Released October 24, 1995 Length 13:16 Writer(s) Michael Gira | Format CD Label Invisible – INV 036 | |
Genre Alternative rock, noise rock, gothic rock | ||
Celebrity Lifestyle is a song by American no wave band Swans, from the band's ninth studio album, The Great Annihilator. It was released as the album's lead single on October 24, 1995, via Martin Atkins' Invisible Records.
Contents
Lyrics
According to Neva Chonin of the San Francisco Bay Guardian, the song "lays the groundwork for a cutting look at the material dreams".
Critical reception
Aaron Lariviere of Stereogum stated, "'Celebrity Lifestyle' is the closest they'd get to mainstream alternative rock, but leave it to Gira to tart things up with a line like 'She's just a drug addiction, and a self-reflecting image of a narcotized mind.'" Coreen Wolanski of Exclaim! compared the song to the works of Sonic Youth, another no wave contemporary from the New York scene. She also noted "the layers of heavy, driving guitars". NME also commented that "'Celebrity Lifestyle' reveals Mad Mike G maintaining his top form of recent years", while humorously criticizing and mocking the song's lyrics. Ben Donelly of Dusted Magazine stated, "the single seemed an awful lot like a Kim Gordon outtake, playing catchup with peers who'd scratched the mainstream."
In his review for the band's 2012 live album, We Rose from Your Bed with the Sun in Our Head, Tiny Mix Tapes reviewer Paul Haney compared the song to a live track, "The Apostle", writing: "Obvious parallels to The Great Annihilator's 'Celebrity Lifestyle' may spring to mind, and indeed, there is a certain gothic resonance to the affair."
Track listing
All tracks written by Michael Gira.