Teenage Obsession

I am more than a little obsessed with Arcade Fire lately. I got the CD "The Suburbs" as one of my KCRW membership premiums, mostly because I liked the title and the idea of suburbs and urban sprawl. I felt weird about it, though; I had declared my distaste for Arcade Fire when their first album was being touted as the 2nd coming of Christ by the mainstream (and blog-underground) media critics. They quickly were known as "critical darlings," and that sort of freaked me out. I mean, I like K$sha and Justin Timberlake plenty, thank you very much, but when it comes to my LOVES in music, I didn't want to commit myself to a band that everybody loved, just because everybody loved it.

That, and I didn't quite "get" it.

The music was dour, the lead singer's voice was gravelly and slow, the lyrics contained a little too much angst for my post-adolescent lifestyle. And so I waited a long, long time to even give Arcade Fire their due.

And so...

During one of my morning walks with the dog, I put my iPod on shuffle and began to roam the hills behind our house, gliding past horses and trees and whispering leaves and the smell of early-morning fireplaces. I was trekking up the small hill that's guarded by the white lab who barks at Gibby, who stops to pee on the bushes across the street while the barking ensues, when a nice strong beat rang into my earphones. A girl's high voice, angelic, sad, matter-of-fact, sang dead shopping malls rise like mountains beyond mountains and there's no end in sight... And right there, I was hooked. It was like someone finally put words to the feeling I'd had about my previous life in the Valley. (Okay, I need to clarify that I don't seriously believe I live in the sticks now, but it is a very different lifestyle than what we had in Sherman Oaks, a little more natural and rustic, not to mention the horses and snakes.)


Anyway, so I heard this girl sing and realized it was Arcade Fire, which I had previously thought was strictly a guy with a weird haircut backed by a band of art school dorks. Then I saw them play "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)" on Saturday Night Live and the singer, a sparkly Gilda Radner type who sounded and moved like Bjork, was mesmerizing.  I even made my kids watch it with me, to see if I was just imagining the majesty.  When they began to make me play the song repeatedly in the car, I knew it wasn't just me. 


And the rest of the album is just as freakin' good, with tales of modern-day isolation and the frustration of trying to make real, tangible connections in the email/texting age.  Plus, there's a sort of early Depeche Mode synthesizer thing on a few of the songs that knocks me out, and a nod to the Rolling Stones on another song, and and and... 


See? I'm geeking out and sure, I'm a little late to the party.  I did this with The White Stripes and Smashing Pumpkins, too, so Arcade Fire is in good company.  The great upside to this newfound obsession with an established band is that I can dive into the earlier CDs while I wait for the next album to come out...


Not that you're a geek like me, but if you watch this video of "We Used to Wait," which is full of angst and artistic rage, just imagine me at 15 or even 22...  I would have given up everything to just follow Arcade Fire around so that I could be lucky enough for the lead guy to tightrope walk on the back of my stadium chair...