NYC's BODEGA share their new single, "Cultural Consumer III"

Taken from a thematic series of songs with the same title, Cultural Consumer I and II both appear on their new album too, Cultural Consumer III is melodic and direct, designed to evoke the breezy feeling of the great rock and roll car songs of the past, with "No Particular Place to Go" by Chuck Berry and "Roadrunner" by Modern Lovers as key reference points.

"The ‘cultural consumer’ is a character who has become essential to my songwriting for BODEGA. "Cultural Consumer I" was the first song I wrote where I feel like I found the songwriting voice for the band and the ‘cultural consumer’ showed up in the first BODEGA single "How Did This Happen?!" in 2018. The cultural consumer is a middle class bohemian who is addicted to studying culture (both high art and pop culture) and is thus oppressed by it," says Ben Hozie, joint lead vocalist of BODEGA.

"In "Cultural Consumer III he has become a new ager who is blasting a killer curated playlist in his car on the way to the airport to fly to a meditation retreat in Taiwan. Despite all of his consuming and questing for self-help, unlike Bob Dylan, he has never once ‘gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.’ He is just buying crap."

The music video was directed by Luca Balser (who also directed the clips for "Tarkovski" and "City is Taken") and shot by Hunter Zimny. It features the band driving through a lo-fi psychedelic NYC via rear projection and mixed media collage, Luca and Hunter having shot the video with multiple modern and retro cameras pushed in idiosyncratic fashion.

BODEGA considered casting an actor to play the 'cultural consumer' but decided to just be in the video themselves. Ben points out: "we are all 'cultural consumers' after all and I've been using the exaggerated character as a way to self-analyse and self-criticise."

"Cultural Consumer III" follows January's "Tarkovski", and last month's more esoteric "City Is Taken".