LCD Soundsystem - Live at MSG

So one more band from my time calls it quits. Its sad to see them go, but like the White Stripes its comforting to know they managed to do it on their own terms. These guys however have the luxury of creating their own funeral party on one of the worlds biggest stages rather than enduring a prolonged breakdown that started in the Canadian badlands.

It leaves someone like me, a 22 year old music nerd in Australia with a music landscape that's becoming short on heroes that I can call my own. Like of course there are still great bands that are coming out with new awesome music that I really like. But there's always a sense that they're belonging to the kids (who are coming up from behind :P) that are younger than me. Maybe that's a misconception on my part, but its how I feel anyways. I mean lingering from my high school days there were a collection of bands that both became the the soundtrack to my life around that time and blew up big time in the indie sense.

So The White Stripes and LCD have called it a day. Kings of Leon I don't wanna talk about (suffice to say that the band who made Aha Shake Heartbreak, an album which more or less soundtracked the summer of my graduation is no longer there). The Strokes have pretty much fell off (still need to give the new album a propper listen, but needless to say we're never getting something of Is This It? quality ever again). Arctic Monkeys are still great, but they're more interested in being just another band these days rather than the creating of youthful anthems that were on "Whatever.....". Franz Ferdinand are still quality but seem to have vanished. Thank god TV On the Radio are still bringing the awesome (more thoughts on that soon.)*

But this is the rockist side of me talking. Indie music is always going to have lower benchmarks for success, and that's fine. It allows for different ideas to be experimented and run with without the pressure for commercial appeal and success. And that's fucking sweet. But at the end of the day, these were the successful bands that could be claimed as our own and we could turn to the baby boomer elitists and mainstream rock fans and say, "fuck you, this is how we do rock and roll and its just as good, if not better than yours, and its fucking cooler too."

As such its a disappointment to see them go. No doubt there will be a band as awesome to take its place soon enough. The only question is, are they gonna have a resonance with me like my high school bands did? Man, growing up is kinda shitty haha.

LCD Soundsystem - All I Want

*I only remembered Arcade Fire after, they're kinda on top of the world atm, would have put it in, but it'd have fucked up my rhythm haha

Best.of.2010 #4 - The Suburbs

Following the release of this album, I tried to write something about it a few times. The album really captivated me and I wanted to do it justice when writing about it. Originally I was sucked in by the fact that they’d traded in some of their grandiose for catchier riffs and it was a pretty cool album to listen to as a result. Plus I’m a sucker for any sort of concept and the lose one about suburban life is one I can relate to.

Is it white people problems? Maybe, but the album isn’t a bitch and whinge thing, it’s more of an exposition. For me, my city is one that is essentially entirely suburbs. The city is a huge sprawl, isolated from not only the rest of the world but also the rest of the country. A veritable sea of houses that clings to the coast for a glimpse of water. It’s a fairly boring city, one that has the hits of the 70’s and 80’s blasting out of car stereo’s and a number one radio station that sticks to its promises of no rap and no hard rock. It’s a city that a lot of people my age plan on leaving as soon as they graduate university. Its not a bad place to live by any means, but having seen the rest of the world, coming back to it seems like being stuck in purgatory.

The Suburbs works because it captures this idea of the sprawl through its extended tracklist and evoking the artists and music that echoes through its streets and living rooms, from classic rock, to folkier fare, to punk, to 80’s pop. Using these genres as templates, they’ve made some of the best songs of their career, while still being Arcade Fire. As such, between the songs themselves and the overarching concern of the disc, we have of on the best albums of the year.

Arcade Fire - Ready To Start - LINK REMOVED

Arcade Fire - The Suburbs (Video)

Spike Jonze has just come out with an amazing video for one of my personal favorites from Arcade Fires latest. While it may be too heavey handed for some, I reckon it works really well, as a counter point to the subtlety of the menace in the song itself. Definite video of the year contender.

Also, its always good when Jonze comes back to do a music video. The man still has the ability to make these striking or anarchic visuals for the songs he does, whether hes working with LCD Soundsystem or Kanye. A toast to (one of) the best who done it.