Grey & Purple Songbook and the price tag on freedom

The following feature is now included in our online magazine which is also available in print.

Issue #10

Grey & Purple Songbook have never seemed interested in offering easy answers, and their January 16, 2026, release *Ten to Fifteen Million*’s “All I Need” certainly proves that point within the first few lines of the song. This is not a song that is chasing hooks for their own sake or a slogan masquerading as a work of art. This is a conversation, a gentle one, about money, freedom, and the odd bargain we all make without ever signing a contract or a dotted line. Grey & Purple Songbook is an Oslo, Norway-based outfit that doesn’t really seem to work like a band in any conventional sense of the word. Instead, it’s a long-form writing project that just happens to exist within a musical context. This is an outfit that relies heavily on text and storytelling, in which lyrics do all of the heavy lifting and melodies serve only to provide a context for them to exist in. “All I Need” from *Ten to Fifteen Million* certainly feels like it’s in that world, in which a gentle pace and a quiet demeanor serve to make a point about the world in which we find ourselves. The title of the song is certainly a pointed one, one that feels ridiculous and even a little funny until it’s slowly explained in the course of the song. In a world in which we prize our individuality and our freedom above all else, it’s a price tag that continues to climb higher and higher. There’s no rant, no big speech, just a gentle circling of the point to be made, one in which the figures are allowed to hang in the air for a moment and in which we can come to terms with just how unremarkable it is to consider a price tag of millions for our individuality.

Musically, the track is equally understated. The production leaves space for the lyrics to breathe, preferring mood to muscle. There’s a relaxed confidence to the track, a sense that the listener will follow along. It’s a hallmark of the Grey & Purple Songbook that a song about ideas needs no clutter. It’s an intimate sound, almost like listening to someone talk to themselves late at night, when the din of the day finally fades away.

What makes this song work is that it refuses to simplify the issue. It does not pretend that money is not an issue, nor does it pretend that freedom exists outside of a system. Instead, it finds a middle ground that most people live in. The desire to be free, to be independent, countered with the knowledge of how dependent everything is on money. The belief in choice, countered with the knowledge of how few choices really exist. It’s a song about democracy without taking a side.

Grey & Purple Songbook have built a name on this kind of writing, where emotion and thought are woven together. Their discography reads like a collection of short stories, each one using sound as a way to slow the reader down. There are similarities here with other artists who use their songs as literature, from the latter days of Leonard Cohen’s albums to the quiet parts of Nick Cave’s discography, where the questions are more important than the answers. There are also similarities with the Nordic minimalism and the cool clarity of Scandinavian cinema. There are films like Oslo, August 31st, or parts of Roy Andersson’s films, where the quiet weight of life is a powerful force.

Ten to Fifteen Million’s All I Need also fits comfortably in a recent tradition of releases that are more concerned with interrogating success and worth than celebrating them. Think of records that ponder what is left when success is no longer an option, or when the finish line keeps moving. This is a song that doesn’t offer solace, but it does offer truth, and that is becoming a rare thing indeed.

There is something rather wonderful about the way that Grey & Purple Songbook resists the temptation to dress up the message of the album. It is a production that stays focused. It is a vocal performance that stays grounded. There is no reaching for drama that has not been earned. It is an album made by people who are comfortable enough in their ideas to allow them to speak for themselves alone.

In an era where so much of the music we are given is designed to be scrolled past quickly, Ten to Fifteen Million’s All I Need asks for your attention, but it asks for it as a favor rather than a command. It asks you to engage with it, to think about it, to let it disturb you a little. Grey & Purple Songbook reminds us that songs are capable of being more than a way of distracting ourselves from the world. 

It is not an album that sets out to change the world in three minutes. It is an album that asks a better question, and then leaves you alone with it. Sometimes, that is the more effective thing to do.