#43 - The Suburbs

#43
Artist: Arcade Fire
Album: The Suburbs
Year of Release: 2010
Label: Merge

In my last entry, I mentioned that I often prefer bands' early work to their (typically) more polished later work.  This album (their third full-length) is one of the exceptions to that rule and I think it's a pretty instructive one.  Arcade Fire is, among their other more universally positive qualities, a self-serious and meticulous outfit.  In general, bands with these tendencies can often veer into over-thinking and self-parody, and most would agree that this at least partially describes Arcade Fire's more recent work.  But The Suburbs hits that sweet spot in between where they are able to harness their considerable talent into a career-defining work.

The bands' penchant for precision of sound and songwriting is well established so I wanted to instead remark on their lyrics for a second.  Take this passage from "Ready to Start":

All the kids have always known
That the emperor wears no clothes
But they bow down to him anyway
Cause it's better than being alone

It's easy to dismiss this section as cliche, and to be sure it is.  But it pulls off the neat trick of turning that cliche into something true (if not unique) that reinforces the album's larger themes of alienation and defeat at the hands of modern society.  These sort of observations are peppered throughout and help to give The Suburbs a connective tissue that few albums on this list truly aspire to.  And while it will become clear that such thematic harmony is not necessarily something I look for in music, I definitely don't hate it when it's done this well.