In the 1990s, Girls Against Boys were all swagger and grime, delivering several essential records’ worth of dispatches from New York City nightlife through the characters and scenes of Scott McCloud’s lyrics. It’s a perfect soundtrack to your 20s, but nothing lasts forever. On his first solo release under his own name, he’s stripping all of the artifice away. The title track from his upcoming solo debut, “Make It to Forever”, is especially unexpected if you aren’t familiar with his Paramount Styles project, which exists musically and chronologically between this and Girls Against Boys.
The video’s aesthetic reinforces that, as the screen flashes memorable lines from Girls Against Boys classics and scenes that reinforce the snapshot brilliance of those words. The acoustic guitar is insistent, giving it a little of that classic Girls Against Boys tension, but the rewards come in the way Scott McCloud‘s words are a little less guarded. One could think of this as one of the characters from classics like “Superfire” or “Disco Six Six Six”, now more focused on things that last than the cheap thrills of decades past.