Um, Arcade Fire? Your fans called, they found your cred in a discarded limited edition lunchbox half buried in dirt behind Merge Records. ZING. Really guys? Number 1 album in America AND United Kingdom? Come the fuck on! You’re supposed to be indie. Have you forgotten what that means? Do you even know what you’re doing? How am I supposed to chat up the barista at my local independent free trade coffee shop about the new Arcade Fire album if everyone on the fucking block knows what I’m talking about? So you played the Daily Show, huh. You think your some big fucking hot shots, huh. Well listen up, I know I’m not the only disgruntled hipster to say “Y’ALL SOLD OUT.”
Listen guys, you were like, the idols of our generation (and my “our generation”, I mean “my indie rock loving yuppie culture”). You were our lowest common denominator. If I was checking out some hottie’s facebook page, and he quoted “Laika” in his About Me, I totally knew he was chill. He was of my kind. You guys were like the safe word into the underground indie den. For example
A: “Oh, you like Neon Bible?”
B: “Neon what?”
A: “Fuck off.”
Versus
A: “Oh, you like Neon Bible?”
B: “Yeah, but like, Funeral was so much better”
B: “Come on in, the vinyl’s spinnin’ and there’s beer in the fridge!”
But now… good lord, NOW WHAT? Arcade Fire, you’ve broken me. I want to love you, The Suburbs, but you’re making it dang near impossible. I’ve written poems, painted portraits, made miniature rock sculptures, etc about previous Arcade Fire albums. Now I can’t even stand to think that my stepmother heard about you guys on NPR earlier this week… and not even in one of those underground music spotlight shows, it was on fucking “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!” I’m not even going to dedicate a full paragraph to explaining why The Suburbs is actually one of my favorite albums of the year. How the lyrics are cross-referenced among tracks, how the pounding drums make me tap my foot to literally every song, particularly while driving, how I get all choked up after Régine’s first note on “Sprawl II”, how the harpsichord at the end of “Rococo” makes me feel like I’m at goddamn Versailles circa Louis XVI.
The power and beauty of the interlacing songs mean nothing now. If I can’t awkwardly mention it to my parents, followed by the phrase “Uh, this band you probably don’t know,” then what’s the point? So you’re number 1 in the world, eh? Unless I get a private show for me and all my friends*, you’re not cool enough for me anymore. Sorry bros.
*No but seriously, you can contact me via email (arimygatt@gmail.com) if you want to arrange something.
After the tsunami, this headline just seems insensitive.
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