Arcade Fire: a load of shite?

[The Mollusk]

I remember when the lead single for Reflektor dropped, losing my shit at how much of a groovy slab of post-disco it was. Absolutely loved it. Bit of Bowie singing in there, that awesome minimal piano bit that kicks off the second half, great stuff. Then when the album dropped I was expecting some bloated mess when I saw it was a double album but was pleasantly surprised to find myself really enjoying most of it. This was all especially satisfying as I'd long since drifted away from my early love of 2004's Funeral into thinking it was a load of wet farts. And I never liked Neon Bible even at the time.

So the other day, a good 5 years since I'd last listened to them, I stuck Reflektor on. I knew why it had been so long since I last listened to them. I knew my enjoyment of this album was purely dictated by the time that surrounded it, where my head was at during that time. I knew I was going to be disappointed by this, and I was right. It probably wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the insufferable vocals, the whispery quivery drivel and they "HEY!! YEAH WOO!!" big bits, the shitty lyrics they're singing. The music is pretty good, and in places it's great, but often the songs are just really boring and the big concepts they're reaching for end up falling flat.

I should probably at least try and revisit The Suburbs as I know it's regarded as their best album, but looking back, Everything Now was a crystallised example of all the stuff I don't like about this act. They're everything I could realistically want from a massive stadium-level rock band, with all their grandiose ambition and creativity that sets them leagues apart from shit like Biffy Clyro, and yet in spite of this, I get nothing from them.

A balanced view from this? In a chimp's cock.

[El Unicornio, mang]

Like 'em, although I think their albums could no with some editing. Never listen to any of them all the way through. The Suburbs probably my favourite. Quite liked the last one although there were some really terrible lyrics

Some boys hate themselves
Spend their lives resenting their fathers
Some girls hate their bodies
Stand in the mirror and wait for the feedback
Saying God, make me famous
If you can't just make it painless
Just make it painless

Assisted suicide
She dreams about dying all the time
She told me she came so close
Filled up the bathtub and put on our first record

[Sin Agog]

They've got the same dirgey thing a'gwan as post-'60s Who, U2 and Springsteen and all of these other Power acts.  All of their songs lean on chords so long that they come close to toppling over.  I understand that I am not mentally attuned to appreciate this kind of amelodic, drawn-out songwriting, but they seem a particularly egregious example of it.

[shagatha crustie]

'Boring songs' and 'big concepts falling flat' sums up this band 80% of the time for me. Like I said in the M83 thread, all size and no substance.

The Suburbs is their best album but also the perfect example of the problem. Some really great and intense stuff on there (title track, Ready to Start, Empty Room, The Sprawl), but for some reason they've seen fit to make it about 40 tracks long and for every one good song there's 9 without any tune or ideas in them.

Also didn't Win Butler start insisting that the audience had to wear black tie to their gigs? FUCK. OFF.

[The Mollusk]

Imagine sampling Jonathan Ross introducing your band onto his show and using it on a track on your 4th album when you're already massively fucking famous. Imagine doing that. Not just at the start of the track, no, at the end of it as well. Jonathan Ross.

[PaulTMA]

Have to hand it to them for managing to convince the entire internet that singing one single line from 'Can't Take My Eyes Off You' for 5 minutes, over what otherwise resembles U2 with a piano "sounds like Abba"

[shagatha crustie]

Have just stuck on 'Rebellion (Lies)' for the first time in years though and to be fair it did give me kinda primal mid-00s nostalgia chills, can see why it felt like something huge and important at the time.

[PaulTMA]

Cringed hard when they began wearing those giant masks, when they have no recognisable faces/personalities in the band, outside of their fanbase I imagine.   No matter how much they've tried to tart it up over the years, it's just U2 without the humour or self-awareness.  They should launch their next album via livejournal

[El Unicornio, mang]

Imagine sampling Jonathan Ross introducing your band onto his show and using it on a track on your 4th album when you're already massively fucking famous. Imagine doing that. Not just at the start of the track, no, at the end of it as well. Jonathan Ross.

Win Butler is a massive Nirvana fan, and Jonathan Ross features in a prominent part of Nirvana's Live! Tonight! Sold Out! live video from 1994, wonder if that was an inspiration for his inclusion?

[Bazooka]

I always wondered why bands with three or four members can make much more sonically vast and layered songs than a squad of how many of those Arcade people can, are the instruments broken?

[shagatha crustie]

^Yeah and actually that's another reason I'm not a fan - when they started up everyone was going 'it's so cool, they have a ton of people and they all play, like, violins and stuff!' But they don't use that 'orchestral' element in an interesting or even particularly musical way. It's just thickener. Compared to what, say, Sufjan Stevens was doing for grandiose indie around the same time.

[The Mollusk]

Laughing at these replies, cheers.

[Crabwalk]

Loved Funeral. Saw them at The Astoria when it came out and they just went for it and it was great. Saw them at Brixton on the Neon Bible tour and I started having major doubts about them. The lyrics on that album are naaaaaht good and they were already giving off unpleasant messianic vibes from the stage.

Liked about two songs on The Suburbs and have never returned. Whenever I've glimpsed them since I've cringed.

[shiftwork2]

That could have been my post. Funeral was and still is a beautiful record, Neon Bible was underwhelming and I also liked 2 sounds from The Suburbs (one of which was the Japanese Boy track).

[thugler]

I like them, but yeah all the stuff people have said is very true. Overlong albums with too much pap, and their last one was gash. Reflektor and Neon bible are my favourites of theirs though. Not that suburbs/funeral are bad, but they seemed like more of a standard indie sound at times. Has been a while since i listened to them properly though, took me a while to like them as I remember as well. Then saw them live at some point at a festival and quite enjoyed it.

I'm not not convinced by the criticism that they have all these instruments but aren't doing something symphonic/grandiose with it though, I like the simplicity of it.

[sevendaughters]

things that are between 5 and 15 years old are in the perfect window to be seen as completely uncool, so do be wary of overly hating them.

Funeral was a breath of fresh passionate air when all around were doing gutless sincerity, wanky nu-rave, or irony-bloated retro rock. They were big-sounding and were a nice bit of political positivity around a time where Blair was a spineless turd and Bush was getting back in. Yes it might seem a bit Mojo these days and reeking of self-importance, but I stand by their earlier work.

[sardines]

Would like to say i hated them before it was cool to do so.
The Muse version of indie rock - all bombast and bullshit - but without any hint of self awareness on display.
Sat through a couple of Funeral-era live shows with some big fans and was irritated to fuck with the staged chaos.

[The Culture Bunker]

What seems a lifetime ago, I met (online) a nice lady from Canada who seemed to like me a lot and sent me a bunch of CDs by her nations best bands. Or at least that's what the clerk at the record store told her.

They were 'Set Yourself On Fire' by Stars (very good, still listen to it on occasions), 'He Poos Clouds' by Final Fantasy (meh), something by a band called Metric that didn't do much for me and 'Funeral' by Arcade Fire, which had it's moments but as a whole was barely above average.

I wonder if the "one in four" hit rate of those albums is the reason I didn't ever fly over to Edmonton as she suggested.

[The Mollusk]

What seems a lifetime ago, I met (online) a nice lady from Canada who seemed to like me a lot and sent me a bunch of CDs by her nations best bands. Or at least that's what the clerk at the record store told her.

They were 'Set Yourself On Fire' by Stars (very good, still listen to it on occasions), 'He Poos Clouds' by Final Fantasy (meh), something by a band called Metric that didn't do much for me and 'Funeral' by Arcade Fire, which had it's moments but as a whole was barely above average.

I wonder if the "one in four" hit rate of those albums is the reason I didn't ever fly over to Edmonton as she suggested.

She fucked up massively by not sending you "Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone?" by The Unicorns. Canadian early-noughties noise pop masterpiece.

[The Culture Bunker]

She fucked up massively by not sending you "Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone?" by The Unicorns. Canadian early-noughties noise pop masterpiece.

Well, there you go. Strange to think an assistant at presumably the Canadian version of HMV in Edmonton may well have decided the path my life took from the age of 25 onwards.

[pigamus]

I remember the bloke out of Scritti Pollitti slagging the fuck out of them, it was very funny

[Ferris]

She fucked up massively by not sending you "Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone?" by The Unicorns. Canadian early-noughties noise pop masterpiece.

Or anything by Joel Plaskett.

I think Arcade Fire are great, though the criticisms are valid. Lots of "4 chords, that seems plenty" laurel-resting and taking themselves ever so seriously. They also continually sing about "the kids" despite being in their 40s.

Saw the Unicorns supporting Jeffrey Lewis & the Junkyard waaaay back in the day, great show it was.

[The Mollusk]

Saw the Unicorns supporting Jeffrey Lewis & the Junkyard waaaay back in the day, great show it was.

Very jealous. They had long since disbanded by the time I discovered them. I leapt at the chance to see Alden Penner a few years back, as I've always vaguely liked his other work as a folk musician and with the band Clues, but went in with a fair amount of squinting skepticism because he was performing with Michael Cera, as they were promoting an EP they were releasing together. The gig was, predictably, dreadful. Unbearably twee. Cera doing a deliberately amateurish job of playing the various instruments he was playing, being oh so cute. The right side of the stage was completely packed out with people filming him on their phones. I left about halfway through, couldn't even be fucked to wait and see if they encored with "Jellybones" or owt. Hated it.

[Jockice]

What seems a lifetime ago, I met (online) a nice lady from Canada who seemed to like me a lot and sent me a bunch of CDs by her nations best bands. Or at least that's what the clerk at the record store told her.

They were 'Set Yourself On Fire' by Stars (very good, still listen to it on occasions.

Similar scenario, I was friends with a Canadian woman (I met her on a trip to Toronto and she came over to visit me when she was in Europe later that year) who gave me a copy of this and some other Canadian stuff. Very good from what I recall, although I haven't heard it for years. I'll have to dig it out.

It was a weird one though. We were friends and that was it. She stayed at my place for a few days but nothing went on. She slept in my bed and I was on the couch. I sort of vaguely considered making a move but decided it was not a good idea (distance for a start and then she was about 20 years younger than me. Plus she just didn't seem interested in me that way, which was absolutely fine by me.).

But even after she'd visited we'd spend hours (on occasion all night for me because of the time difference) messaging and occasionally phoning each other. Then she got a boyfriend and I seemed to be written out of history. I have only had very sporadic contact with her since then, on my instigation and with her only sending very short replies. I feel a bit used.

I will dig out that Stars album though. She did copy some other Canadian stuff for me but I can't remember the names of the acts. Something River?

[Jockice]

Ps I don't like Arcade Fire much. Ok in small doses I suppose.

[The Mollusk]

She did copy some other Canadian stuff for me but I can't remember the names of the acts. Something River?

Okkervil River? Although they're not Canadian.

[Purple Toupee]

I've only heard Neon Bible but it's one of my least favourite albums ever, completely rubbed me up the wrong way. Irritating vocals, cringeworthy lyrics and forgettable vocal melodies all round. The one song I liked had nicked the melody from Prefab Sprout's The King of Rock 'n' Roll. Shite.

[Jockice]

Okkervil River? Although they're not Canadian.

That's the ones! I see. I just assumed they were. Didn't investigate them in depth. They were another in my large pile of "OK, but I wouldn't go out of the way to hear them,'' bands.

This incidentally, is the young lady I've mentioned before who was genuinely shocked when I told her that The Tragically Hip were at best a marginal concern in Britain. I actually felt a bit sad about telling her that. But I'm not any more. Sod her.

[peanutbutter]

Liked Funeral, still like Funeral, I think it's suffered from the band doing more stuff after. By itself it was a really nice little thing and the lo-fi production values added to it quite a lot. There's naff bits but it all goes quite well.


Even when Funeral had just come out I imagined the follow up being a pretty depressing more-of-the-same-but-worse type deal (I think Antics by Interpol had just come out too so this was on my mind) and wasn't looking forward to it that much. It 100% lived up to my expectations.
Neon Bible is the worst of the first three for me, it's a retread with more expensive worse production values and almost seems like they set out to strip away the warmth and charm of the imperfections of the first one with. Not a lyrics person in general but it was really quite bad too iirc, as if they decided the shitty but vague lyrics of the first album needed to more on-the-nose shit.
It'd be like if Jeff Mangum followed up ITAOTS 2 years later with a really slickly produced thing where he was taking himself very seriously and spouting the exact same bullshit at he did on that album but a bit more directly... it'd actively harm how I looked at the previous release


Eh... I'd need to revisit it but the Suburbs was a bit of a surprise to me in that it evolved their sound in a way that made some sense and (IMO) actually flowed pretty well. Seemed like a pretty conscious move towards being a bit of an MOR arena/stadium band and I thought it done a pretty damn good job of it, certainly less annoying pretensions than those of the Neon Bible. The National had kinda snatched their position as the critical darling indie group with crossover appeal by that stage though .


In retrospect Reflektor is actively pretty bad. The first single was a strong first single but doesn't hold up so well several years down the line. The other single just makes me want to listen to New Order aiming for similar notes and hitting them way more effectively.
Did it even have a third single? A double album with two songs, only one of which is at all memorable?


Did anyone even listen to the last one?

[sevendaughters]

Neon Bible was ooookay I guess but the best song was on their first mini-album and re-presented (No Cars Go).

I couldn't stand The Suburbs and left it there. Not heard a note since.