What Deserves Attention? Eric Hirshberg Poses the Question on More Is Not The Answer
Attention is often discussed as something to attract, retain or measure. On his new album, Eric Hirshberg approaches it as a limited part of a person’s life, with consequences attached to where it goes. The question running through More Is Not The Answer concerns what deserves that attention in the first place.
Released October 16, the ten-song album considers the relationship between digital habits and human priorities. Hirshberg’s perspective comes partly from years spent working in advertising, gaming and entertainment, industries in which understanding how to capture attention was central to his professional life.
His songwriting follows the effects of that competition into everyday experience. “The Grand Elsewhere” names a state of semi-distraction, with someone physically present while their mind follows the possibilities inside a device. “We’re All In This Alone” examines algorithms and the isolation that can persist within constant digital connection.
The album’s argument allows room for individual choice. Hirshberg’s concern is how people use technology, what they permit to influence them and what slips past unnoticed. That distinction gives the record a more useful focus than a blanket complaint about modern life.
New focus track “Machine Against The Rage” takes the discussion toward a response. Its title borrows technological language, but its proposed mechanism is human cooperation: listening, recognising another person’s humanity and continuing a conversation across disagreement.
Elsewhere, the record tests its concerns against experiences that cannot be reduced to screen habits. Becoming an empty nester informs “Less Important Things,” while evacuating during the Los Angeles wildfires prompted the title track’s consideration of possessions and priorities. Those circumstances make the cost of misplaced attention easier to grasp.
Following Second Hand Smoke, which earned praise from Relix and Americana Highways, Hirshberg returns with a collection grounded in empathy and optimism. He will perform the new material at The Peppermint Club on October 17 with special guest Aloe Blacc, bringing an album about presence into a shared live setting.
