Ballad Breakdown: MUNA's "What I Want" and The Subversion From The Inspirational Anthem Archetype

Whether it's Natasha Bedingfield telling listeners to “feel the rain on your skin” or Katy Perry commanding audiences to “Roar,” inspirational anthems consistently amass popularity. With “What I Want,” alternative pop trio MUNA offers a new take on the inspirational anthem – one that might end up ruining lives.

Written by William Beachum

Photo courtesy of Issac Schneider

Music can often be uplifting, with some songs aiming to “inspire” or “motivate” their audience to carry on through their day or encourage a brighter attitude. This is deemed an “inspirational anthem,” a piece that addresses the hurt that a listener feels and gives them reasons to keep their head up. This archetype has existed since the beginning of recorded music, with the 1939 classic “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” as a founding example. The peak of “anthem” popularity has been the 21st century, with songs like “Unwritten” and “Bad Day” ruling the 2000s, as well as “Roar” and “Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You)” dominating the early 2010s radio. The historically cynical Gen Z now controls the main avenues for music popularity concerning genres and platforms for consuming the media. This reality begs the question: how can you inspire a generation of cynics? Queer pop band MUNA may have found a solution.

MUNA rose to popularity with their 2017 melodramatic album, About U, with its success driven by breakout single “I Know A Place.” However, growth came in tenfold for the alternative pop band during 2021, when RCA dropped MUNA from their mainstream record label then picked up by fellow indie darling Phoebe Bridgers’ Saddest Factory Records. With this change, MUNA shifted their focus in the 2022 self-titled record to themes of rebirth and regeneration. Not only do they talk about healing on songs like “Kind of Girl” and “Loose Garment,” but they find new forms of love on “Silk Chiffon (feat. Phoebe Bridgers)” and “No Idea.” While emotion used to consume MUNA on albums like About U, they are now able to control the emotion and attempt to grow past it. Their self-titled album does not shy away from the harsh realities of the world, but rather gives modern-day solutions to modern-day problems.

“What I Want” seems to follow the stereotypical formula of an inspirational anthem. It uses first-person narration so the audience can insert themselves into Gavin’s mindset. It directly addresses the hurt the audience feels, as lead singer Katie Gavin belts with anguish on the pre-chorus that she has spent “way too, too, too many years not knowing what / What I wanted, how to get it, how to live it.” To address this, she will “make up for it all at once” by doing exactly “what I want.” “The club anthem follows the typical instructional pattern of an artist giving a solution to a problem that the audience is having and then envisions what their life could be after implementing that solution. However, this song gains its power by adjusting this outline to fit the needs and wants of Gen Z.

First and foremost, “What I Want” is not built for minivans on their way to soccer practice. “What I Want” screams at you to be heard, with a sporadic, loud, abrasive, bass-heavy pattern permeating throughout the entire song. This instrumentation places the song and its listener in a sensory-heightened club. The song’s verses are interrupted by unpredictable vocally distorted echoes, creating a lack of pattern and discouraging easy listening. Drum machines begin to pop in on the chorus, emphasizing the intensity of the moments painted by Galvin’s descriptive lyricism. This instrumentation heavily contrasts the light grooves of hits like “Put Your Records On” and the easy stomp-claps of “Unwritten.” Simultaneously straying from the typical four-chord pop structure and simple vocal melodies seen on “Firework” and “Stronger (What Doesn’t Kill You). “What I Want” shocks the listener into a new environment that MUNA doesn’t want you to escape from.

Lyrically, “What I Want” heavily subverts the expectations of a typical inspirational anthem and alters the “what” it is motivating you to do. At the start of the song, Gavin describes joyously engaging with drugs and alcohol, methodically stating that “When I go out again / I’m gonna drink a lot” and “When I see my friend put something on my tongue / I’m gonna ask for one.” Gavin hits you with a sucker punch of desire and recklessness that scares away conservative listeners but entices a younger audience.

In the chorus, Gavin depicts what she wants through a queer lens, describing how she wants to “dance in the middle of a gay bar.” This action may have felt shameful for Gavin in the past due to the vulnerability of an open bar and the potential judgment of her peers. In an interview with The Independent, Gavin expanded on this guilt, saying “It’s been a long and winding road with my sexuality. I was raised Irish Catholic, and I think it also has to do with me being femme and passing and that made me really confused.” But now that she is doing what she wants,” she can harness the courage, acting as, in Gavin’s words, “an adult coming out.” Gavin appeals to a cynical Gen Z audience that may have once stood in the corner of the party, giving them an example of the enjoyment they could feel by letting their cynicism and insecurity go.

Gavin tells a story of being attracted to a girl across the bar in both the second half of the chorus and the second verse. This girl is ”dancing to the song / With all her leather on,” and then the singer claims that the girl is “what she wants.” Gavin objectifies her, claiming this girl in leather as a reward. While the supposed demeaning of this girl may seem offensive to some listeners, the song defines the reward as the act of asking this girl out rather than any sort of sexual conquest. The pop starlet has “waited too, too many years” and “cried too, too many tears” not to explore this relationship, even if the situation is unordinary and spontaneous. Gavin engages in a hook up with cool confidence, aided by the act of “think[ing] that she’ll get along,” being enough to drive the interaction rather than any excessive validation from a stranger.

The stakes are raised in the bridge when the protagonist blurts out “My hands are shaking / It’s psychosomatic.” She develops a primal need for confidence, referencing physicality as a way to uplift her audience to move and dance. This movement, combined with the flashy and pulsating bass grooves, further exhilarates the audience to dance and move with a newfound sense of liberation. The inspirational archetype is subverted once again to help propel the listener’s thoughts into action rather than remaining within a realm of escapism. The anthem concludes with a heightened drop and a driven chorus, ending abruptly, adding to the “shockwave” effect. MUNA comes in with a burst of energy and leaves with the same intensity.

“What I Want” serves as a necessary shock to the heart to act on your repressed desires and find the confidence you need. By pivoting their focus to a modern audience, MUNA has given a voice to young people who want to make mistakes and be messy without giving a fuck. They have found power by giving into the cravings that other inspirational anthems have told them to ignore. “What I Want” is inspiring not because of its archetype, but because of its acknowledgment and adaptation to its audience.