Arcade Fire

[Mike]

The audience stuff on this record is cool with me because they've built this whole "The Reflektors"-disco-live band-shtick as a build-up for this album.

[Soma.]

Eddie Vedder has sucked ass as a vocalist for at least 10 years.

Good night.

[stip]

Shorter.

I like you, bro. But it is becoming increasingly apparent that you've never picked up a fucking instrument in your life. Not all songs are perfect capsules of formula. You're tearing me apart, Lisa.

Was I expecting them to be?

[stip]

The audience stuff on this record is cool with me because they've built this whole "The Reflektors"-disco-live band-shtick as a build-up for this album.

yeah, I think that's dumb, and ergo...

[stip]

Here's a six and a half minute disco inversion that I love

[stip]

The vocalist/vocals are the most important factor in deciding whether i'm gonna love something or not. It's not the only factor, but it's the most important. And I usually (not always) don't care for Win Butler. Put Mark Lanegan behind this shit and i probably think most of it is pretty great.

[stip]

I kinda want to give the suburbs another chance now.

[harmless]

The audience stuff on this record is cool with me because they've built this whole "The Reflektors"-disco-live band-shtick as a build-up for this album.

Yeah, that's very true and somehow I'd forgotten. They've got cartoon alter-egos, so crowd noise etc.

[stip]

And for some reason the idea of a band having cartoon alter egos, EVEN if it is Arcade Fire doing it, seems pretty stupid to me.

Either

A: they're really into it

or

B: they want to see how far along their fans will follow.


Neither of these options is particularly appealing.


Again, this is the only part of this album that I think is flat out bad.

[harmless]

I feel like I heard the suburbs a few weeks ago on Harmless's recommendation.

This is fun at the start. I like the music. Not crazy about Win. Not sure about the chorus. I wish this one was shorter.

Less so than Half Light, but this would also be a song I'd be fine with as a linking song on a stronger record. Many of their songs feel like chains looking for an anchor.


I've never looked that closely at their lyrics, but the bits that jump out at me I find a little too judgmental. Like they're railing at a world where not everyone is gonna like Arcade Fire.

What? Really? Why? Couldn't you say exactly that about Pearl Jam? Well, people have.

[stip]

You probably could, and it would make sense that people who felt that way wouldn't be into pearl jam.

[LetMeSleep]

I have to give credit for them jumping in with both feet here. No half assed record, they went the whole way. Just like Arctic Monkeys did on AM. I wish PJ had such commitment to an album/project.

[Mike]

I kinda want to give the suburbs another chance now.

Do you like Intervention of Neon Bible?

[stip]

I feel like I heard the suburbs a few weeks ago on Harmless's recommendation.

This is fun at the start. I like the music. Not crazy about Win. Not sure about the chorus. I wish this one was shorter.

Less so than Half Light, but this would also be a song I'd be fine with as a linking song on a stronger record. Many of their songs feel like chains looking for an anchor.


I've never looked that closely at their lyrics, but the bits that jump out at me I find a little too judgmental. Like they're railing at a world where not everyone is gonna like Arcade Fire.

What? Really? Why? Couldn't you say exactly that about Pearl Jam? Well, people have.

But the difference, for me, is that for the most part Pearl Jam's lyrics stayed away from the 'white suburban 1st world problems' well, even if that's who was mostly lapping them up. Maybe it's because Eddie grew up poor. Maybe it's because their social commentary was more political than it was social.

I feel like that that's where Arcade Fire is drawing its water. And when they start to get into the minds of the people living in there I feel like they don't necessarily understand the people they don't like. It feels condescending, in a way that someone like Springsteen (who was a master at this, to be fair), never was. That he could see the world through other people's eyes and so could find the humanity in them even when he didn't approve of them. There is sympathy maybe, but not empathy


Too many arcade fire lyrics feel like Unemployable, and not enough like The River.


My impression, anyway. Wyn's voice exacerbates this impression.

[stip]

I kinda want to give the suburbs another chance now.

Do you like Intervention of Neon Bible?

that's the organ song, right? I like parts of it.

[Mike]

I kinda want to give the suburbs another chance now.

Do you like Intervention of Neon Bible?

that's the organ song, right? I like parts of it.

Yup. I always thought that is one of Arcade Fire's most likable songs. I love that one.

[stip]

Listening to Intervention now. I like the music, and the verses for the most part. Don't like the chorus. Again, I hear (unintentional) condescension more than understanding, and sympathy more than empathy--like someone who has read about these experiences but doesn't understand them

[stip]

I suspect one of the reasons I'm more drawn to deeper voices is that they often feel more lived in, which makes it seem like their experiences are more authentic.

[stip]

I'm poking around on The Suburbs. Wasted Hours is decent. Another one I'd like a lot more if someone else was singing it.


I think another issue I have with Arcade Fire is that their grand gestures (and their songs are full of them) feel too calculated to me.

[Mike]

(About Intervention) Are the lyrics your problem with the chorus or do you not like it overall? I'm not a lyric centric person at all and with english not being my first language I often don't concentrate on them at all. It would be interesting to know if that would be different for me if all the music I love would be in german. It's not that I don't understand what is being sung in english music, I just don't automatically think about what is being sung. When I hear german music I tend to think lyrics suck much faster.