1) Everything Now (continued); 2) Everything Now; 3) Signs Of Life; 4) Creature Comfort; 5) Peter Pan; 6) Chemistry; 7) Infinite Content; 8) Infinite Content; 9) Electric Blue; 10) Good God Damn; 11) Put Your Money On Me; 12) We Don't Deserve Love; 13) Everything Now (continued).
General verdict: Catchy dance hooks, intelligent message, passable 1977-meets-2017 arrangements. What was the band's name again?..
Well, guess the expected «back to roots»
revival is postponed again. But really, you just know something is not quite
right when the general critical consensus is starting to turn against the
biggest (or, at least, formerly biggest) band of the 21st century — despite the fact that they seem to be
doing everything right. On their fifth LP, Arcade Fire continue to avoid the
trap of whatever passes these days for «rockism», while at the same time trying
to stick to their core values, dreams, and phobias. They even lower their
ambitions a little, sensing that, perhaps, Reflektor
might have shot too high and mighty with
its art-for-art-sake conceptualism, sprawling song lengths, and bombastic
arrangements. Result? This band is lost.
As in, literally lost in the forest.
"Looking for signs of life / But there's no signs of life / So we do it
again" — this verse just about perfectly describes the state they are in
at the moment.
Ironically, Everything Now is not a «bad» record at all, not if by «bad» we
mean «boring». Its dance-pop stamp is now so solemnly official, they actually
take care to attach an unforgettable melodic or vocal hook to nearly each of
the tracks — they are perfect for club consumption, so perfect that the title
track became their biggest selling single to date. In terms of pure listening
enjoyment, I cannot honestly recognize that it is a step down from the level of
Reflektor. But if we are talking
about music that is supposed to transcend run-of-the-mill mediocrity on any
given level, then Everything Now fails
on all counts. It is not a genuine Arcade Fire record — and neither is it a
respectable, top-of-the-line dance-pop record. And perhaps it fails on both
these counts precisely because it
tries to be both at the same time.
Structure-wise, the album takes it cue from The Wall: ʽEverything Nowʼ is present
here in two versions (a fast-danceable and a slow-ceremonial one), the second
of which is broken in two segments so that the second one is at the beginning
of the album and the first one is at the end. But if Pink Floyd at least made a
point with this gimmick (implying that walls are only torn down to be built up
again), Arcade Fire, whose song cycle here is hardly a rock opera, just make a
gimmick with this gimmick. It does make you want to try to take this cycle seriously: after all, we have a ten-year
history of taking this band seriously, so why stop now?
Unfortunately, as soon as the dance-pop version
of ʽEverything Nowʼ invades your personal space, taking it seriously requires a
lobotomy. So here is this song about oversaturation — Win Butler is complaining
about how "every song that I've ever heard / is playing at the same time,
it's absurd" and how "every room in my house is filled with shit I
couldn't live without". These are valid points, I am ready to admit this
without irony. But what do they have to do with an old-fashioned disco beat,
underpinning a piano line that sounds like a porn parody version of ʽDancing
Queenʼ? Why are they once again flogging that old horse — dropping subliminal
anti-consumerist messages inside one of the most consumer-oriented media ever?
How is this ironic rant against the illusory comforts and fake pleasures of
modern life going to work in the context of music that brings about visions of
leisure suits and mirror balls?
Okay, so they did it before, so they do it
again. But here comes the worst part: this music no longer requires the Arcade
Fire logotype. The collective power of the band that once rocked the world down
with its multi-instrumental onslaught on tracks such as ʽPower Outʼ, ʽBlack
Mirrorʼ, or ʽReady To Startʼ, is no longer felt. Everything and everybody is faceless
and replaceable here, and that concerns Win and Regine as well: their voices
are losing individuality, merging with everything else behind a wall of effects
— I am pretty sure they would explain this as a symbolic representation of the
loss of individuality by modern man as such, but hey, I'd be more than happy
seeing the two play Winston and Julia in the face of Big Brother, and they sure
as hell would be capable of that, so why don't they?
Or perhaps the worst part is that every now and
then, the album descends into genuine boy-meets-girl stuff without any hints of
irony — Win does this with ʽChemistryʼ, a synthpop-rockabilly exercise in
sexless sexuality, and Regine with ʽElectric Blueʼ, a song that re-casts her in
her old ʽSprawl IIʼ role as dance-pop forest nymph but completely misses the
mark by glossing over her vocals and going for commercially cute seductiveness
rather than an atmosphere of exuberant freedom, which was all over ʽSprawl IIʼ.
And I like ʽElectric Blueʼ: I think
its hooks are among the album's best. But there is like a million dance-pop
bands today that could have come up with something like that; why should the
authors of Funeral want to lose
themselves in that crowd?
All right, so they do not want to be Winston
and Julia, so perhaps they really want to be Wendy and Peter Pan, and this is
why they dive into the world of twee and retreat to the sonic comforts of the
Eighties — the last great decade of hedonistic innocence. But in that case,
what's up with all the dread and despair that still keeps cropping up? ʽGood
God Damnʼ seems to be about suicide; ʽCreature Comfortʼ is about crumpling
under all the insane social pressure; ʽPut Your Money On Meʼ tells the lover to
"tuck me into bed, and wake me when I'm dead". The album is tearing
itself apart with these extremes, which never really feel at home with each
other. And it seems that at least one of the extremes itself has more to do
with crumpling under social pressure than with honoring the artistic message of
Arcade Fire — because, honestly, all those years ago, when the band was just
emerging from under the protective post-rock shadow of God Speed You! Black
Emperor, who would have guessed that they would eventually morph into such casual
disco revivalists?..
The real bad news is that while the record has
certainly sold well and has managed to certify the casual man, Everything Now is going to irritate the
hell out of the thinking parts of the audience on both sides. Young optimists
will kick it for being too grumpy and complaining too much about the young
optimists and their "infinite content, infinite content, we're infinitely
content" attitudes. Old pessimists will despise it for pandering to the
mindless dance instincts of the crowds (and that's not counting all those
glitter suits that Arcade Fire like to sport nowadays just because, you know,
nothing is more anti-establishment than draping yourselves in establishment). This
semi-sell-out is, in fact, even more treacherous than a complete 180 degree
turnaround; and nothing is more illustrative of it than the current shamefully
low rating that the album enjoys on RYM.
I cannot put the blame on individual songs,
though. Three listens into the album and I have them pretty much memorized —
quite an achievement, actually. But what is the good of memorizing something if
there is no emotional satisfaction? There were three things I used to love
about Arcade Fire — Win Butler as the tormented prosecutor, Regine Chassagne as
the newly born child of the universe, Arcade Fire as a multi-elemental unstoppable
force of nature. And we may have Everything
Now if you say so, but of all those three, the record only retains broken
shards of the tormented prosecutor, whose regular job now consists of singing
about how "you and me, we got chemistry".
Perhaps it's all intentional, perhaps it's all
for our good. Perhaps, they say, these
are the musical forms that are most accessible for today's new generation of
consumers, and perhaps there are certain trends that you just have to follow if
you want to ensure that your message of hope, faith, and warning gets spread
around. And, of course, this is far from the first time that an artist has sold
his soul to the machine in order to expose the machine; in fact, some artists
have managed to do this quite brilliantly over the course of pop history. Arcade
Fire, however, do this crudely and unconvincingly. And now, as they approach
the fifteenth year of their existence, they also tend to sound more and more
like grumpy old men (dressed in leisure suits) rather than the prophets of the
young generation that they were at the time of Funeral. Will they ever make a meaningful comeback? Possibly — the
problem is, by the time they do, the world will most likely have already
written them out of its plus-ça-change
history. They came, they amazed, they adapted. Next position, please.
Great review, George. Spot on, all the way through.
ReplyDeleteOmg, excellent review! Hats off, George.
ReplyDelete