OT: Arcade Fire

[jcandy]

Arcade Fire is a very popular band with many accolades. Yet, I find the material monotonous and fatiguing, and the recording/production quality very poor. What am I missing?

[dcibel]

Re: OT: Arcade Fire

Arcade Fire is a very popular band with many accolades. Yet, I find the material monotonous and fatiguing, and the recording/production quality very poor. What am I missing?

Nothing at all.

[killa]

Re: OT: Arcade Fire

I don't think you are missing anything. Sounds spot on to me. Seems people have been brainwashed with crappy mass marketed music. Not specifically talking about this band. Just a in general opinion.

[killa]

Re: OT: Arcade Fire

Nothing at all.

Bwahaha! you beat me to it

[Jeff B.]

Re: OT: Arcade Fire

Missing something? Ha! I've never even heard of them before.

[jcandy]

Re: OT: Arcade Fire

Missing something? Ha! I've never even heard of them before.

They've been nominated for and/or won numerous awards:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...by_Arcade_Fire

I bet you've heard them, but the experience was so tiresome and unmemorable that you don't remember it. They're generally accepted to be a "hipster" band.

[jcandy]

Re: OT: Arcade Fire

I don't think you are missing anything. Sounds spot on to me. Seems people have been brainwashed with crappy mass marketed music. Not specifically talking about this band. Just a in general opinion.

Even mass-market stuff can sound catchy, or "good" by some popular measure. But Arcade Fire sounds absolutely terrible, especially on good equipment. Instruments and vocals appear to originate from the bottom of a well.

[Mark65]

Re: OT: Arcade Fire

I saw them on SNL, and my initial thought was wtf is this? Then I listened some more, then fast forwarded through the rest of the first song and all of the second. To be fair, though, I should point out that I do all of that a LOT when watching SNL musical guests these days. Guess I'm getting old and cranky... :rolleyes:

[Brian Steele]

Re: OT: Arcade Fire

Arcade Fire is a very popular band with many accolades. Yet, I find the material monotonous and fatiguing, and the recording/production quality very poor. What am I missing?

I have their "The Suburbs" CD. I bought it after hearing their performance of "Ready to Start" at the Grammy Awards a few years ago. Yes, recording could have been a bit better (it actually sounds better on cheap stuff like multimedia speakers - the really cheap ones without a separate subwoofer too, LOL). "Month of May" is however a guilty pleasure on the car audio system, where I usually crank it to the max and engage the loudness button to give it a bit more "bottom" .

[mattk]

Re: OT: Arcade Fire

I love Funeral, especially Neighborhoods 1, 2 and 3, Wake Up, Rebellion and In the Backseat. Neon Bible is just as good, Antichrist Television Blues being an awesome evisceration of Jessica Simpson's father. The Suburbs has a few songs I like, Ready to Start and Month of May being the best. Reflektor just didn't do it for me, with the title track sounding too disco.

[Carbon13]

Re: OT: Arcade Fire

I do like the "suburbs" album a lot. I find it rare these days to find an entire album that has any sort of cohesion to it. They are out there but most albums are just a collection of singles (or junk to go along with one single). Give it a listen in it's entirety as it is journey from beginning to end that, for me, evokes many memories of growing up as part of a small community. Maybe it's an age thing too but I think it's an excellent album. I don't have good enough equipment yet to comment on production quality. And I do agree with previous posts that Funeral was better than Reflektor.

[Paul K.]

Re: OT: Arcade Fire

I can't make any comment about the sound of this group since I've never heard them (and not likely to intentionally), and I freely admit I'm a grumpy old man that hasn't listened to popular music for probably 25 years or more. That said, when I do see something on TV about a group or person singing/playing, what seems to be the selling point is not their musical abilities or the true quality of the music but how the performance is staged and hyped via lighting, pyrotechnics, background dancers, costumes, massive speakers, etc. Really, the quality of the music and the quality of the musical performance is entirely secondary, maybe almost even unimportant. It's like all marketing that tries to sell you something based on supposed benefits that have nothing to do with the main reason you'd consider buying the product in the first place For instance, do you buy Pringles potato chips to dance around and play with them or to eat them? If you watch their TV ads you'd think eating them has almost no value at all.

Okay, end of rant.
Paul

[knowledgebass]

Re: OT: Arcade Fire

At the end of the day, music is art, and discussions about whether it is art or not, only validate the work, as you guessed it, art. This is as true for contemporary art as it is for music (from classical to popular).

I find the threads where people post what they do like and what specifically they like about it infinitely more useful than threads hating on Bieber, or Nickelback, or in this case Arcade Fire. If this was an honest attempt to discover 'what' they are about then my suggestion is the same as C13; try a full album. My personal preference is Neon Bible (I guess I have a latent thing for pipe organs, but not everyone likes an organ, I get it). My added suggestion is to play it as loud as you can bear. I like the tactile feel of their music. I find it just washes over you and rhythmically it has its own kind of pulse that makes me want to move with it. It's not straight guitar rock, it's not not straight keyboard/synth rock, but it is most definitely rock. There's not anyone instrument or vocal that makes the song or the band, but it's the sum of the parts. There are a lot of instruments being woven into the music which make it both chaotic, and to some of us, interesting. Perhaps the latest expression on the wall of sound? If you don't get it, you don't get and I personally wouldn't lose sleep over it. There's too much good music out there, there's no point in spending time listening to something that doesn't suit you or you don't enjoy.

[PassingInterest]

Re: OT: Arcade Fire

I had to check YouTube for them. Watched Reflektor. They have big heads.

By the way, I've been enjoying another band lately called Flying Colors. Check their Infinite Fire video on YouTube.

[knowledgebass]

Re: OT: Arcade Fire

I can't make any comment about the sound of Elvis Presley since I've never heard him (and not likely to intentionally), and I freely admit I'm a grumpy old man that hasn't listened to popular music for probably 25 years or more. That said, when I do see something on TV about a group or person singing/playing, what seems to be the selling point is not their musical abilities or the true quality of the music but how the performance is staged and hyped via lighting, hips, background dancers, costumes, massive speakers, etc. Really, the quality of the music and the quality of the musical performance is entirely secondary, maybe almost even unimportant. It's like all marketing that tries to sell you something based on supposed benefits that have nothing to do with the main reason you'd consider buying the product in the first place For instance, do you buy Southern Maid Donuts to dance around and play with them or to eat them? If you watch their TV ads you'd think eating them has almost no value at all.

Okay, end of rant.
Paul

Fixed it for you Just messing with you Paul.

I just wanted to make the point that these types of rants are as timeless as popular music itself. In effect it means they are doing it right, I think this is the desired effect, each generation defining itself. Even classical music was the "popular music" of the day at one point, and I'm sure it had its own controversies from the curmudgeons of the day