The music industry, like we human beings, is a sucker for a good story. I suppose that’s why there’s been a pretty impressive furor over Against Me!’s latest record, even though it’s only their fourth or fifth best album.
Don’t get me wrong—I couldn’t be happier that Transgender Dysphoria Blues has been released upon the world. I couldn’t be happier that a songwriter that I’ve been following for more than a decade has fought their way through an extremely challening period of personal and emotional upheavel to land in a fruitful, creative place. But people championing this album as the best of their career must not have been paying attention.
The story of Transgender Dysphoria Blues—and, of course, the transition of Tom Gabel into Laura Jane Grace—has been discussed at great length in media of various sizes in the last few months since the run-up to and release of the record. The short strokes: a brilliant, subversive punk songwriter finally begins his journey into womanhood after struggling with a lifetime of gender identity issues that were previously foreshadowed in his writing for those willing to actually think about what they were hearing.
I’ve read plenty of pieces that have incorrectly described this record as a chronicling of Grace’s specific journey, but that simply isn’t the case; it’s partially a concept album about a transgender prostitute, a notion that Grace originally presented to the band before coming out. The idea of a full concept album seems to have been discarded, the final product retaining some of those songs but also more direct and personal numbers.
There’s no disputing that the visibility of Grace’s journey (she revealed to the world that she was transitioning in Rolling Stone magazine and has since written about and discussed her experience in major publications like Chatelaine and The Hollywood Reporter) makes this album an important, high-profile release. The history of popular song has rarely—if ever—touched on subject matter like gender dysphoria; the idea that someone who has been a prominent member of a musical community distinguished by its inherently-aggressive nature can be so open about their struggles and be in turn embraced by that community is huge, and a great story to boot.
But Transgender Dysphoria Blues is not the zenith of Laura Jane Grace’s career. She is undoubtedly exorcising a lot of demons here and the return to a more aggressive sound just isn’t fully realized.
The title track opens the record and Grace’s lyrics set out the line between the inner desire of someone transitioning, to just blend in, and the sometimes-intolerant reality of people who don’t understand their situation. “You just want them to see you like they see every other girl; they just see a faggot,” she laments, her tone and tenor not really changed from the band’s previous albums. She strikes a snarling note at the beginning of the second verse: “You’ve got no cunt in your strut,” she growls, leaving the listener unsure if it’s a disgusting rejoinder from someone outside of herself or a jarring example of the kind of self-doubt and loathing she dealt with for years. From a musical standpoint the song is also a brilliant bridge from the somewhat-softer, more radio-friendly sound of previous full-length White Crosses to the strikingly-acerbic sounds still to come.
“[FUCKMYLIFE666]” is another melodic treat, harmonious in both the backing vocals and the guitar lines. But the chorus strikes some phenomenal, cathartic melodic tones, only to end abruptly on a down-beat note; it feels like there’s a line missing or an upbeat conclusion to match the delightfully-arranged music has been excised. But that’s just a feeling; the lyric here contrasts the idea of modifying one’s identity and realizing one’s dream with the consequence that your own loved ones may not even recognize you.
“True Trans Soul Rebel” boasts Grace’s best pure singing to date, a slight tremolo at the peak of the chorus rising to heights the tragic subject of the song will never reach. “You should’ve been a mother; you should’ve been a wife; you should’ve been gone from here years ago; you should be living a different life…Does god bless your transsexual heart, true trans soul rebel?”
“Drinking With The Jocks” is as close as the record gets to going totally wrong, a grinding, brief blast of a song that eschews Grace’s trademark melodic gruffness for atonal washes of distortion, noise, and full-throttle screaming. Moreover, it marks the low point for Grace’s songwriting, all blunt parody and artless rage. “I’m drinking with the jocks. I’m laughing at the faggots. Just like one of the boys, swinging my dick in my hand. All of my life, just like I was one of the them. Look at all them bitches. Yeah, I’m gonna fuck them all. Look at all of the pussy. Yeah, fill them up with cum.” A feeble attempt to flip the script lives in the bridge, as Grace intones, “There will always be a difference between me and you.” Yeah, I think by now that’s been established.
There are other missteps. “Osama Bin Laden As The Crucified Christ” isn’t a lot better, a pallid distortion overlayed on Grace’s vocals obscuring her performance. “Two Coffins,” while otherwise lovely, is maddeningly repetitious. Minor quibbles, it’s true, but those three songs contribute a slightly washed-out middle to a record that lacks the track-after-track pummeling of flawless tunes seen on Reinventing Axl Rose and Searching For A Former Clarity and even the glossy-but-great New Wave.
The record ends very strongly, with “Paralytic States” concluding the transgender prostitute sub-theme with a soaring melodic number. That leads to possibly the best song here, closer “Black Me Out,” in which Grace acknowledges what she probably already knew before the band signed to Sire all those years ago: major labels are a bad idea.
“I don’t ever want to talk that way again. I don’t want to know people like that anymore. As if there was an obligation, as if I owed you something…I don’t want to see the world that way anymore. I don’t want to feel that weak and insecure. As if you were my fucking pimp, as if I was your fucking whore.”
Grace’s call for absolution, her pledge to “piss on the walls” of some record exec’s house, are as external an outburst as the internal ones that lead her to this place. An entire album based on years—if not decades—of self-doubt, self-loathing, and constant and unyielding desire to be the opposite of what she felt forced by society to be has built up to the point where its inevitable release couldn’t be contained. This album spills over with an unrestrained expulsion of venom and bile; a necessary release for the songwriter, I expect, listener be damned. Regardless, I’d be willing to bet that everyone who thinks this was a five star album will really be knocked back on their heels when Grace has a chance to come up with a set of songs that are more…let’s say, even-tempered.
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