Day 263: Arcade Fire – The Suburbs
I’m currently spending too many hours watching garbage television from the early 2010s. Not to sound old, but we really had crap TV perfected in those halcyon days of seasons with 20 episodes that you’d watch for an hour every week – these days, it’s always some crappy Netflix show that’s meant to be binged in a day with your phone in your hand. I just feel like we really savoured things back then. Anyway, I thought I’d go for a 2010s album to accompany my trip down memory lane, so I went with a bit of Arcade Fire.
Album cover courtesy of Merge Records
Arcade Fire is a Canadian indie rock band that was formed in 2001 in Montreal. Founding members Win Butler and Josh Deu had met in high school and started playing together after graduating. They were sneaking into a local university to use their practice spaces where they met music student Régine Chassagne, who they convinced to join the band. Deu said, “We had no music to show her, but she ended up saying yes to joining us, and I don’t know why. Maybe there was a little spark with Win.” The pair got married a few years later.
After gaining a few more members, the band released their debut album Funeral in 2004, which became a massive hit. It became one of the highest-rated albums of all time on Metacritic and earned them a whole lot of attention, including appearances on TV shows and briefly opening on tour for U2. They also had a very respectable subsequent run of six albums where every single one they put out got nominated for a Grammy for Best Alternative Album.
The Suburbs was released in 2010 as their third LP. It was massive at the time, and also became the inspiration of a Spike Jonze short film. I don’t remember listening to the full album, but I did listen to some of the songs from it back in the day, one of which became the subject of the most baffling thing anyone has ever said to me about music: I once put an Arcade Fire song on back in the day and a young man pensively said “Hmm, I didn’t think people actually listened to stuff like this.” I’m still not sure what that means.
There’s something about The Suburbs that sounds so aggressively 2010 but not at all dated, maybe the mix of indie rock with the electronic sound is what makes it such a product of its time. But I don’t mean that in a bad way, it’s a very pure and clean example of a coming of age album that is somehow inherently charming. It was inspired by Win and his brother Wilson’s childhood in The Woodlands, Texas, living in the suburbs in that space between childhood and adulthood.
As much as I enjoy it, the way it evokes the feeling of adolescence almost makes it a bit difficult to listen to at times – I choose to take that as a sign of how good it is. It’s somehow such a well-crafted album that you can’t really help but to go where they want you to go and feel what they want you to feel. The happy-sad feeling of unease that they create on the album is something that’s especially masterfully executed, given the theme of the album.
I’ve got to be honest, I got about 12 songs through before I remembered the allegations of sexual misconduct and sexual assault against Win Butler, and I don’t have time to switch albums today and write something new. It’s bonkers that so many things have come out about so many people that it’s hard to keep track. I’m not really sure where I stand with stuff like this, I guess my blog kind of could constitute promoting someone’s work, and I feel a bit uneasy thinking that something I’ve done could put more money into the pockets of a person who’s accused of abusing the position of power that comes with being the frontman of a massive rock band with a younger-skewing fanbase.
Luckily, though, my blog is not that popular. I also assume that anyone who’s reading a somewhat substandard music blog is already a music fan who’s well versed with Arcade Fire. But maybe that’s a cop out and I should’ve just abandoned this, I don’t know, I need to give this a little bit of thought. The Suburbs is a 9/10.