Imaginary People Mourn the Death of a “Hometown” (premiere)

“Hometown” is the latest single from New York’s Imaginary People. Landing somewhere between ’80s stadium rock (The Alarm, War-era U2) and latter day saints such as the War on Drugs, the track feels like sweeping emotional victory while tackling one of the truths of life in our time: Home ain’t what it used to be. As gentrification has become the spirit of the decrepit age, as commercial banking signs become our overlords, who have we become?

The band’s Dylan Von Wagner says, “It’s about what happens when your town is replaced with something that seems to sway on the benign and it kind of leaves you with this dread. It’s all spread out in this cookie cutter mold, and the town doesn’t have its own personality, just another brush stroke on the bland canvas of suburbia.”