Florence + the Machine’s Everybody Scream: Misfits’ Horror Rock with a Modern Twist

Bands like The Misfits and The Cramps….Alice Cooper to some extent….tried to capture the 50s/60s style monster movie horror vibe in music. They were largely very campy, theatrical and very guitar forward rock. This sound and vibe was largely pioneered by bands like Black Sabbath and King Diamond. L7 then modernised this formula with their Misfits take meeting grunge crunch. Florence Welch has now taken that horror rock formula and blended it with Stevie Nicks’ “white witch” era and Misfits’ era camp horror in a modern rock stew. Let’s take a closer look at her new track.

Fresh off of the success of Taylor Swift’s Florida!!!, where Welch’s vocal stole the show, we now have a lead single from a new Florence + The Machine record. Musically, this Everybody Scream is vastly different from her track with Swift and from her previous record Dance Fever. This is organ heavy, crunch guitar, horror movie music full of dread. The track has an ominous supernatural vibe, which is reminiscent of early Black Sabbath as the bass line continually wears down your soul. This is a dark song, but not dark emotionally. It is like Halloween dark…don’t walk into that forest at night dark, which is a ton of fun. The music is very emotive and theatrical, which is a perfect match for the vocal.

This is a vocally, and lyrically, complex track. Vocally, Florence continues with her unique metre and timbre, which is both theatrical and etherial. As she sings about brambles and making you sing for her, I get the image of a witch casting a spell over a boiling cauldron. This image is reinforced by the gloomy music and screaming backing singers…it is a very Nightmare Before Christmas vibe.

Lyrically, I think you can take this track a number of ways. On a surface level, she is singing about her freedom on stage and connection with fans…”Blood on the stage / But how can I leave when you’re screaming my name / Screaming my name.” Essentially, you can read the track as the stage being the one place where she feels that she can be herself free of social norms, which is also this magical place for the crowd to be free as well and they both feed off each other. In one sense, Florence is the witch on stage casting her spell through song and has the entire audience under her control. I see another layer in light of her track Florida!!! with Taylor Swift. That track had large feminist themes around agency, autonomy, sexual agency / control over their bodies and the power to control their own lives. I see similar feminist themes in this track where the stage is that place where she can scream, she can be mean, she can be nice…she can feel normal without society’s norms. Feminists have long been cast as witches for their views on patriarchal power and Florence is exploding those by giving herself a space to freely explore power and agency. I also think it is not a coincidence that all of the backing singers are women screaming and reinforcing power. I could be reaching too much, but I can see it.

I was interested to see what Florence would come up with after her work with Swift. What she has put out is musically very different, but continues to explore themes on power and agency. But also, this track is a big thanks to the fans and how they fuel her in her art. A complex song that has me very excited for the upcoming record.