namesake) Leah Hennessey’s larger-than-life vocal performance. While the single is propelled by singable hooks and a concise format, its glitzy production is a shiny veneer for the track’s disapproval of wonton greed — amid its various grooving parts, bitingly sardonic lyricism abounds (“let’s love like we love money”). That being said, parts of the track resonate as a simultaneous satirization, and celebration, of the Reagan Years, wholeheartedly leaning into a vintage aesthetic while presenting contemporary nostalgia as white washing the decade’s unsavory elements. In all it makes for a brutally clever ear worm, one that Patrick Bateman would likely describe as “a song so catchy, most people probably don’t listen to the lyrics — but they should.” Stream it below. —Connor Beckett McInerney, Photo by Mike Martinez
