RTP-area local music and culture

[grady <grady AT ibiblio.org>]

If your favorite CD review site couldn't be bothered to at least attempt 
to understand the very real appeal that the band has, then they're doing 
you a disservice. It's easy to take pot-shots at bands, and much moreso 
if they're popular, but for a band like the Arcade Fire, who are on a 
tiny label with a similarly tiny promo budget, to get as huge as they 
did based on their debut album and their live shows, there's clearly 
*something* at work there, and any critic who expects to be taken 
seriously should at least make an attempt to suss that out.

(Though I do find it amusing to see a "critic" who apparently expects to 
be taken deadly seriously while simultaneously dismissing a band as an 
"overhyped critics' fave" . . .)

I'm not suggesting (not at all) that they have to *agree* with the 
furor, or even fully comprehend its roots, but to just dismiss it 
out-of-hand just makes them look silly. A band can sell a certain # of 
records based on critical acclaim alone (and I'd wager that number is in 
the low thousands). A band can sell a whole lot more records based on a 
massive wall of expensive promo-machine hype, but in the case of 
_Funeral_, they certainly didn't have that going for them. If you can 
figure out how to factor out Pitchfork (and I dunno if anybody really 
knows the actual impact of a good Pitchfork review), I think _Funeral_ 
fits the classic definition of an old fashioned word-of-mouth success 
story. It's the kind of record that somebody plays for you, and you go 
out the next day & buy it.

Chris Rossi is definitely correct: _Funeral_ is where the furor began, 
and it's definitely a much more immediately compelling/polarizing album. 
I think it would fit your Radiohead test-case, in other words. (It's 
also certainly a much better record than the damn Clap Your Hands Say 
Yeah album, which comes much closer to maybe being a hype-related 
flash-in-the-pan.)

I found _The Neon Bible_ pleasant enough, though once this phrase popped 
into my head, it was hard to shake it back out: "Bruce Springsteen & the 
Bunnymen." I think the arrangements, recording, and performances are all 
less interesting than those on _Funeral_; I haven't listened to it 
enough to be able to address the songwriting. I will definitely 
sympathize with you, and all the other people, I guess, who never heard 
_Funeral_ and picked up this one expecting to be blown away. But then I 
guess you didn't actually buy either album, so no harm done, right?

Ross

p.s. try going here & listening to "Wake Up" and "Laika," which will 
give you a pretty good idea of what's got people so hot-and-bothered. 
The videos are pretty fun, too: 
http://www.mergerecords.com/band.php?media=true&band_id=98


Baby Messy wrote:
> I watched them on SNL the other week and thought..."this is it?...why 
> all the hype?" and I really thought I was missing something in my old 
> age. I mean, as soon as you heard Radiohead you KNEW, love it or hate 
> it, that there was something special there. So maybe I needed to dig 
> deeper, and through the magic of Youtube, etc. I tried. Lord I tried.
>
> My fave CD review cite, warr.org, reviewed them thusly:
>
> Arcade Fire, Neon Bible (2007)
> I wanted to get this warning out as quickly as possible: this Montreal 
> indie septet is possibly the worst, most overhyped critics' fave band 
> I've ever heard. I mean, at least the guy from TV On The Radio can sing. 
> Lead "singer" Win Butler has no range or projection - he sounds like Lou 
> Reed without the accent - and he's probably the best thing about the 
> group. Pretension factor is through the roof with turgidly deep lyrics 
> (title track) and pompous orchestrations (the pseudo-Springsteen "Black 
> Wave, Bad Vibrations"). Meanwhile, musicianship is beneath the 
> floorboards, with rote chord progressions ("Keep The Car Running"; 
> "Antichrist Television Blues") and plodding tempos ("Intervention"; "My 
> Body Is A Cage") - the band members play a zillion different 
> instruments, but find nothing interesting on any of them. The two 
> passable tunes are the typically overblown "No Cars Go" and the uptempo 
> Franz Ferdinand-style rocker "The Well & The Lighthouse": they're still 
> worthless melodically but at least have some energy. (DBW)
>
>
> So whew. I'm not insane. Drinks on me!!!!
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