Steven Wilson is a talented and an underrated artist. He is nothing if not prolific, being involved in six different side projects, such as No-Man, Porcupine Tree, and Storm Corrosion, besides doing his own solo work and production work. On his sophomore solo record, “Grace For Drowning,” Wilson takes a turn and portrays himself in a dark light as a serial killer in his music video for "Index." What he's really attacking is not people. He's promoting the album experience as well as himself and destroying download culture.
“Index” is a creepy, monotonous song cleverly disguised as from the perspective of an kidnapper or serial killer, but is actually about Wilson’s love for collecting physical copies of albums as well as his desire to rise above and beyond expectations in his musical career. Stating “My obligation to collecting is my only thirst,” the song lyrically talks about his production work, being an individual who likes the “weird shit” in music, and the loneliness of being a misunderstood prolific musician. Visually, “Index” is a lament. Wilson is depicted sitting next to mannequins, surrounded by collections of insects, and other various creepy things in a darkly lit household. For example, there is a woman being dragged down a hallway in the video. The mannequins represent Wilson’s side projects, creepy family abuse and broken relationships, and the breaking down of his stereotypes.
Throughout his multiple side projects, each practices around particular genres (sometimes blending), notably with his group Porcupine Tree. Porcupine Tree is Wilson’s most successful venture, selling out shows at Royal Albert Hall. It is known that if you make a certain record and it sells well, people inside and outside of the music industry will probably want a similar enough product, because it makes money, right? Wrong. Wilson desperately wants to defy that, showcasing the dismantling and burning of the mannequins. If the mannequins are the stereotypical genres, Wilson likes different aspects about them and picks and chooses the parts he wants and takes off what he doesn’t, and if he altogether doesn’t want it, he destroys it completely (via burning). Steven Wilson desires to be beyond the genres, to be his own creator and not be defined. Thus, in his picking and choosing, he is an architect. Wilson even proclaims himself as such in an interview, stating, “I’m more of an architect. I like to plan things out and structure them, and then put them together.”
The bugs in the music video represent both creative character and scrutiny. Insects aren’t the most intelligent creatures -- even though they have great capacity, the same could be said for human beings -- but they are strange and beautiful in their own way, and they do what their instinctual programming says they must perform. However, being collected and kept under glass could most certainly draw a comparison between their artists content, with years of their blood, sweat and tears that goes into creating their music feeling like it goes to waste when someone upon a close look or a brief inspection says it’s objectively terrible or serves no purpose to the world. The weird hands on the wall reaching out represent the demand for another release, and the pressure that explains Wilson’s melancholy face throughout the whole video, and pulling at his hair. There’s a sequence where we see a mannequin's head in covered in sand, and this is precisely how Wilson feels when the world is demanding him to make more of the same. The mannequins are seen pointing at screens covered in static, seemingly displeased with what they are watching, or perhaps hold a double meaning; the mannequin family could in fact be pointing towards what they want: empty, mindless and meaningless entertainment void of any true meaning. This is precisely what Wilson does not want to become, hence the dismantling and burning mentioned before.
To further prove Wilson's love of collecting albums, look at the lines here: “I’d collect you too if I was given half a chance/ Put you under the glass and add my autograph.” Wilson has literally done this. He has worked on multiple other old progressive rock records ranging from Jethro Tull to King Crimson, and he’s won awards for his remastered production work. By and large, he has added his autograph to these records he once himself cherished. This also ties in to another account on another lyric: “I keep the rubbish what other people give away/Keep all the pieces in a metal tray.” To me, this means that since he hoards music as such, Wilson looks at music intently and with purpose for his own work, both in production and what he creates in his other side projects.
Wilson has been known to sample from all different kinds of genres: psychedelia, metal, ambience, intelligent dance music, vintage progressive rock, jazz fusion and industrial. In one interview, Wilson even stated that he didn’t even like metal all that much. He just wanted to essentially explore and experiment with the genre sonically. For example, in reference of keeping pieces of music and using them for himself, it was often said for the song “Raider II” to have a Robert Fripp-esque “Lizard” influence throughout, but particularly in the opening sequence. When asked about it, Wilson laughed and commented, “Lizard is a great example to me of how jazz and rock music created something magical, and so it’s definitely in my music. You’re not wrong; it’s in my DNA.”
To prove that Wilson is capable of inserting himself into his music, consider his latest concept album, “Hand. Cannot. Erase.” in which he depicts a female protagonist loosely based on Joyce Carol Vincent's life choosing to isolate herself and disconnect from the outside world, which eventually lead up to her mysterious death. When discussing the character he created, Wilson said, “Not only did I identify with her, I gave my character a lot of my own autobiography. Some of the images in some of the songs are taken directly from my own childhood and my own life,” and this proves that he inserts himself in his music, further pointing out he thinks that “it’s probably true of every writer, it’s probably true of every filmmaker, every songwriter, that ultimately every character you create is a facet of yourself. And it’s a kind of way to reflect your own fears and your own emotions and your own thoughts." Wilson has inserted himself here, and throughout much of his own material in little bits and ways, and in "Index" he is a killer.
While Wilson himself is fascinated with serial killers, he is not one. For example, take a look at one of his tours. The self-titled encore song for the tour “Get All You Deserve” depicts Wilson singing and leaving the stage to come back on wearing a gas mask as the song builds up into its climax. This part is an intense burst of static, noise, and heavy guitars blaring, getting louder and more unbearable with each and every second until it fades out, ending the song. During this section, Wilson does not sing. He simply stands there at attention and points to random audience members, and begins to move around pointing at other members more and more, almost as if to say, “You’ll get this, and you’ll get this! You have come for this. It’s time to get what you paid for, to get what you deserve." Think about this: if Wilson kills an audience member metaphorically in a song, doesn’t that make him a killer of sorts?
What Steven Wilson is actually killing is download culture. Wilson is increasingly fed up with the way music is being presented and promotes the album experience instead. People nowadays don't want to own a physical copy of a record, and instead just download the MP3s from somewhere, or pay to play them from their phone at any time from a streaming service like Spotify. Wilson thinks that the fact that whole albums, their music, artwork, etc, have been reduced to a few software files is an "ugly concept," and compares listening to MP3s to vinyl like taking someone to an art gallery and showing them how beautiful the works are and then showing them a photocopy of the same works of art. It's not at all the same, and in Wilson's eyes it should never be.
Wilson said that he wants his audience to appreciate the time and effort he took into making the album and presenting it as such, stating, "It’s kind of a fetishistic thing to associate the presentation of music with the presentation and packaging...if something is a beautiful piece of art in terms of its musical content, why shouldn’t it be presented as something beautiful in terms of its visual content?" Wilson also wants his listeners to listen to his works straight through, instead of popping it onto their iPods and hitting shuffle. Wilson puts so much thought into the records he makes that the listener could experience the sound from beginning to end and can be taken on a kind of musical journey. The fact that his listener could go from his album to something by Coldplay, Britney Spears, or anything else at any time is also a ugly idea to him. That's why throughout his on-the-road documentary "Insurgentes," Wilson is seen destroying iPods in multiple ways, from blowtorches to sledgehammers.
With a work like "Grace For Drowning," Wilson really has freed himself from his previous barriers. It was what he strived to do in the first place, and is the place he escaped from in "Index." The song is just a piece of the whole that tells of Wilson's own philosophy across the entire record. To conclude, a quote from Wilson himself on his sophomore solo album: "The album title came from reading stories and accounts of people who have had near-death experiences with drowning”, says Wilson. “They all say the same thing: They got to a point where they stopped struggling, where they reached a point of calm, of grace. I like "Grace for Drowning" as a metaphor for my life. I don’t really care anymore if I’m successful or if I’m going to be more successful than I am already. I’d still like to share my music with more people. But I’m not stressed about it. I’m making the best music I’ve ever made now because I feel totally liberated from trying to please anyone."
