Come on, the song has been used and re-used so many times, during hockey games, soccer games, in commercials and Super Bowls commercials, for the trailer of the 2009 movie ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ and the 2014 movie The Secret Life of Walter Mitty’… even U2 used it for the Vertigo Tour! We have heard it, alright, too many times.
It actually looks like fun though I bet their egotistical posturing will get as tedious on film as it does in person eventually. Still, it took me back to the last album which sounds better than I remembered it
We still don’t know much about Tidal, but according to The Verge,Tidal reportedly offered millions of dollars and an equity stake to artists such as Coldplay, Rihanna, Daft Punk, Alicia Keys, Calvin Harris, Jack White, Madonna, Usher, Arcade Fire, Deadmau5,… in exchange of their exclusive conten
Jay Z recently purchased the streaming service for some $56 million and he wants to make it as a competitor to Spotify, or Rdio. Alicia called it the ‘beginning of a whole new era’,… but for whom exactly? A new era for Jay Z and Madonna to make even more money? What’s new exactly? A new sound? a better listening experience?
It is selling out, though. You can afford to get a chipotle burrito if you manage your tour right. Essentially, artists have been getting screwed over at pretty much the same rate, but now slightly different people are screwing us over.’
‘The words to today’s song are taken from Psalm 137. It’s a song of sorrow and rage from the mouth of a refugee whose city has been destroyed. The sorrow portion of the psalm is extremely famous and often quoted – ”How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?”
Butler wrote the song after reading about the repatriation of the body of anti Apartheid hero Moses Kotane from Russia to South Africa. Kotane was a great influence on Nelson Mendela and he was also a communist, which first confused Butler
I just wonder what subjects he will pick, it’s difficult to be optimistic about another ISIS beheading. Take any headlines on the Guardian website today, ‘South Sudan gunmen kidnap at least 89 boys from village near Malakal’, ’14-year-old Palestinian jailed for stone-throwing maintains innocence’ ‘Jewish magazine in Germany to be delivered in plain envelopes’ … ouch!
Today, there is certainly a lot of mediocrity, any American Idol, X Factor product is an example for me! But at the same time, there is a lot of excellent music, it is just harder to find it because of the enormous amount of bands formed every year and songs released each day!
Nick Cave: I saw him twice this year, and it was totally spectacular because I even met him in person! First, at the Los Angeles premiere of his fake autobiographical movie, ‘20,000 days on Earth’ at the Egyptian theater on June 10th
Will Butler, Win’s little brother, is starting to have a sort of solo career, as he will release his own album in 2015, followed by a tour to support it, and he
AF couldn’t quite cash in on the good vibrations, how can so many people fail to cease the moment and imprint themselves on our DNA? There were short sharp dance sounds and a sense of restraint that didn’t build into a singular vision, a singular event. Seldom did they manage to sustain it, they were like the 2014 Yankees, they couldn’t put three wins together in a row
Alyson Camus wasn’t thrilled by Arcade Fire when she saw them earlier this year but she was a bigger fan than I ever was, and I also don’t believe she loved Reflektor as much as I did. My only problem with the album was it didn’t sell enough copies, and sales effects my opinion of pop music, but as albums go? It is a masterful and lush disco variant. And I can’t wait to see it live at Barclay Center on Saturday.
Big rock stars are a bit like aliens, you rarely see them, they travel inside big black vehicles, and you work very hard at getting close to them. But when you get there, it seems surreal. I had a summer of encounters with rock stars, whatever the level of the encounters (and they were all at least of the third kind) they left the biggest impression of the summer on me
Win continued to spin some tunes till 3 am, and I appreciated the Bowie and Nirvana touch at the end of the night.. I almost forgot, there was also a piñata full of candies, so it was definitively a real party,… I left the theater with a handful of candies and sparkling confetti, hearing the security guard shouting ‘good night’ to the people talking and drinking, who were still not ready to leave…
Yesterday night, Arcade Fire was playing the 17,000-seat Forum and their music didn’t belong to me anymore, the show was big in all directions and dimensions, it made my head explode and I said good bye to Arcade Fire I used to know.
“I lied to myself and others, and believing those lies, I told myself consistently that whatever was going on with me … I could fix it on my own. I convinced myself that it was normal. I am a deeply flawed and mentally ill person who made some terrible choices, causing so much emotional and financial damage to others. But I believe I have much to offer my community.’
The entire concept of acting is empathy and portrayal and to discriminate on who performs what role due to sexual orientation is a dastardly concept. There are many more heterosexual roles (and many more heterosexuals) than transgender youth, so if you are gonna sexually segregate performers, the minority is gonna get it in the ear.
It would be the equivalent of me (a white female) writing about the story of a black man in the US, wouldn’t it be perceived as pompous and patronizing? I wouldn’t even dare of course! But the crazy part of the video is the end, the beating gives Garfield some kind of dancing superpower and he starts to dance like Jennifer Beals in the 90s classic ‘Flashdance’.
Win Butlers vocals have never met a note it could match so it always becomes this sort of straining whine. Is it deep emotion or too much ego that pinches his chords and causes such pain?
What Arcade Fire did was prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. They showed how, indeed, Daft Punk could be and are and would be and might be anybody. It is the opposite of anybody can be a star, the new punk ethos appears to be nobody at all can be a star.
You could win tickets by listening to Alt 98.7 all day. Great! Another opportunity for unemployed people who can listen to the radio all day long and spend the whole day hooked on the busy tone of their smart phone. This is nothing new, a lot of ‘secret show’ giveaways work this way
Win Butlers vocals make my skin crawl. Its as if he has trouble stayin on key. Musically I will concede that its alright- maybe the bongo’s are a bit strong (and I swear trotting horse like at times) but its the vocals… that are so bad that I cringe.
The tickets seem to be all gone now, which means Arcade Fire is not totally in trouble, but since prices were as low as $22, it is not a real surprise! Alas for me, a $22 Arcade Fire ticket is an opportunity that will never occur if you live in Los Angeles!
Walk Right Back – The Everly Brothers – Love them close harmonies, you can hear what Lennon and McCartney were listening to, and the background lick is very good -it moves right along, the lyric is sticky but the chorus, really the last four lines of the verse, is elastoplast.
It is two years since I liked didn’t love Arcade Fire at MSG but while I realize my taste is certainly in the minority, I preferred Reflektor to The Suburbs and prefer dance to indie rock any dance so I am possibly more excited than you are over this.
Me And Liza – Rufus Wainwright – “Famous till the day that we die….” After tributing her Mama, Rufus, on this Out Of The Game outtake, sings a pure pop Rufus style kiss to the legend; the song is a standard MOR sound which I kinda hope he grows out of – B+
On the plus side is that nobody will be ragging em with comparisons and… well “The Sound Of Music” wasn’t simply miscast it was nearly impossible to cast; a true classic so indelibly in the pop consciousness that the entire thing felt like artistic vandalism.
You will have to stay till the end of the credits to hear Arcade Fire’s ‘Supersymmetry’, a song originally composed for the movie but finally reworked for their ‘Reflektor’ album. I must say I was expecting to hear it sooner, but pay attention since instrumental variation of the same song recorded with Owen Pallett, is also featured on the score
Janie Jones – The Clash – On the list of greatest songs forever, the Clash looks at 1960s party girl scandal girl and wonders what it has done to do with the 9 to 5 world; political sleight of hand let’s them know – A+
This is true that headliner Outkast had already been announced a long time ago, that Arcade Fire was a given, as they have been playing literally everywhere lately, but Muse? I can already see your excitation, but I basically have none at this point. They excite me as much as Phoenix,
So far no supersymmetric particles have been discovered, but it is a very convenient love imagery not unlike the Greek philosophers’ idea of the quest to find our lost half. It’s also very seducing that, interestingly, we may never know if these superpartners exist
At this time of the year when people compile their lists of best albums of the year, Arcade Fire’s ‘Reflektor’ is on a great number of these lists. Is it really justified? It would probably on mine but I have to be honest, I am not sure I would have put it on any list if the same album had come from another band that I had never heard of.
How many ‘Afterlife’ videos does Arcade Fire expect to release? First there was the one re-soundtrack-ing the film ‘Black Orpheus’, then the Spike Jonze-directed and Greta Gerwing-danced video for the Youtube Awards, and now this one, directed by Canadian filmmaker Emily Kai Bock and produced by the Creators Project.
Arcade Fire must have a sense of humor, advising people trying to get tickets to the bands Barclay Center August 22nd and August 23rd , a Friday-Saturday axis in the heat of next summer, to dress in formal attire
Win and I started talking about the score about two years ago, and then it kinda seemed like the record sort of informed the soundtrack and the soundtrack informed the record a little bit, and there’s like a song on Reflektor — the last one, ‘Supersymmetry’ — that he wrote for the movie, but then it sort of became something else.
‘Win tripped and got super pissed, so I don’t think he enjoyed the second half of the song (I think he tripped on a photographer at the base of the stage because after the song, he was yelling “Get the f out!” really angrily
Hell, even Kelly is sucker punching us with a seasonal album and it may be ok, at least a coupla songs perked my interest, it isn’t even Thanksgiving yet!
Thanks to the gods of voodoo, the band has abandoned the papier-mâché giant heads, the Haitian culture as well as the exotic locations have even disappeared from sight, and once again the band is almost invisible the whole time just making an apparition at the end.
Back to the beginning: if the magnificent “Reflektor” doesn’t break pop OR dance, what will? And if the point of the album is to reboot the franchise, what will they do with a dud? They will tour it and become Arena rockers.
The John Newman album is so great that I don’t care if Arcade Fire sold more, it is the top of my charts. This guy is waiting to blow up big, his Bowery Ballroom gig early next year is impossible to get a ticket for and from every bit of film of him live I’ve seen it all, this guy is the real deal
I think in the world of people’s creations and things, it’s almost like, “Well, if the Flaming Lips did it, then I should do it!” I mean, I can see it going both ways, so yeah. And I like him, so I don’t have any — now if it was the Arcade Fire, then I’d have a problem with it.’
Arcade Fire, Maria Taylor, Linda Thompson ruled this week, I could have filled every position with their songs. AF, maybe I’m being difficult but I really do like it, and Maria and Linda are both on my top 10 albums list of 2013.
As Fast As My Feet – Linda Thompson – A pop song but an old fashioned one that walks on its title melodic hook all the way there, with a sound not folk but folk-rock and of course, Linda’s gorgeous voice.
Still Into You – Paramore – The band’s greatest moment off their excellent current album is a total hook lined wonder of love and connection – A
A Lullaby For You – Maria Taylor – Sleep deprived Maria wrote this as a melody she sang to her infant son every night that slowly became a full song and lead her all the way to her current album, Something About Knowing, it is like a deep dream of infancy and hope and protection – A
Lord I Hope This Day Is Good – Lee Ann Womack – A showstopper at Carnegie Hall on Monday, this is off her 2000 country hit album I Hope You dance and in under three minutes it yearns with faith and hope – A
With less expectations hanging over them, these wordy clever, powerful songs sound much better than if it had followed We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed. They fell to earth but they are quite comfortable there – ALBUM OF THE WEEK – A-
, ‘We wouldn’t have been able to make this album without Haiti’ said Win Butler to the Huffington Post, although these drums may have sometimes been a bit lost in these complicated sonic layers that compose the tracks.
I contacted my sister Nadia in Scotland and she is forwarding Helen and I our own copies!!! Till then, that isn’t why he is a winner, Morrissey he is a winner because the bio outsold Bridget Jones Diary to take first place on the UK bestseller list.
