Tokyo Police Club, "Frankenstein" vs. The Exploding Hearts, "I'm a Pretender" Winner: "Frankenstein"
Richard & Linda Thompson, "Shoot Out the Lights" vs. The Who, "Substitute" Winner: "Shoot Out the Lights"
Jack White, "Blunderbuss" vs. Talking Heads, "Once in a Lifetime" Winner: "Once in a Lifetime"
Tokyo Police Club, "End of a Spark" vs. my bloody valentine, "Only Tomorrow" Winner: "only tomorrow"
Deer Tick, "The Bump" vs. The La's "I Can't Sleep" Winner: "I Can't Sleep"
Zeus, "Kindergarten" vs. The Who, "Behind Blue Eyes" Winner: "Behind Blue Eyes"
Round one was a bit of a learning experience. For obvious reasons, I had to learn the decision-making process: how do you judge two songs, sometimes completely different, against each other? Is one form of song inherently better than another? Do old songs, with decades of weight and a lifetime of listening, take precedence over recent favourites? Are originals inherently better than covers? On that last point, I find it very regrettable that none of the covers in the competition made it to round two. Those were some very tough calls.
I was pretty sheepish about the message I wanted to send about the nature of this exercise. In one sense it's an idle musing, the equivalent of sitting around in your basement with your buddies and going, "Who or Zeppelin? Floyd or Queen?" I don't mean to insult any song by voting it out. These are all songs I listen to, that I choose to have with me at all time. This is all quality music and worthy of recognition. But in a real sense, they are competing against each other. They're competing for your dollars and your time. The question at the heart of each of these matchups is: Which song would I rather be listening to? Which song could I listen to all day, and which song would I eventually turn to something else? Yes, some of the get by on personal attachment, or legacy, or being more ambitious works (here's to you, "Behind Blue Eyes," which carries all three) but when we listen to music this are factors, they are called up in our heads time and again when we click on these songs. The nebulous qualities a song needs to be better or best, to one man's ears, are all fair game.
The other learning experience was of course that I set way too much of a pace when it came to the literal verbal content of the article. I can't expect myself to write up an entire summary for each matchup, simply because I will end up re-writing the same virtues about each song until they are gone. A lot of these weren't easy, but they were definitive in the end: Talking Heads beating Jack White was one I had to double and triple-check to make sure I felt. Putting "Frankenstein" ahead of "I'm a Pretender" looks, on paper, like I'm putting a somewhat arty, somewhat fancy indie pop composition over a really good ragged pop-punk/power pop song just because one is more serious. -- The Tokyo vs. MBV matchup only seems to confirm this. I don't want it to be true, but maybe it is. But those songs that won had a lot of heart and a lot of great scenery, instead of the raw muscle exhibited by their opponents.
At the end of the round there were only two matches I really agonized over, because in a way both songs in each combo were similar, neither really had the edge:
Gin Blossoms, "Hey Jealousy" vs. Joel Plaskett Emergency, "Written All Over Me"
The Gin Blossoms bring their A-game to this gem, a frothy slacker anthem for the 90s. It's jokey and pleading, a great double-meaning, a song for all seasons. It's basically everything I love about 90s music, and I think that guitar break in the middle is rad. Oh, but Joel. This song has all the heart and humour you could want. His guitar slips from a muscular riff to a acrobatic, even playful, solo. A great example of his mastery of form.
Winner: "Written all Over Me"
Aerosmith, "Moving Out" vs. Arcade Fire, "Ready to Start"
I'm "biased" in the sense that Aerosmith is my on-the-record favourite band, so every song from them is going to get serious consideration. And this is a pretty good song, despite its early place in their discography. I've heard few riffs like it, and its lyrics abstractly amount to, if not philosophy, then certainly a certain kind of poetry. It's dusty, stoned gypsy rock, and it gets absolutely everything right.
That said, I'm not biased, in that I have no stake in the the competition. There's nothing to gain if I advance "Movin' Out" without convincing myself, properly, that it beats a key track from the great Suburbs album, Arcade Fire (or was it the other way around?) From the getgo, "Ready to Start" is a dynamic, gripping track that does a great job drilling directly into your chest. Neither's lyrics are totally straightforward. Once is a call to nature and isolation, one is a reflection on art vs. commerce.
It would be easy for me to pick Aerosmith just because I've been listening to it for decades. It would be easy for me to pick Arcade Fire just to satisfy the need to show that newer songs are on the same level as classics and personal faves. I'm moving Arcade Fire forward to let them fend for themselves against exceptional competition. I know they deserve it. This is a great song, and it's a very lucky thing it wasn't up against "Sweet Emotion."
I've been going a little stir crazy lately. The little elves inside my brain that write my reviews have been fatigued since the new year: despite being flush with great new releases by the likes of Hollerado and David Bowie, not to mention finally getting into Husker Du, it's a little tough getting anything going, as far as writing for this site. I'm reluctant to return to the grind. Then an idea hit me. A really stupid idea, but maybe a fun one.
About a year ago, the entertainment site Vulture ran a series of articles designed to determine the best TV drama of the past 20 years. They used a tournament bracket setup and a panel of esteemed judges. It made for a really entertaining bunch of articles. Every now and again I have thought it might be interesting to find a way to incorporate something like that into SOTW.
So what has happened is that I had iTunes select 32 random tunes from my (active/checked) library: some are things I've covered on SOTW, some are my old personal favourites, some are objective classics and some are recent gems. And maybe some suck but I just happen to have them. Although the idea of pitting entertainments against each other is inherently an incorrect way of looking at it (I cannot stress that enough,) I am nakedly admitting that I'm just doing this for shits and giggles. The song that wins this tournament (be thankful I'm not doing full albums) can't possibly be the literal best song ever. By necessity, it's something that I listen to anyway, and I loves me some music so I'm not going to be too harsh on any of these songs. In doing this, hopefully, it will spotlight a lot of great tunes that haven't come up in regular conversation lately. Let's speed through the first half of our opening round:
Tokyo Police Club, "Frankenstein" vs. Japandroids, "Fire's Highway"
Tokyo was one of the first albums I truly, completely loved after starting this blog, and "Frankenstein" is a fantastic closer to that album, acting as a comedown from the jittery, hooky synth-power-pop, with its mellotronic tones and quivering guitars, and that staggering drumbeat. It's very odd that this competition begins with something that wraps up its original album so completely and satisfactorily.
It's an old favourite versus a new one, though, because Japandroids was one of the best albums of 2012, and "Fire's Highway," with its splashing riffs and thundering drums sums up its qualities succinctly. It's got those echoing, anthemic "oh's" and coarse vocals. "Fire's Highway" is definitely a great piece of an excellent whole, but "Frankenstein" is a complete listening experience on its own. It gets the nod.
Winner: "Frankenstein"
David Bowie, "Love is Lost" vs. The Exploding Hearts, "I'm a Pretender"
In one corner, a dense, pulsing, organ-fueled, moody track from David Bowie's great new album. In the other, a snotty, brash piece of mid-2000s pop punk. You might think you know the answer, but you don't. All things being equal, and the Bowie album being great, its newness works against it, and I haven't had enough time to become as attached to it, especially not this particular song, as I have to the perfectly raucous Exploding Hearts.
Winner: "I'm a Pretender"
Joel Plaskett Emergency, "Penny For Your Thoughts" vs. Richard & Linda Thompson, "Shoot Out the Lights"
Oof. This bracket is a killer. "Penny" is a key part of the terrific concept album that is Ashtray Rock, a cheeky, playful and catchy as hell ode to young love. And "Shoot Out The Lights" is a lumbering, towering freefall of depression and despair. It just hits that sweet spot. I've got to give it to RT, who bring one of my favourite guitar solos ever to this track. I feel like Joel would understand.
Winner: "Shoot Out The Lights"
The Who, "Substitute" vs. Japandroids, "For The Love of Ivy"
The BC Duo face tough competition for the second time tonight, going up against major-minor Who fave, "Substitute." Not the most beloved Who song, but also not my favourite track off Celebration Rock -- if it swapped places with "Fire's Highway" this would be a running battle. In the end, The Who's original takes it over Japandroid's cover. The best Who songs are quirky and weird and hard rocking all at once, and this is no exception.
Winner: The Who
Jack White, "Blunderbuss" vs. The Eels, "The Longing"
Not the closest matchup of the tournament so far, but definitely the most downbeat. The shimmering Nashville Skyline-esque beauty of White's solo debut title track goes up against a free verse poem set to a ghostly waltz by Mark Oliver "E" Everett. And make no mistake, as part of El Hombre Lobo: 12 Songs of Desire (which I'm totally gonna review soon) it's a key track, bringing a deep dimension of pain and despair in its refrain ("Surely there are other things to life / But I can't think of one single thing / That matters more than just to see her...") but "Blunderbuss" is one of the best tracks on one of the best albums of last year.
Winner: "Blunderbuss"
Arcade Fire, "Wasted Hours" vs. Talking Heads, "Once in a Lifetime"
This seems to be a recurring theme: matching songs that are great as part of a complete package against songs that can be listened to at any time in any situation. The Neil Young-tinged "Wasted Hours" is a great part of the overarching sound of The Suburbs, with its dusky-lazily strummed twang. But "Once in a Lifetime" is fucking "Once in a Lifetime!" I don't even need to tell you why it wins.
Winner: "Once in a Lifetime"
Nirvana, "Sliver" vs. Aerosmith, "Movin' Out"
Holy shit, this is regrettable. I have actually said "Sliver" is my favourite Nirvana song. Not always, but I have. It just sums them up so perfectly, their power and poppiness, their angst and perverse humour, writing a punk-grunge song from the perspective of an angsty child forced to stay with his grandparents. "Grandma take me home" is maybe one of the most surprisingly awesome rock lyrics ever (up there with the Pixies' "it's educational!") But look who they're up against. Much to the chagrin of many of my bemused colleagues, I have professed my lifelong love for that band time and again. And "Movin' Out" is not minor Aerosmith, it's got that sinewy riff, those hippie hangover post-psychedelic philosophy class lyrics that are utter nonsense but work better because of it. Rip the heart right out of my chest why don't you.
Winner: "Movin' Out"
Arcade Fire, "Ready to Start" vs. Lit, "My Own Worst Enemy"
Arcade Fire makes its return appearance coming up against one of the biggest rock hits of the 90's. And I love me some 90s rock, but with one of the most dense, subtle-yet-rocking tracks off The Suburbs, the 2011 Best Album Grammy winners take it. That lyrics, "I would rather be alone than pretend I feel all right" just does it for me, man.
Talking Heads, "Take Me To The River" vs. Tokyo Police Club, "End of a Spark"
I think Talking Heads' reading of Al Green's sexual-angst-via-religion "Take Me To The River," as a tightly-wound plastic funk explosion is one of the greatest covers ever committed to tape. And "End of a Spark" happens to be one of my favourite tracks off Champ and a terrific piece of 2010 alt-power-pop. And with both bands already having a slot in Round 2, it's an interesting scenario. If the Heads didn't win, it would be because it's not the even-better Stop Making Sense version but the original recorded version. Or perhaps because there's an inherent push against covers in this contest.
Winner: "End of a Spark"
Aerosmith, "Lightning Strikes" vs. my bloody valentine, "only tomorrow"
Two more different tracks from my iPod, you could hardly find. On the one hand, sludgy early-80s hard rock from Aerosmith's redacted era. On the other hand, a track from My Bloody Valentine's 2013 comeback album, the gauzy, low-fi, moaning, squealing, sighing, shoegaze epic mbv. It's bad enough I gave 'Smith the nod over Nirvana, I know James Leask would flay me if I passed over mbv for this one. Or at the very least, he would cancel my scheduled appearance on his podcast next week. Luckily for him, and mbv, this is minor Aerosmith we're talking about: Joe Perry wasn't even with the band for this album, and while I think it happens to be underrated, it's still not in the same league as one of the best tunes from this terrific album, mbv: I love the way it builds and culminates in that staggering, beautiful riff.
Winner: "only tomorrow"
The Hives, "Hate To Say I Told You So" vs. Gin Blossoms, "Hey Jealousy"
Now here's a matchup: the razor sharp garage punk of early-2000s Hives and the warm fuzzy aw-shucks self deprecation of the Gin Blossoms. It's not an easy win for the Blossoms, but it's a clean one.
Winner: "Hey Jealousy"
Joel Plaskett Emergency, "Written All Over Me" vs. Arctic Monkeys, "Brianstorm"
Joel! So glad you're back. Here we see the opening track from his "Truthfully, Truthfully" album paired against the opening track of Arctic Monkeys' second disc. For me, Favourite Worst Nightmare takes a few tracks to really hit its stride, and "Brian" is an only-okay holdover from the Whatever People Say I Am era. "Written All Over Me," meanwhile, exudes all the charm and wit that permeates all of Plaskett's music, a mischievous, down home chunk of riffage that always gets me going. Great curtain raiser.
Winner: "Written All Over Me"
Deer Tick, "The Bump" vs. Deer Tick, "Chevy Express"
Now here's a wild card. I had never even listened to Deer Tick before a few weeks ago, when someone showed me A.V. Club's Undercover series, featuring a terrific take on one of my all-time favourite songs, Harvey Danger's "Flagpole Sitta." I got the album, Divine Providence, and I liked it, and then moved on. Then my random playlist generator sat these two songs, neither of which I could recall from memory, right next to each other, the only instance in round one of a band going up against itself. So I left it in - and revised my proposed "only one song per band" rule, just to see how it played out. "The Bump" is them at their bar band best, and "Chevy Express" is a more intimate ballad. Both great and for different reasons, but I've gotta give it to the former.
Winner: "The Bump"
Matt Mays, "Indio" vs. The La's "I Can't Sleep"
Matt Mays released a great album in 2012, which I will review soon, and "Indio" is a terrific intro to it, with its dusty, mystic southwestern feel. Against weaker opposition, it might have won, but "I Can't Sleep" is The La's at their peak power, right up there with "There She Goes." Life's not fair sometimes.
Winner: "I Can't Sleep"
The Vaccines, "Wetsuit" vs. Zeus, "Kindergarten"
"Wetsuit" brings to mind tunes like "Favourite Food" from Tokyo Police Club, or Joshua Tree era U2, the way it builds modestly to ignite a towering inferno. It's maybe not as grandiose as all that, but it's a good listen. The first Zeus record was one of my favourite records of 2010, and here's some high spirited madness from them. They edge out the win.
Winner: "Kindergarten"
The Animals, "House of the Rising Sun" vs. The Who, "Behind Blue Eyes"
It could be the case that this entire tournament is a contest to see who gets to come in second to the winner of this match. Based on reputation alone, these might be the two heaviest hitters of the lot, and they are up against each other in round one. "House of the Rising Sun" was my favourite song as a kid: Eric Burdon's voice is so dour and enigmatic and gloomy, and that guitar is just so perfect, as the organ bubbles under the surface before overtaking it completely.
Both these songs have their mystical qualities. The Who has already advanced in this tournament, but not like this. That was early Who, this is mid-Who, Who's Next, post-Tommy, circa Pete Townshend completely losing his marbles in the Lifehouse debacle and coming back with one of the most phenomenal records of all time. "Behind Blue Eyes" is the hypothetical villain song, building to that great climax, this is that band at nearly their best (besides "Baba O'Riley," for sure.) This is the hardest call of the night. What's more, it comes back to that same dilemma: a great single, or a great album song.
Really listening, really thinking about it, hearing the individual strings of Pete Townshend's guitar, the crawling of John Entwhistle's bass, one of Roger Daltrey's best vocal performances, and then that moment when Keith Moon's drums come in. Songs like this are what you're really thinking of when you think of the Who. And it's not even 8 minutes long. It's actually shorter than its hit single opponent. If I could only hear one of these songs ever again, I don't know if I'd pick the same, but tonight, it has to be.
Winner: "Behind Blue Eyes"
So maybe I do have a bias against covers (although "Rising Sun" may as well be an original.) It's quite a selection I have for myself in Round 2. Place your bets and get ready to get disproportionately mad... if you're not already.
I love Arcade Fire, and I feel like their music lends itself particularly well to interpretation. They do a great job creating total packages with their music, but the songs often lend themselves to reinterpretation, so another band can puts its stamp on there.
On the surface, this isn't all that different from the original, but it seems much homier, more Earthbound than the original. Rather than the yearning for the world beyond the picket fence, of Win Butler's vocal, you get the sense of being stuck in place no matter what.
Music can be, and in this day and age frequently is, anything. There are no limits to what can be put on a record, not by genre, lyric, or instrument. You're not beholden to any standard or expectation, not in any important way. You've got nothing holding you back except your imagination, and since you've made it that far, that attribute must be particularly strong. See, that's something music reviews seem to disregard. The most amazing thing about some albums is that they happen at all. Someone made this. They made it to say something, they made it to show themselves, they made it to sound this way. Forget what it could be or isn't. Here we are.
The first half of Arcade Fire's debut album, Funeral, seems to be bursting at the seams with anythingness. Of these five tracks, four are numbered "Neighborhoods." #1, #2 and #3 are all manic, tied together by Win Butler's excitable vocal delivery, more expressive than it is melodic. Like there's simply too much going on in his head and heart than can be rationally related. "Tunnels" is accompanied by a twinkling, swelling piano. "Laika" pulses, setting street-accordion and strings against a clanging guitar. "Power Out" is the most agitated, thundering and percussive, but set against sweet baroque strings. Here, Butler screams himself hoarse, seeming to be against the wall and running out of time (or faith in humanity.) The first respite comes between #2 and 3, a much dreamier and romantic power outage, "Une Annee Sans Lumiere," a bilingual duet between Win and wife Regine, delicate and twinkling like a streetlight on newly-fallen snow, warm like an embrace. "Kettles" provides the closing note for the first half of the album, a campfire strumming ballad of patience and timing, with some of the best lyrics to this point of the album. "Power Out" gets all the glory, but "Kettles" and "Crown of Love" get credit from me for their "eyelids" imagery (My eyes are covered by my unborn kids / But my heard keeps watching through the skin of my eyelids in this one.) The piano and guitar click along like pacing footsteps, while the strings swell up like whistling kettles (as do actual kettles.)
The eyelid imagery carries to "Crown of Love" with one of the best lyrics on the whole record: "I carved your name across my eyelids / You pray for rain, I pray for blindness." "Crown of Love" is a work of staggering beauty, climbing directionally, instead of sprawling like three of the neighbourhoods, or settling into itself like "Kettles" or "Une Annee." The second half of Funeral engages in a lot of building up and breaking down, journeys in certain directions. Both the Arcade Fire albums I've tackled here seem, appropriately, like locations as much as sounds. Places you can visit, explore and leave.
While the first half of the album is good-to-great, "Crown of Love" kicks off an excellent streak that may encompass that entire run of five tracks (depending on your opinion of a few of them.) I love the revving guitars and towering choral refrain of "Wake Up," Win Butler as preacher to the youth ("If we don't grow up / Our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up... I guess they just have to adjust...") In these five, whether you like them more or less than the first five, certainly seem more planned out and steady in their direction, even as they too chart odd directions. There's the Disco segment at the end of "Crown" and "Wake Up" has a Bo Diddley-like segment. "Haiti" is an area of isolation, like an island of its own, as the strumming guitars create an almost unnaturally calm tide, under which danger lurks in Regine's distant, drowning vocals. Waves lap calmly, but the waters are full of blood.
This drifts into the titanic "Rebellion (Lies,)" the arguable centerpiece of the album, probably both the best song, and biggest showpiece for what the band is capable of when it focuses its energies. I don't mean to belittle the earlier half of the album, I wouldn't have changed a note, but there's simply no touching "Rebellion." I often find that the songs I like best are the ones I can describe least, because my appreciation for them goes beyond my ability to verbalize. And for me, that's saying something. The last track, "In the Backseat" ends the album on a suitably operatic note, going from the quietest moment of the album to, if not the loudest, then certainly among the most intense, climbing slowly and unpeeling Regine's emotional vocal.
Looking back, Funeral is an amazing opening gambit. Arcade Fire introduces themselves by roughly defining their sound, and showing what it can really do. The sound is constantly mutating, depending on what needs to be said and how. Importantly, it always sounds like itself. I think there's a definite validity to liking an album that seems to create a language of its own, especially like this one, that doesn't lose its audience along the way. Great music works off what you've already heard, then shows you something you couldn't have dreamed up. That's probably what I love about this album. Somebody had to dream it up, and I can't even imagine how you would do that, and make it work so well.
I once observed that, if you're meeting new people, just mention that you like Arcade Fire. Either they'll agree, and you'll have a new friend, or they'll disagree and you probably won't want to talk to them anymore. (This also works for the TV show Arrested Development.) In its grand design, it has a very unifying feeling to it, something that brings people together.
The opening title track to Arcade Fire's opus is a dusty, nervous wreck of Neil Young-esque negative nostalgia, with every repetition of the "Sometimes I can't believe it / I'm moving past the feeling" seems to sink deeper into itself.
Here, Mr. Little Jeans gives it the Zero 7 treatment, makes it nice and cold and detached, with the almost Stepford sedation of the vocal matching the humming, distorted strings of the backing tracks. It trads in nervousness about growing up for dismay at having settled. It's different yet close.
Two weekends ago, when I finally sat down to listen to Arcade Fire's The Suburbs, an internet person happened to ask me where I was from and how I felt about it. I told her that I was from a suburb of Toronto, and that living here was like being in an emotionally abusive relationship with a really pretty girl: you feel like you could do better, but if you walk away, you'll have to find one. If that doesn't necessarily sum up my feelings about this album, then it surely sums up my feelings about attempting to sum up my feelings about the type of place being described on it. I stared at that question and re-typed my answer for forty minutes before properly replying, and I still didn't feel satisfied. It's tough to really wrap your head around a place that seems oppressive and dull and yet comfortable and welcoming.
All this recursive uncertainty seems in line with the album's intentions: not to pack the idea of the "Suburbs" away into this or that, but to use it as a backdrop against which many peoples' lives -- quiet ones of opportunity and regret -- play out. It could be anything, and it is a lot of things. Ever since that day I've kept revisiting this album, finding myself unable to keep away. It seems so huge, so ominous, yet so familiar even in its strangeness.
Why does it sound so big? Maybe because at times it's willing to sound pretty small. It begins with this nondescript chung-ka-chung riff on the curtain-raising opening track, so homey and down to Earth it's almost not likable. It isn't until the song dissolves into a mantra of "Sometimes I can't believe it / I'm moving past the feeling" that it really starts to grow, become overwhelmed by increasingly-psychedelic guitars that wash up into the sunny skies of the piano backdrop, growing more and more disorienting with each pass. You're starting to get into some serious shit. In places like these all throughout the album, the lyrical narrative and the sound that goes along seems to come off like a ghost story told by flashlight in a tent in the backyard.
The title track bleeds into the first of a few real rippers on the album, the breathless "Ready to Start." The lyrics are chanted at a regular pace, but the guitar moves are so frantic, you can sense the unrest of a teenager eager to get the hell out, a future dad regretting his choices. The song quickly becomes a tornado, and much of the album seems to exist in relation to gathering storms and gathering darkness. Another earlyish highlight is "Rococo," a wringing out of hipster teens that feel too big for their britches in the 'burbs. It's all swimming, anxious strings and stomping rhythmic refrain with a bite. And on and on with atmospheric scene-setters like "Empty Room" and new instant classics like "City With No Children," with its hummable U2-type riff and its almost-singalong chorus (I can imagine someone at karaoke 10 years from now: "Feel like I've been livin' in / A City with no Children in it / A garden left for ruin, uh, buh... da da da da...!")
The song structure and sequencing on this album is remarkable, and is what indicates it is at least attempting to be a great piece of work. I like the structure of the songs on this album: unconventional yet familiar, generally averting verse-chorus-verse-solo, seeming to add together to create a whole rather than chopped-up discrete pop units. They take you down new routes to familiar territory, rearranging their own riffs and lyrics (note the repetition from "Month of May" in "Wasted Hours" as just one easy example.) Lyrics reappear and reconfigure themselves, like houses built from the same plan in different neighbourhoods. Disquieting in their way, because you recognize it as something else. There probably aren't that many different "riffs" or at any rate tunes on this album, yet they work them into such disparate songs and sounds you'd probably not notice. It's fitting, in a way, since it's hard to avoid conformity in the suburbs, where even the nonconformists rebel in unison (admit it.) But you can look at it this way: most film scores work around the same general theme, and The Suburbs is one of the most cinematic albums I've ever heard. It reminds me a lot of Dark Side of the Moon, and you can take that as a compliment or not, depending on your opinion of that album.
The sequencing is unassailable: it rises and falls at its own agenda, like the gloriously serene "Half Light I" and her wild-eyed brother "Half Life II (No Celebration)." Or the somber, doomsaying "Suburban War" followed by the postapocalyptic garage punk pastiche of "Month of May" and then the sentimental yearning of the Neil Youngish "Wasted Hours." It alternates often between old and young, male and female, hopeful and remorseful. Even though my attention tends to wander during this stretch of the album, this effect causes me to never want to skip ahead, because I don't want to disrupt the continuity. So few albums manage to achieve that, even though it should be the goal of all.
The album is capped off by a few more instant classics: the uneasy, raging nostalgia of "We Used To Wait" and the gorgeous, far-beyond-town-limits "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)," an aria masquerading as a new wave single, with its beautiful Regine Chassigne vocal and gesticulating synths, it builds as close as this album gets to a release. A lot of attention gets paid to what-sounds-like-what on this album, and for the record, the whole thing seems to remind me of anything Eno's ever done, (U2, Bowie, even Talking Heads on moments like "We Used to Wait" and "Modern Man," which also brings to mind Smashing Pumpkins' "1979.") It's lushly orchestrated and highly expressive, and makes me think I may have underestimated Owen "Final Fantasy" Pallett, who helped with the string arrangements (and the strings really make this album.) The whole thing, like I said, sounds humongous, which is fitting since when you're in the Suburbs, your meager little problems seem like the most pressing things in the world. Really, that's what this album seems to capture for me about the suburban experience: blowing every little slight and inconvenience so far out of proportion, way beyond rational thought and revealing your severe detachment from real emotional access. The suburbs have produced many great creators, but their creativity was usually borne out of a desire to get the fuck out of the suburbs: this humble (ch'yeah right) reviewer included.
So if, at times, it seems overly morose, overly joyful, overly serious, overly fantastic, that seems to be the point. This is an exaggerated album, to the point where its quiet moments are moments of exaggerated quietness. If I don't always find it the most pleasurable listening experience, I can at least always appreciate its artistic merit. It may not be something you'd put on at a party, but it's definitely something you can sit down with and contemplate. If you put it on in the background, every now and again you'll hear a stray lyric, working on a metaphor or putting a thought together, that makes you stop and tune in, and soon you'll be carried all the way to the end. If you're up for contemplation you'll dig this record, and if you'd rather not, feel free to don't. "Sprawl II" offers "near release," I say, because the album ends with a creepy reprise of the opening track (and is even title "The Suburbs [Continued]") suggesting an inability to escape, like you've finally circled back to your beginning in town. And in a way, that's sadly true, one of the many sad truths the album deals with: you grow up in the suburbs and hate it, you might leave, but then you're likely also to come back and start your own family there.
Whether The Suburbs is a definitive statement about the suburbs themselves, I won't say. It definitely manages to get a great deal of material out of the setting and feelings associated with it. Whether or not I think it's the best thing ever, I can definitely recognize that it's a damn good piece of work, and at the end of this review, I find myself thinking back to what I said when the album won the Grammy award for Album of the Year: this album was the only deserving winner "not in terms of quality, but in terms of effort, creativity and spirit." Here is music with real value: not just a collection of potential hits, but something that took great care and attention to detail to be itself. And it sounds pretty awesome while doing it. Even if you tune out from the lyrics, half or more of the songs will have you bobbing your head excitedly.
It's good music, and of course it doesn't have to be for everyone. But I will say that, if you've checked out a few tracks and are curious, don't hesitate any longer. With this album getting a bit more attention, we may have a mini-Nevermind on our hands, where something enjoyed by a select group can justifiably find wider attention and convert a lot of people who resisted. Myself included.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised that people who are fans of Eminem, Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, etc had/have no idea who The Arcade Fire is. I myself am not overly familiar with their music. I first heard the song "Rebellion (Lies)" in a car full of my hipstery friends in the summer of 2005, right after we'd graduated high school, when I was still very reluctant to get into any current music, underground or otherwise. I thought the song was very good, but never bothered to follow up on it. Years later, I am working in a record store, so yes, I'd better know who Arcade Fire is. A couple nights ago they won the Album of the Year Grammy, an award that apparently millions of people felt they had a stake in. Weird.
I don't have the album yet, but we've had it on in the store so I've at least been able to go through it if not sit down with it the way I like to with new music; so my opinion is a passing one, but one of approval. I'm also fairly familiar with all the other nominees through their singles. Whether I love The Suburbs or not, there's not a shred of doubt in my mind that the right album won that award. I don't think that's a controversial stance for me to take on this blog, considering what I believe my audience to be.
I mean, on the one hand, you've got Katy Perry, who I like least out of all the pop divas to emerge in the last few years, and Lady Antebellum, whose song "'Murkin Honey" should be firebombed straight to hell -- the ghosts of Johnny Cash and Hank Williams should beat the shit out of it for what's become of the Country racks. On the other hand is Lady Gaga's The Fame Monster, which would have stood a better chance if it had been more of a complete album, rather than an expansion of her previous one, which if nothing else provides much confusion to my customers. Lastly is Eminem, which is... I mean, I've said before that I haven't got a critical ear for rap, so people tell me it's good and I believe them, but at the same time it doesn't sound like a return to form as much as it does a safe bet. I could've seen it winning, but it would've been like Scorsese winning the Oscar for The Departed. Nobody seems to believe that was on its own merits.
That leaves Arcade Fire, the band the fans of these artists never heard of, who recorded a work on a level far removed from the others. I mean not in terms of quality, but in terms of effort, creativity and spirit. The very fact that they were nominated seems like an award in and of itself. Them winning is just a little mind-blowing.
But adding to this complexity is the fact that this award more often than not seems to be given to something nobody heard, even though the pop-music fans are the ones most invested. This gives the award, in a way, a measure of legitimacy, of being above popularity. You probably don't know many people who bought Raising Sand by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, or River: The Joni Letters by Herbie Hancock, but they won out over Radiohead, Coldplay, Lil Wayne, Kanye, Amy Winehouse and the Foo Fighters in their respective years. a glance at the history of the award reveals this is often the case, although there will never be a justification for giving it to Blood Sweat & Tears over Abbey Road. Occasionally, what's popular and what's award-worthy does line up, as in the case of Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, or Fearless by Taylor Swift, which won last year by being the least of five evils (the fucking Black Eyed Peas were nominated.)
Anyway. Too often the popular and the artistic are separated in music and held to wildly different standards. I'm also worried that holding them to the same standards is even more dangerous, since considering an album like The Suburbs requires entirely different brand of critical thought from an album like The Fame Monster. There's actually no way to compare them, and the lack of winning this award doesn't invalidate anyone's feelings about their music. Consider the "Best Alternative Album" category, where Brothers by the Black Keys beat out The Suburbs. Maybe it was just more alternative.
If I do end up reviewing the album, there is one thing I want to do: not fall prey to the hype. It's so easy to listen to an album billed as awesome and go in attempting to hear what others have said is there. It's also too easy to go in trying to find what's wrong with it and try to point it out to people. Either way, a review of an album like this, especially so far after the fact, is tricky because it's not going to change anybody's mind either way. But I like to write reviews not to argue with people, but to figure out what I like for myself. So it's still on my to-do list.
And I hope, Grammy or no Grammy, you're true to your own tastes too.
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