Now that more large-size images of the art exhibition of works inspired by the songs on 21st Century Breakdown have been released, I’m even more interested in it.

I’m sure you’ve had this experience too: as I’m listening to the songs, images tend to come into my mind, called up by the mood and scenes suggested by the song. I think it’s kind of a natural tendency, to make words into pictures. I have more affinity with visual imagery than I do with music. I studied art myself and was immersed in the art world for many years, mainly because my former boyfriend is a professional fine artist.

So it’s cool to see individual artists’ concepts for each song. I really like “Before the Lobotomy” by Dabs and Myla. It’s like a cityscape in your mind, like in a dream, where you can see the whole city at once. It’s made up of sooty urban buildings but it’s also populated by these strange, oversize creatures, that are maybe your demons, or maybe fears and misgivings nagging at you from the outside? But they’re not really sinister, entirely, because they’re painted as cartoon characters. (And how scary could your fears be when one of them is smoking a cigarette?) It’s both dark, with a hint of hopefulness, like the song’s lyrics (I’m not sure why the person is holding a bird, but it’s pretty cool anyway, and it seems to fit), and also uplifting, like the song’s music.

I like that it sticks pretty closely to the song, like with the watery streaks at the bottom of the painting — the characters and buildings are sort of melting and disappearing — which remind you of the line “when the rain had washed away all these scattered dreams.”

“Before the Lobotomy” by Dabs/Myla
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I think fans might like “Know Your Enemy” by the London Police, because it’s a funny cartoon of the band members (though I’m not sure that it’s that close to the song itself).

“Know Your Enemy” by the London Police
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You can see all of the art for each song in large format here (it’s a large file, 10MB).

Earlier post here.

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