In Britain, twee involved wispy wimps who loved their jangle and liked to put it on cassettes (so I hear). “Their clothes are asexual, their haircuts are fringes, their colours are pastel. Cuties like Penguin modern classics, sweets, ginger beer, vegetables, and anoraks.” Now America has belatedly responded with “tough twee,” which finds its form in the Barack Obama campaign, movies with a “big indie heart” like Iron Man, Gwyneth Paltrow having a fugly freakout, and angry bands like the Arcade Fire. “Just look at Owen Wilson, Scarlett Johansson, Claire Danes and Miley Cyrus, all once Twee, now post-Twee.” I never thought of it this way, but Tom McGeveran’s “American Cutie” captures the evolution of C86 in a way no rational human being ever could.
In order to promote North Carolina’s new One-Stop Early Voting program, which allows voters to register if they haven’t already and cast their ballots at the same time, Barack Obama’s campaign will be giving out free concert tickets in several counties during the early hours of Thursday, April 24 . The shows will feature North Carolina’s own Superchunk and everyone’s favorite Canadians, the Arcade Fire. I’m trying to imagine a politically energizing Superchunk set that doesn’t involve “Slack Motherfucker,” but I just can’t do it.
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, the next big thing among music artists from the Arcade Fire to Michael Stipe to Jack Johnson is enviromentalism, which means we can expect to hear the word “green” prefacing nearly everything we used to enjoy for the foreseeable future, as well as a number of cryptic metaphors trying to explain complex issues.
So while the rest of us were busy reading books/playing Yahtzee/waiting for The Wire last night, those music geeks actually tuned to the Super Bowl may have noticed, as Pitchfork did, that this “NFL On Fox” promo is backed by the big finish of the Arcade Fire’s “No Cars Go.” Turns out it wasn’t such an outre choice; the AF song fits the grunting gridiron heroics almost a little too well. And perhaps Fox’s clever ad department didn’t want to spoil the chocolate-into-peanut butter combination of epic Canadian indie rock and epic American sporting events by bothering to get the required go-ahead to use the tune?
As several Idolator commenters have pointed out, the Arcade Fire are more than likely S.O.L. when it comes to taking legal action against Fox Sports using their song “No Cars Go” for its NFL telecasts’ bumpers; the Daily Swarm has posted a reminder of the last time Fox pulled a similar move on a… More »
If you haven’t already tired of The Arcade Fire and their shameless mariachi antics, they’ve launched a Web site that just might put you over the edge! More »
The Obama campaign can finally relax, because two of the most important musical voices of two distinct generations have officially come out in favor of the ’08 prez candidate and gawky dreamboat, and they’re committed to spreading the good word to two very crucial voting blocs: “tweens with no vote (and Maura)” and “NPR listeners/Pitchfork readers who already vote Dem unless there’s a wacky third party.”
The Onion‘s AV Club launched its best albums of the year list today, and it’s topped by the Arcade Fire’s Neon Bible, with the National, Radiohead, LCD Soundsystem, and Band Of Horses bringing up the top five’s rear. The usual-suspect-studded full list is after the jump, but for now, some initial reactions…
THE GOOD: Tegan and Sara’s sharp, spunky The Con (No. 8) is a nice addition to the top 10, which, if I didn’t mention before, is full of the usual suspects. (Let the fighting over Wilco resume!) Also, I think this might be the first Feist-free list I’ve seen yet.
THE BAD: Band Of Horses over Kala? Really?
THE WHAAAA? So along with each ranking album’s spot on the chart, readers were made privy to the number of points each record received, as well as how each critic broke down his ballot. Critics were allowed to give each album they voted for a maximum of 15 points, and the albums in the Nos. 24 and 25 slots–the Murphy/Mahoney FabricLive36 and Iron & Wine’s The Shepherd’s Dog–each received 20 points from two voters. Which illustrates an eternal critics’-poll conundrum, and it’s only accentuated by the fact that 2007 is shaping up to be a pretty lackluster year as far as critical consensus goes: Nos. 21-25 on the list (which also included Grinderman, Bat For Lashes’ Fur And Gold, and Fall Out Boy’s Infinity On High) certainly represent more interesting choices than the swath of rock-critic-beloved meh ahead of them, but if they were voted for by two or three critics out of a 19-critic panel (which each of them were), are they really among the “best,” or were they just the most beloved by a select few (with good taste)? I guess this is where Matos’ Enthusiasm 40 comes in.
Brit rock mag Q gives countrymen Radiohead the gas face (by daring to stick them at No. 4!), choosing 2007’s first universe-altering rock release, the Arcade Fire’s Neon Bible, as the best album of the year. Their picks for more or less every middle-of-the-road rock album released in 2007the Top 50 albums and the Top 10 singles of the year are after the jump, but first a quick survey of the fallout from this bold snubbing of In Rainbows.
THE GOOD: Roisin Murphy’s second solo album, the dizzying disco-pomp of Overpowered, sneaks in at No. 29, with Robyn, PJ Harvey, M.I.A., and a handful of others doing their best to keep this list from being entirely made up of boring-ass, dude-centric indie rock.
THE BAD: The rest of the list is nearly all boring-ass, dude-centric indie rock. And they don’t even bother to include Wilco like every other similar list this year!
THE WHAAA?: Once again, Justice are a rock-friendly publication’s token dance pick, i.e. why even bother pretending to keep an ear to the clubs? And speaking of blatant tokenism: Hey, there’s Common, way down at No. 36! That fills the annual quota for one acceptably “conscious” album made by a black person. We guess C was Q‘s clever way of avoiding the default Kanye inclusion.
That Arcade Fire viral-Internet-video thingy from a few weeks ago had a total production budget of $15,000. Cheaper than a video? Sure. More »
