Stuck Announce New EP “Content That Makes You Feel Good,” Share First Single Which Makes You Feel Bad

“City of Police” marks the Chicago post-punks’ first release with Exploding in Sound Records.
Stuck Announce New EP “Content That Makes You Feel Good,” Share First Single Which Makes You Feel Bad

“City of Police” marks the Chicago post-punks’ first release with Exploding in Sound Records.

Words: Mike LeSuer

July 22, 2021

Hey, remember that time about a year ago when the national police force declared war on civilians across the U.S., inviting the literal military into our towns because their feelings got hurt when we gave them honest feedback on how we felt about them murdering folks in broad daylight? Stuck does, and they seem pretty aware of the fact that in the year 2021, an event as turbulent as this can quickly be forgotten after countless other events of similar magnitude—climate crises, ongoing global pandemics, billionaires stealing all of our money in order to take Dutch teens into space, etc.—pave over it. They’ve made it the subject of their new single “City of Police,” a catchy post-punk track documenting an already very tainted summer of 2020 that was further lit bright blue by the constant presence of the Chicago Police Department’s inescapable cruiser lights flashing into our homes.

“At the first peaceful protest I went to last year in Chicago, the police became violent,” vocalist Greg Obis shares. “I was on the Magnificent Mile in downtown Chicago walking south on Michigan Avenue when CPD raised the drawbridge over the river outside of the Wrigley Building and trapped protesters there. They called in the National Guard and shot tear gas at protesters. I distinctly remember seeing some huge National Guardsman in riot gear and thinking, ‘Oh fuck, this really is the City of Police.’ So, I wrote the song about that.

“I think this song is pretty easy to read into,” he continues. “I tried to paint a picture of police in sort of a Raymond Pettibone, Jello Biafra way. Just big, violent, dumb cops whose insecurity turns them into violent murderers that are beholden to no one. The line about the drawbridges is an adaptation of an Elvis Costello line from ‘Tramp the Dirt Down,’ a song about Margaret Thatcher. The line ‘Crime is crime is crime’ is a Thatcher quote about political prisoners in the IRA on hunger strike. I’m trying to draw a comparison between her and Lori Lightfoot, who share a similar tone-deafness to nuance. To them, all unrest occurs within a vacuum, and the only solution is to use a violent gang to snuff it out.”

The track arrives—to bury the lede just a bit—ahead of Stuck’s first new music released through Exploding in Sound Records, an almost certainly ironically titled EP called Content That Makes You Feel Good which follows last year’s Change Is Bad released through Obis’ own Born Yesterday Records. That project drops August 13—you can pre-order it here, and it you’re in Chicago you can catch the band’s release show that night at Empty Bottle supported by Floatie and Negative Scanner. For now, watch the video for the first single.