Rock music often casts itself as the rebellious outsider, the mysterious stranger from the wrong side of the tracks; bands that make such music like to be seen as something that stands in opposition to everything that defines the mainstream. (Even when those bands are sitting high up in the charts and coining it in.)
‘Satellite Heart’ reminds us that rock music can be tempered out of the right elements to make it suitable for mass consumption without losing what made rock music such a stalwart sound in the first place.
Here, Mark Emsley ticks rock boxes for power and punch whilst also satisfying pop’s hankering for groove, infectiousness and accessibility. For every slice of pop contagion, there is a wailing rock guitar; for every dancable beat, there is no shortage of foot-on-the-monitor attitude; for every deft, chart-accessible vibe, there is an anthemic, stadium-ready fist-in-the-air energy.
In hindsight, using the word mainstream might have given the wrong impression; although this certainly sits on the lighter side of Emsley’s body of work, we are not talking about compromise here. If Mark Emsley has positioned himself equidistant between rock ‘n’ roll’s more boisterous swagger and pop’s widely accessible sheen, it is because that was always where he intended himself to be.
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