The go-to company for all things immediately.

August 4, 2017 8:48 AM

Everything now has cut out the middlemen, absorbed competitors, and dodged anti-trust violations in order to bring savings to you on billions of products that matter.

previously on mefi

posted by mysticreferee (16 comments total)

Is this where we talk about our current thoughts on the album? I think it's good but, much like Reflektor, it suffers as an album from the execution of the theme. The weakest tracks for me are also the tracks that seem like they're trying hard to be clever (Good God Damn and the various Infinite Contents). Also one track is entirely ruined by pan flutes. But "Put Your Money On Me" and "Electric Blue" are now among my favorite Arcade Fire songs.



But seriously, no pan flute solos please.
posted by cyphill at 9:12 AM on August 4, 2017

I like it more than Reflektor because it doesn't look like they were doing a bunch of coke on the studio and thinking "YES ANOTHER MASTERPIECE ADD IT TO THE ALBUM" and ended up with an album well north of hour of fluff and (surprisingly) very shitty production that apparently didn't know when a song should end.

For all the "downfall of Arcade Fire" pitchfork et all are doing, it has started with The Suburbs, and hit a really low low with Reflektor, but heavens forbid, saying something James Murphy has touched didn't turn to gold is like the ultimate sin for some people.
posted by lmfsilva at 9:36 AM on August 4, 2017 [2 favorites]

Everything Now the song is great. Everything Now the album is terrible.
posted by oulipian at 9:47 AM on August 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

There's a small vibe of "the last days of Disco" that's been bubbling around the music scene, with disco beats, harmonies, and '80s synths. (The closing refrain of Paramour's Hard Times is what brought it to my attention.) It's very a very weird musical time and place to revisit, and I think it's neat - "Signs of Life" is a great example. My kid loves it as her two favorite types of music are "old disco and new pop," and she's already memorized most of it.
posted by Slap*Happy at 10:12 AM on August 4, 2017

The Colbert schtick was cute, but couldn't someone have handed them a WALL-E DVD before they really got down to work?
posted by JoeZydeco at 10:23 AM on August 4, 2017

I still can't wrap my head around how a band I was really starting to enjoy (they went from not bad to terrific for me with The Suburbs ) hooked up with one of my favorite musicians (James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem) and instantly became deadly fucking boring. Maybe I was never a real fan and that one album just caught me at the right time.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:39 AM on August 4, 2017

The Arcade Fire are the Cirque de Soleil of faux-folksy indie, down to the grandeur and ponderosity.
posted by acb at 10:42 AM on August 4, 2017 [1 favorite]

abc: Yeah, by calling them "faux-folksy" you kind of tip your hat that you don't know what you are talking about since their last two albums (and most of the last four) have primarily played with different sounds (mostly dance, Haitian music and traditional rock music). But please, come into music threads and lob halfbaked insults.

Signed, someone who doesn't really love that every music thread on this site becomes a game of holier than thou "see who can wryly insult the artist and the people who like them most"
posted by cyphill at 11:05 AM on August 4, 2017 [8 favorites]

The Ponderosity by The Waltones is a great album.
posted by orange ball at 11:08 AM on August 4, 2017

The closing refrain of Paramour's Hard Times is what brought it to my attention

I listened to that song once, went 'huh, this is one Danny Elfman short of an Oingo Boingo song' and proceeded to listen to it like six more times because it's a really catchy Oingo Boingo song.
posted by nonasuch at 11:40 AM on August 4, 2017 [2 favorites]

Belle & Sebastian released a much better version of this album two years ago.
posted by Automocar at 11:42 AM on August 4, 2017

As someone that liked Reflektor on paper but didn't love it in execution (you can play funky parts perfectly in funky time but if you aren't funky yourself the result won't be) I actually genuinely enjoy EN as an extension of that style but better tailored to the band's brand of nervy anxiety. I think a lot of the backlash now is just the inevitable (and possibly overdue) pendulum swing and while the theme can be a bit overbearing at times I appreciate the attempt and don't mind the pomposity. This is after all an Arcade Fire record. I paraphrase something I once read about U2: "if U2 weren't full of shit they wouldn't be half as good as they often are."
posted by Senor Cardgage at 12:36 PM on August 4, 2017

The Arcade Fire are the Cirque de Soleil of faux-folksy indie, down to the grandeur and ponderosity.

Looks like somebody saw they're from Quebec, said, "Ew, things from Quebec are icky," and never listened to a single song by Arcade Fire in their life.

(The new album sucks IMO, and the new single super sucks. But come on. Pretend to try.)
posted by Sys Rq at 12:39 PM on August 4, 2017

"if U2 weren't full of shit they wouldn't be half as good as they often are."

is this where I point out what seems obvious to me -- that Arcade Fire have been "doing a U2" their entire career? The passionate early stuff, the "masterpiece" (Suburbs), the "getting meta" pop phase (where we are now).

Not that I'm complaining.
posted by philip-random at 12:53 PM on August 4, 2017

I guess this means that if Arcade Fire is doing a U2, they'll be right on time for the indie revival in 2020 when they release their nostalgic callback to their early days (Funeral II: All That You Can't Bury Behind or something like that).
posted by stannate at 1:16 PM on August 4, 2017

oulipian
Everything Now the song is great. Everything Now the album is terrible.

That seems to be the majority opinion here, including moi.
But I've noticed that songs we think are terrible on lp/cd etc usually come across as really great when seen live.
posted by james33 at 5:11 AM on August 5, 2017