13 February 2007
THE ARDACE FIRE
Oh So This Is The Big Deal
Hype Machine: The Arcade Fire
Just trying to be a responsible internet citizen and all, I actually listened to this new Arcade Fire album and it's often fantastic. Gnothi seauton: I tend to dislike music that really really wants me to like it. Funeral was that way for me, had very specific reactions it wanted from my inner thoracic region, wanted them NOW. The lumbering arrangements I was supposed to mistake for actual anthems, the mostly obvious vocal melodies I was supposed to think understood me, that press sheet bit about how the album was closely informed by the death of a grandparent and an uncle so please please, spare a quarter if you can, etc. The thing played like an hour-long "We Shall Overcome" and you all got snookered.
As for me: Not for not trying! I really tried to like it, which is the cruel part. Funeral liked everyone but me. I know of at least one job I started to lose because this album didn't like me. So I'm happy Neon Bible doesn't seem to have just one possible read to it. There are more entry points. Musically it's nimbler, with a legitimately Bowie-ish drive to songs like "Black Mirror" and, as Sasha ripped it, a Springsteen-but-better drive to Win's lyrics and delivery, less hysterical and more restless. Exhausted but gotta keep going. For me he's more within reach though without being a "working-class hero" or whatever the hell old people fancied the shitty rock and roll they liked in the 70s. Instead he sounds like he's 26 or 27 or however old he is, and he's tired, and he doesn't want to see you at his windowsill. It's like anti-grup music.
At this point I would link to a certain "humorous" Arcade Fire interview I did over at my previous blog Riff Raff for New York's the Village Voice newspaper website, but follow the links and now this is what happens. I'm told that Riff Raff, which had lots of posts and hundreds of thousands of my words, is being switched to a different server with all the other inactive Voice blogs. Not sure what that means, but as of now it has been completely zapped off the internet.
74 RIFFS
// posted by NBS @ 9:00 AM 
Comments:
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the memory hole surfaces yet again. you did read my post right? this might at least be a little helpful.
I don't understand how you can like Neon Bible but not Funeral. I really don't. Interview is hysterical.
I don't understand how you can like Neon Bible but not Funeral. I really don't. Interview is hysterical.
anti-grup music. we need more of that. i mean, somebody just facebook messaged me 'fuck you' because i tagged them 'walking cliche.'
fantastic interview.
fantastic interview.
see i like it too but keep thinking the blue-collar gumption is more "we are the world," only more ambiguously goth.
"...and you all got snookered."
Hahaha, YES! I still think the damn thing is way overrated, though I've come around to the point of enjoying a couple tracks.
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Hahaha, YES! I still think the damn thing is way overrated, though I've come around to the point of enjoying a couple tracks.
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