Priscilla, Queen of the Tundra

When Empire of the Sun released “Walking on a Dream,” I thought the song was catchy in a way that made me scared that I’d soon hear it in commercials and movie trailers and then eventually hate it — you know, in the way that “Little Talks” has been ruined for me. It got some mainstream play, but in the end, I never felt overexposed to this song, so when Empire of the Sun announced their forthcoming album, Ice on the Dune, I got excited. The lead track sounded great. Everything was shaping up for a primo musical experience.

Then I saw the album art.

It’s, um, expressive and colorful.

Granted, the first album’s art suggested a meeting between Blade Runner and Liberace, but when that album came out, I drove an older car. My new car actually displays the album art of whatever I’m listening to, so I have to look at this gay cosplay version of Final Fantasy — which, of course, would be called Anal Fantasy — whenever I listen to the song… which is kind of often. 

Can we stop and take a look at what someone thought made sense as an image that people would see and use as evidence in deciding whether to buy this album? If you’re more of an “outside kid” than I am and therefore don’t understand my comparisons to Final Fantasy, please examine this promo art for the tenth game in that series.

Now, imagine that this game — still with the saturated color, dramatic but ambiguous poses and unrealistically smooth skin textures — featured not only the hero but also this badass sorceress who had gnarly ice powers as well as, like, some major lady-tude and an enchanted headdress that gave her additional sartorial ferocity. And also she was interesting-pretty. And then a lot of dude-on-dude sex happened. Then you’d pretty much have the Ice on the Dune album art, just as a game. I’ll be honest: That kind of sounds like a video game I’d play. And I think it’s cool that Empire of the Sun — neither member of which, as near as online research can tell me, seems to be gay — went that direction for their new album. I’m just baffled as to why they did so whenever the album art pops up on my car console. It’s a weird reaction, I know — not so much judgment but just “Someone sure made some distinct choices, and I just want to know what their logic was.”

Also, if you want to make the video game I described, I’d basically have to buy it. Just saying.