It’s all fine as long as I can goon
To what Grok tells me
Build a AI girlfriend Who will
isolate me
Civilization has reached the point where the people running the asylum have stopped bothering with disguises, the machines are writing love letters to lonely men, and the billionaires are throwing private parties while the rest of us contemplate a bleak future. Welcome to You Can’t Come, the latest exercise in organized social delinquency from Baltimore synthpunk trio Fun Never Starts, who have thoughtfully provided a soundtrack for the collapse of Western civilization. Bring your own disinfectant.
Comprised of Gashius Clay (production, bass, cello, vocals), Slim Dickens (guitar, illustration, puns), and Dwight Fried (vocals, synths, painting, lighting design), Fun Never Starts specialize in the sort of industrial-electronic misbehavior that might result if My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult, ADULT., and Peaches were locked overnight in a condemned nightclub. Their music inhabits the territory between post-punk, electroclash, and industrial rock, where the synthesizers sound mildly dangerous, the guitars have developed antisocial tendencies, and the rhythms suggest that dancing may be your final opportunity to exercise free will.
For You Can’t Come, the band have assembled a particularly unpleasant little aristocracy. Three characters dominate the proceedings: The Spy, a caricature of secretive wealth and influence; The Alpha, a send-up of authoritarian posturing and internet masculinity; and Sister Peligro, who personifies the use of religious authority to justify prejudice and social exclusion.
“We play alter egos of the people wrecking everything: a spy for the 1% who sneak around running the world, an alpha influencer pushing fascism to your feed, and a nun for those using religion to discriminate against those who need help most,” says Gashius Clay. “Then we turn on the AI execs who are gutting art and critical thinking.”
The video, directed by Dieinafire.org, presents these characters as a grotesque ruling class, presiding over a carnival of privilege, sexual excess, and institutional hypocrisy. Private clubs, luxurious mansions, and clandestine gatherings evoke the mythology of elite decadence, where the pursuit of pleasure becomes indistinguishable from the exercise of power. References to Bohemian Grove, secret societies, and the more extravagant conspiracy theories surrounding the wealthy provide plenty of material for the band’s particularly mischievous brand of social satire. Everybody wants admission to the party, yet nobody seems especially concerned about what happens once the doors are locked.
Comedian and seemingly prophet George Carlin articulated the membership policy years ago: “It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it.” In the band’s exaggerated vision, privilege becomes a private amusement park where the rules are written by those who can afford to ignore them. Outsiders are left to contemplate the absurdity of wanting admission to a club that seems determined to make everyone miserable. Even the promise of belonging comes with restrictions.
Watch the video for You Can’t Come below:
The song subsequently turns its attention to another contemporary anxiety: the increasingly intimate relationship between technology, entertainment, and human isolation. Artificial companions offer the simulation of affection, algorithms promise effortless answers, and the commercial enthusiasm surrounding generative AI raises uncomfortable questions about the future of creativity and independent thought. Fun Never Starts exaggerate these concerns into a particularly ridiculous vision of technological dependency, where loneliness becomes a business opportunity and even fantasy arrives courtesy of a corporate subscription.
Between the sexual grotesqueries, conspiratorial references, and synthetic intimacy, You Can’t Come imagines a civilization so thoroughly alienated that even its pleasures have become commodities.
Musically, Fun Never Starts make this nightmare surprisingly danceable. Their industrial machinery grinds against synthpunk irreverence, producing the sort of deranged nightclub entertainment that rewards bad judgment and punishes sobriety.
“You Can’t Come” is a filthy, funny satire of wealth, manufactured desire, technological dependency, and the peculiar human appetite for belonging to institutions that would rather keep us outside. The world’s going to hell, apparently, but at least somebody remembered to hire a band.
Listen to You Can’t Come below and order the single here.
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