Tuesday, August 24, 2010

You are running out of steam.

After giving it an afternoon to think it over, I think I like Funeral better than The Suburbs when it comes to Arcade Fire.

An issue I've noticed a lot of bands have is they fall into "Every track sounds the same" syndrome. It's hard to describe, but basically it's when you're listening to a CD on repeat and instead of really getting any sense of it, it just sort of devolves into noise because there's nothing really impressive about it. Occasionally one song or a line or two might stick out, but in general the whole thing is sort of... bland. I never found Funeral to have this problem, but The Suburbs definitely falls into this.

Am I the only one who thinks it's weird for a Canadian band to sing about American politics and pathos from the perspective of an American teenager, especially when the band members are in their late twenties/early thirties?

I can easily think of a bunch of bands that hit their stride and put out albums that don't all sound alike. The Killers' Sam's Town is this. Considered it was followed up with Day and Age, it wasn't a fluke. The Decemberists can oscillate wildly within one album, and I wouldn't have it any other way. It's just that after the brilliance that was Funeral, The Suburbs feels like a regression. I like it okay, but I haven't found any new favorite songs on here.


For the record, this is my favorite Arcade Fire song.

1 comment:

  1. Ahh I agree so much with this. I listened and relistened to Suburbs. There are 4 songs I really like on it and the rest is basically white noise. Granted those songs are great but I was kind of hoping for more

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