The year's first MUST HAVE album (or, the first that I've heard) is Arcade Fire's Neon Bible, the follow up to their exceptional debut Funeral. It's sort of amazing. It's sort of stunning. It's the sort of the album that will be hailed as a masterpiece in 20 years time because people don't like using that word for new stuff. It's the sort of the album with songs that lesser and greater artists will be covering after the same amount of time. It's the sort of album that has jungle beats and organs and you don't bat your eyes and question the logic of said musical choices. It's the sort of album that channel's Bruce Springsteen, New Order and U2 yet still sounds wholey original, fresh and personal. It's the sort of album where you don't want to skip any tracks. It's the sort of album I wish artists would listen to and try to mimic because I'd rather albums that sound like this than albums that sound like that, even though they're sort of very similar. It's the sort of album that everyone will want to claim as their own because it's so intimate and emotionally switched on. It's sort of brilliant.
Go out now and buy it, please. You owe it to yourself. And also, go back and listen to Funeral. You've probably forgotten how amazing that was too.
3 comments:
Glenn, we agree on some music! Wowsers!
Seriously, it is terrific and I've been listening to it pretty much nonstop since stealing it online a couple of moths ago I mean buying it legally when it was released.
Anyway, I have to say that there is one track I don't like after all this listening, and it's "Antichrist Television Blues" (genius title though) - it sounds way too Springsteen to me; I think it crosses the line from borrowing into mimicking.
Otherwise, all genius. "No Cars Go" is BRILLIANT.
I agree that "(Antichrist Television Blues)" - the parenthesis are part of the title for some reason - is the album's weakest. But when a song like that is the weakest then I can't really complain.
It is very very Springsteen though. Like, incredibly so. Listen to this and, hmmm, probably "The Ties That Bind" (from The River) and they sound very identikit. But, considering Bruce is GOD and the greatest musician to ever exist, well... I can think of a few worse people for them to imitate.
(BTW, we'd probably agree more on music, but it's just that lately so many artists of particularly genres (the ones you seem to like - loners with guitars!) blur into one another that I don't get as excited about them and thus don't post about them.)
Oh, and yeah, "Cars Go By" is just flatout genius. I do love the quasi-'80sness of "Black Wave / Bad Vibrations". It's like some warped cross between Echo and the Bunnymen, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Springsteen's Tunnel of Love album. Or... that's the best example I can give.
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