chamber pop

Record #24: The Beach Boys – Pet Sounds (1966)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Were I given to brevity, this post would say one thing.

“This album is perfect.”

However, I am not given to brevity, so I will be expanding that review to varying degrees of verbosity.
This album is perfect because…

Having heard The Beatles’ Rubber Soul, the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson quit touring with the rest of the group to focus on creating the greatest pop album ever. By all accounts, he succeeded. Pet Sounds so far surpasses the easy-going, vapid California-centric music the group had gotten famous for that it’s hard to understand that it’s the same five guys. While the lush harmonies are still present (What would the Beach Boys without their vocal interplay?), there’s less of the ba-bas and doo-wahs, with more emphasis placed on the small orchestra Brian Wilson hired to play on the tracks, to the point where there are two fully instrumental numbers (which are excellent, despite what anyone says).

And where their earlier material rode the waves of West-Coast beach culture and a nation’s desire to party, Pet Sounds finds them diving into personal waters for the first time. There’s a self-doubt that pervades Wilson’s lyrics, even on the love songs (“I may not always love you…” starts God Only Knows). While tracks like I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times and Don’t Talk (Lay Your Head On My Shoulder) are easily identified as sad songs, other, bouncier tracks are a bit more deceptive. Here Today, with its raucous orchestra and delayed bass solo, tricks you into letting the top down and singing along–until you realize he’s warning his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend about what a Jezebel she is. In fact, only Wouldn’t It Be Nice and the cover Sloop John B showcase purely optimistic lyrics; the rest of the songs are more complex, like the ballads You Still Believe In Me and I’m Waiting For The Day. Without exaggeration, this is the saddest happy record I have ever heard.
​
When all is said and done, The Beach Boys haven’t made too extravagant a statement. None of the songs last much longer than three minutes, nor is there any experimental tinkering in the studio (not to discount the round-about process Wilson used to actually record the album). They simply made a pop record with lush orchestration and wonderful songs. But, it was (and remains) the Greatest Pop Record.

Record #17: Arcade Fire – Neon Bible (2007)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

My wife put off all of her grading this weekend and has taken over the living room with Harry Potter, so I’m listening to this record on the portable phono in our bedroom that skips every time a record gets too loud, so this listen has more struggling through quality than any of the others.
Caveat aside, Neon Bible was the first Arcade Fire album I ever heard. I heard “No Cars Go” on the local college radio station (that’s two bands I have to thank them for introducing me to…there will be many more), and I immediately knew that whoever made that song happen, I needed more of it in my life. So I purchased Neon Bible on a friend’s recommendation and a half-heard single (I had so much more faith back then), and I have never regretted it in my life.
Right off the bat, Neon Bible lets the listener know that the high stakes Funeral set are being raised. “Black Mirror” evokes a cynical “Back In The USSR,” with a sampled plane engine swooshing into a pounding piano figure, and Arcade Fire immediately takes off into a much more ambitious project than their debut. The pair of violins that sprinkled Funeral are replaced with a larger orchestra. The Farfisa they used to fill in spaces is replaced with a church organ. Samples are peppered throughout the album (like the thunderstorm that plays alongside “Ocean of Noise”). Synthesizers carry a few songs. Even the electric guitars are used to greater effect. In all honesty, the instrumentation and production on this album make Funeral look like a demo tape.
Like the White Album, they conjure in the opener, Neon Bible finds these Quebecois trying their hand at a number of different styles of songs, sometimes within the same track. The anthemic adolescent jams they filled Funeral with are still plentiful, but they’re accompanied with traditional French folk song spinoffs (the title track), bass driven ballads (“Ocean of Noise”), folk-rock singalongs (“Antichrist Television Blues”) and spaghetti Western blues (“My Body Is A Cage”). Unlike the White Album, Neon Bible never suffers for its breadth, and whereas the Beatles’ work was scattershot, the tracks on this album are still cut from the same cloth (and none of them are a labor to get through).
Musicality isn’t the only way Arcade Fire has matured, though. The forlorn teenager narrating Funeral is now a jaded adult with children of his own. His internal dialogues have grown from “what happens when I grow up and my heart dies?” to “I have grown up and my heart is dying. How can I stop it?” As someone in my early 20s throughout my entire knowledge of this album, I can pair each of the worries mentioned in the lyrics to many a sleepless night or unexpected look in the mirror (though I’m incredibly relieved that “Intervention” in no way reflects my own employment at my church).
It’s this universalism of lyrical themes, much more than channeling The Beatles or Neutral Milk Hotel or The Smiths or David Bowie, that has gathered unto Arcade Fire such a massive fan base. After all, everybody grows up, and growing up ain’t easy. But as far as capturing the terror and pain of the transition into adulthood, they certainly make it look easy.

Record #16: Arcade Fire – Funeral (2004)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

When I moved to Chicago, I lived with one of the most elitist people I have ever known. He had a collection of over 2500 records, listened to mostly krautrock, post-punk, and no-wave, and he was very proud to hate the Beatles and Radiohead both. I overheard him once describing my musical taste. “He likes stupid indie rock shit like Arcade Fire,” he said. “Gay hipster music like that.”
And let it be known, he had never heard Arcade Fire in his life.
One day, I gave Funeral a spin. A couple minutes in, he said, “this is good. Who is it?”
“Arcade Fire.”
“What?”
“Yeah.”
“But it’s…” he paused.
“Good?” I suggested.
“Yeah! I really like the stop-start drums. It’s real post-punkish.”
“I know.”
As the record turned, he continued to comment about how much he was enjoying it, and I said nothing, satisfied (there are similar stories that end with him wincing for a while, and then stating, “I don’t want to like Beatles/Radiohead. But they’re so good.”).
At the end of the day, that’s one of the only things there is to say about Funeral. It’s not very groundbreaking–—ndie rock anthems with accordions and violins had been done before, and lyrically capturing adolescence is indie rock 101—it’s just good (keep in mind that David Bowie himself was a huge fun from the beginning). And Arcade Fire managed to pull off great indie rock with more obtuse sincerity and consistency (Funeral is only the first of three consecutive home run records) than many who had gone before or have since come.
In the grand scope of their expanded catalog, its easy to pass Funeral off as little more than a twinkle in bandleader Win Butler’s eye that would bloom into a true masterpiece, but listen to Funeral again and you’ll be reminded that it is a masterpiece in its own right.

Record #13: Andrew Bird – Noble Beast (2009)

/ Nathaniel FitzGerald

Somewhere between 2007 and 2009, Andrew Bird faced the challenge of following a nearly perfect record (because let’s be frank; Armchair Apocrypha is very truly nearly perfect).
During that time, he must have sat down and made lists about what worked (just about everything) and what didn’t (just about nothing), because he returned with Noble Beast, which offers more of every good part of Armchair. Continue reading →