I don't know why I keep saying I'll do things when I should know by now the chance is that I probably won't. So instead of a week of me dissing music, you now get me slathering copious amounts of praise all over the Arcade Fire.

When I find out someone isn't familiar with the Arcade Fire, I normally preface anything by saying that they are the best "indie" band working today. I've never been to an Arcade Fire show; I've never worn one of their t-shirts, but as far as I'm concerned, as of today, they've released three pretty much flawless albums and that is truly something amazing.

The Suburbs might just be their best album yet. It's supposed to be something of a concept album, or at least that's what everyone keeps calling it, but it's not really. (At least not in the sense that there is an actual story to it, like The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, but maybe in the sense that there is a central conceit to the album. Perhaps it's a "conceit album".) It's more a collection of songs united by the anxiety that growing up middle class in the suburbs can do to you. It's also about hating the people who live there, now.

That's probably part of what I like about The Suburbs, that it deals with topics that I'm already concerned with. The whole album is soaked in anxiety, a perpetual dread that it's too late to cure ourselves and that we've wasted our time in the modern world when we could have been doing something... something... what? Something more wholesome? It's hard to know, because we wasted it, and we don't get that chance again.

The other emotional side of the record is Win Butler's apparent anger over the "fan" reaction to Neon Bible, or just the general hipster fanbase in general. "Rococo" (this song), and "Month of May" are pretty much blatant condemnations of the pretentious teens to twenty-somethings who all stand at their shows with their arms folded tight. Listening to Win in this NPR interview from April he makes a sarcastic comment about how nothing on The Suburbs lives up to "Tunnels", totally betraying how wounded he probably is over how so many people trashed Neon Bible. A review I read said they couldn't like The Suburbs because Win spends so much time "flipping everyone off". Well, as far as I'm concerned, it's his right, and anger makes for good music.

But most of all, The Suburbs is just a beautiful album. It's a little down in the dumps, emotionally, which is just great for me right now because I'm pretty much way down in the dumps, but that doesn't take away from the intensity or power of the record. I pretty much love it.

Vinyl vs. CD

The version of Rococo I'm posting here is from the vinyl release of the album. It's worth nothing that the CD version and the vinyl differ in track listing, that difference being that "Suburban War" appears at the end of the vinyl edition while the CD edition ends with "Sprawl II". This change subtly affects the entire record. The CD version has a distinct (I think) two parter feel, with "Suburban War" closing the first half and "Month of May" opening the second half. I listened to the album 10 times this way before moving onto the vinyl. The vinyl feels more straight through, with a slight lull in the middle, and the end feels significantly more contemplative.

"Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)" is worth discussing all by itself. In that NPR interview I linked to above, Win or Will say that this album contains "the best Regine track ever" and they are so correct. I would post Mountains Beyond Mountains but unfortunately someone posted it on Hype Machine just yesterday and I don't want to be like that. Besides, MBM is such a good song that posting it is basically ruining the end of the album for you, which is so epic I feel kind of like it really would be a dramatic spoiler.

The way Mountains Beyond Mountains sculpts the end of the album on the CD in contrast to the vinyl is pretty dramatic. The Suburbs isn't necessarily an easy listening experience (two songs made me want to cry the first couple of times I heard them) but MBM puts a uplifting spin on the whole experience. It actually sounds kind of like there's a weird form of hope found in losing all hope by the end. It's just a beautiful, powerful song and it raises the whole album to an even higher level.

The vinyl loses this kick at the end. The song is still great, but by being followed by "Suburban War" takes a lot of the hope out of the album, and the closing "The Suburbs (Continued)" sucks even more out of it. As a whole the vinyl just seems to be a quieter record (due to the better mix).

If you want me to pick which one you should listen to first, I'm not sure. I think the CD is paced better, and an uplifting ending is better than a tranquil one. Fall in love with the CD, like I did, and then move onto the vinyl?