Arcade Fire

[stip]

The lyrics plus his delivery.

Working for the church
While your family dies
You take what they give you
And you keep it inside
Every spark of friendship and love
Will die without a home
Hear the soldier groan, "We'll go at it alone"


I don't like the 'working for the church while your family dies' lyric but maybe I'm taking the church lyric too literally. I think cheap shots like that are usually lazy, and there is a know-it-all-quality to his voice that magnifies the problem. Like I can picture everyone high fiveing each other for sticking it to religion after that lyric.



I realize more and more that my primary issue is just that I often don't like Win Butler as a singer-that there's something about his voice that sets me against most of their material. There are certainly times it works for me, but they're in the minority.

[EJ]

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.

I think you'd like We Used To Wait.

[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.

I think you'd like We Used To Wait.

is this serious or sarcastic?

[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.

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.

I think that's fair. There are definitely people out there who feel that their cynicism (they're a cynical band, and I like cynicism) is too harsh, and slightly hypocritical. One review I read picked up the fact that the hipster kids being trashed in a song like "Rococo" are some of Arcade Fire's very own fanbase. But I think they're fully aware of this, as a band. And I think they at least partly exist to critique it from the inside. As I say, on this album they know a lot of what they're doing is in "bad taste". I don't KNOW that they know, but I feel that they know by listening to the overblown excess of the music. I think it's so deliberate this time because they haven't always been guilty of it. On previous albums, there have been examples of very gentle and unassuming music alongside the bigger statements. You could probably make some parallels with Pearl Jam, who, even if you don't like their newer Backspacer-esque "fun" songs, are undoubtedly doing an intentionally different kind of thing than they used to. You could probably argue that songs like MYM have the same issue you were speaking of, where Ed is using a soapbox to angrily and cynically critique people he probably mixes with daily, given his station in life.

[EJ]

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.

I think you'd like We Used To Wait.

is this serious or sarcastic?

I was being serious.

[harmless]

Also, I find it staggering that you would think Arcade Fire's songs are "calculated", as a huge Backspacer fan. That's not a dig at you or Backspacer, either.

[harmless]

The lyrics plus his delivery.

Working for the church
While your family dies
You take what they give you
And you keep it inside
Every spark of friendship and love
Will die without a home
Hear the soldier groan, "We'll go at it alone"


I don't like the 'working for the church while your family dies' lyric but maybe I'm taking the church lyric too literally. I think cheap shots like that are usually lazy, and there is a know-it-all-quality to his voice that magnifies the problem. Like I can picture everyone high fiveing each other for sticking it to religion after that lyric.

I'm a Christian and I don't find that song, or that verse, too aggressive at all. I think it's true of fundamentalism. There are people dying because we're all trapped in a building worshipping our best buddy Jesus.

[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.

I think that's fair. There are definitely people out there who feel that their cynicism (they're a cynical band, and I like cynicism) is too harsh, and slightly hypocritical. One review I read picked up the fact that the hipster kids being trashed in a song like "Rococo" are some of Arcade Fire's very own fanbase. But I think they're fully aware of this, as a band. And I think they at least partly exist to critique it from the inside. As I say, on this album they know a lot of what they're doing is in "bad taste". I don't KNOW that they know, but I feel that they know by listening to the overblown excess of the music. I think it's so deliberate this time because they haven't always been guilty of it. On previous albums, there have been examples of very gentle and unassuming music alongside the bigger statements. You could probably make some parallels with Pearl Jam, who, even if you don't like their newer Backspacer-esque "fun" songs, are undoubtedly doing an intentionally different kind of thing than they used to. You could probably argue that songs like MYM have the same issue you were speaking of, where Ed is using a soapbox to angrily and cynically critique people he probably mixes with daily, given his station in life.

That's entirely possible with Reflektor--that the whole record is a grand exercise in self-critique. But if so that makes it a fan's record (and quite pretentious), and so it makes even more sense that someone from the outside would be put off by it.

Regarding MYM--I think that's a fairer critique of a song like Getaway, and I'm not in love with those lyrics for that reason. However, I feel like that is a song that goes after fundamentalism more than religion, and so I'm a bit more sympathetic. The voice helps cushion the blow, too. I think Mind your Manners is a really interested and for the most part well written song because I don't really hear it is a critique of religion. I hear it as a song about engagement and commitment, and so the critique of religion is contextualized in a more unusual, intelligent, and interesting way. It's more than 'look at the stupid things these idiots believe.'

[harmless]

Basically I think that verse is succinctly put, but not a cheap shot.

[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.

I think you'd like We Used To Wait.

is this serious or sarcastic?

I was being serious.

It wasn't bad. The Suburbs is the Arcade Fire I like the most. It is full of lots of songs that weren't bad. It didn't have enough songs that were great to elevate it. Like The Suburbs or Halflight, it would be a good song to serve as buffer between two more important songs.

[stip]

Basically I think that verse is succinctly put, but not a cheap shot.

fair enough.

[stip]

Also, I find it staggering that you would think Arcade Fire's songs are "calculated", as a huge Backspacer fan. That's not a dig at you or Backspacer, either.

I don't think Eddie vedder has a calculating bone in his body. I think there are times Backpsacer is awkward, but always sincere

[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.

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.

I think that's fair. There are definitely people out there who feel that their cynicism (they're a cynical band, and I like cynicism) is too harsh, and slightly hypocritical. One review I read picked up the fact that the hipster kids being trashed in a song like "Rococo" are some of Arcade Fire's very own fanbase. But I think they're fully aware of this, as a band. And I think they at least partly exist to critique it from the inside. As I say, on this album they know a lot of what they're doing is in "bad taste". I don't KNOW that they know, but I feel that they know by listening to the overblown excess of the music. I think it's so deliberate this time because they haven't always been guilty of it. On previous albums, there have been examples of very gentle and unassuming music alongside the bigger statements. You could probably make some parallels with Pearl Jam, who, even if you don't like their newer Backspacer-esque "fun" songs, are undoubtedly doing an intentionally different kind of thing than they used to. You could probably argue that songs like MYM have the same issue you were speaking of, where Ed is using a soapbox to angrily and cynically critique people he probably mixes with daily, given his station in life.

That's entirely possible with Reflektor--that the whole record is a grand exercise in self-critique. But if so that makes it a fan's record (and quite pretentious), and so it makes even more sense that someone from the outside would be put off by it.

Regarding MYM--I think that's a fairer critique of a song like Getaway, and I'm not in love with those lyrics for that reason. However, I feel like that is a song that goes after fundamentalism more than religion, and so I'm a bit more sympathetic. The voice helps cushion the blow, too. I think Mind your Manners is a really interested and for the most part well written song because I don't really hear it is a critique of religion. I hear it as a song about engagement and commitment, and so the critique of religion is contextualized in a more unusual, intelligent, and interesting way. It's more than 'look at the stupid things these idiots believe.'

I don't think the verse you quoted goes after religion in its entirety, though, just because of the "working for the church" line. Because fundamentalists are "working for the church", or they think they are. Out of context, it's a pretty big thing to mention the church so explicitly, but in context, there's a particular kind of religion being addressed. I agree with you regarding the "fan album" thing, by the way.

[stip]

so what do you think intervention is about? These are songs I've never thought deeply about except for Wake Up, which is heartbreaking.

[stip]

I also think Wake Up can be a serious contender for best song of the last decade, so maybe part of my problem is that I want them to write another Wake Up

[harmless]

Also, I find it staggering that you would think Arcade Fire's songs are "calculated", as a huge Backspacer fan. That's not a dig at you or Backspacer, either.

I don't think Eddie vedder has a calculating bone in his body. I think there are times Backpsacer is awkward, but always sincere

I'm missing what you mean when you use the word "calculated", then. I thought you meant contrived, structurally and aesthetically, which lots of Backspacer is. What you probably meant is cold, cynical, sarcastic, as opposed to sincere and maybe even "warm". Is that right? I think that's a false dichotomy, as I think sarcasm, cynicism etc. can be just as sincere and emotional as, well, "sincerity". But I know you don't agree because we disagree about Riot Act. (And yet, we agree about Vitalogy, but maybe that's because Vitalogy has plenty more outward-focussed, unashamedly emotional moments to balance out the irony and sarcasm.)

[stip]

I don't mean cynicism. Contrived comes closer, but there's too much baggage there.

[stip]

I also don't think Riot Act is an unemotional record. I just think it's a defeated record, and that's not an emotion I think pearl jam does well.

[harmless]

so what do you think intervention is about? These are songs I've never thought deeply about except for Wake Up, which is heartbreaking.

"Intervention" -- the word itself conjures "divine intervention" and also "political / military intervention", which is just perfect, as to me the song is all about the politicisation of religion as a tool to oppress people, at home and in other countries. We use God as a military badge, and we go out and "Fight The Good Fight" while our own countries, our own families, are in tatters. That's what I think the song's about, and so I don't think it's attacking me, or the kind of Christian I am.

And the song fits so perfectly on Neon Bible for all that. It's basically a great concept album.

[stip]

Look Zeb. I helped add 7 pages to the Arcade Fire thread!