Broken Social Scene – You forgot it in people

vielleicht das POPalbum des jahres.

ganz grosser tipp. kenne zwar selber erst vier tracks… aber die sind das beste und schönste was es derzeit gibt. ein wenig wie flaming lips. ein wenig wie mittelre radiohead. aber auch wilco. und nowtist. und alles ander auch noch. mehr später. bis dahin:

YOU FORGOT IT IN PEOPLE
Broken Social Scene
Paper Bag Records

Thirteen songs, thirteen reasons I like this album. Forgive me my lengthy review. Some things are too big to be seen as a whole: you can only describe pieces.
Capture the Flag

Overture. Audience is hushed. Band sounds like they might be tinkering with their instruments, but we soon realize they’re actually playing something. But what? Tinkering noises, hints of what lies ahead. There’s a direction to this song, buried somewhere beneath its indifference to any direction whatsoever. A trumpet appears at the end of the song, plucks a note from the air and holds it until I think something will burst.

Then the next song starts. And it doesn’t burst – it explodes.

KC Accidental

You know, I think I listened to this album at least fifteen times before it even occurred to me that there are lyrics to be heard in this song. For that matter, I had a similar problem for the rest of the album, but this is the track where I first realised it. There’s such charisma to the music that it speaks eloquently enough on its own. Lyrics are just a handy after-thought to make things easier on people, a bit like Cole’s Notes or something similar. I feel a bit guilty when I listen to the words, as if I’m cheating.

Stars and Sons

Ah, this song: it’s kind of like the musical equivalent of running up a hill and declaring yourself lord over all you see. Then rolling back down to do it all over, again and again. By the end, everyone is so excited, what with all the hand clapping and exuberant guitar-work, that you barely even realise that the song has practically become a riot. In the background, there is a creepy muted scream going on, but that scarcely disturbs you. At this point in the album, you’re ready for anything, and when anything shows up to the party, you just nod and go back to dancing. Well, someone must have invited him. Who cares who did it? Everyone’s invited.

Almost Crimes (Radio Kills Remix)

Glorious rock spectacle. It begins with a feint – coy piano playing, as if we were headed to a pop ballad–but the drums and guitars burst into the room and kill Elton John before the damage can be done. We spend the next four minutes forgetting the crime.

Looks Just Like the Sun

A turning point in the album. The first song can be seen as some noodling at the beginning of what the subsequent three songs suggest will be an exhilarating rock album, but this song, a seductive soul-flavoured piece, transforms the tone. The simple yet wonderful detail of the song is the banter between band members, egging each other on, which makes sense if you’re about to kick into a screaming guitar solo, but not if you’re going to start quietly playing keyboards in the background. „Here we go,“ someone warns us, and even though he’s supposedly talking to one of his band members, it doesn’t really matter – we go along, too, and drift deeper into the delicate dream.

Pacific Theme

It begins with a bit of cheesy organ that sounds like your phone company has put you on hold before you can tell them they’ve fucked you over again, but then the rest of the band starts in and we find ourselves pulled into pure oceanic bliss. As I write this, the snow of the long Canadian winter has started to melt, and I’m tempted to give some credit to this song. Warm and breezy, or as close as a song can get to such a state.

Anthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Girl

Eerie distorted vocals, sung in a beautifully hushed voice, like a high-school lullaby, whispered between friends on the phone after midnight. The delicate sound of a banjo and a simple, melancholy violin sound complete the tapestry: a bittersweet ode to adolescence, lost somewhere between sarcasm and nostalgia. I think this song might have started as a joke, but the end product just makes me ache. „Park that car / drop that phone / sleep on the floor / dream about me,“ a distorted chorus of voices sing together at the end, repeating the lines with urgency as they realize that this is no longer a joke, but a transient kind of happiness.

Cause=Time

Possibly the greatest song on what is certainly a great album, and as a result, almost impossible to characterize because of the enormity of feeling it evokes. Really, it’s just a catchy rock song, but every detail falls in place so perfectly – it’s the kind of song that pulls you apart, gives you that sense of freedom that comes from disembodiment.

I’m sorry, I obviously still haven’t quite figured out how this song can get to me like it does. It just does, let’s leave it at that, or else I’ll only get more metaphysical. I doubt anyone wants to hear the ontology of this song, but it’s there – there’s definitely something there.

Late Nineties Bedroom Rock for the Missionaries

I suppose it bears mentioning that this is Broken Social Scene’s second album, with their first album being a lovely collection of what I am now tempted to describe as „late nineties bedroom rock“ („ambient post-rock noodling“ is also sufficient, but I don’t believe they have a song with that title). This song does the precarious work of linking the past to the present, and it bears up remarkably well under that strain. True, it’s quite possibly the weakest song on the album, but its only sin is being merely good amidst greatness.

And you know, as I wrote that it was the weakest song on the album, I heard on my headphones the strangely beautiful climax of the song, which counterposes a mounting wall of guitar noise to a moody, strong-headed rhythm that refuses to give way to the noise. And I felt a little embarrassed for calling such a slyly beautiful song „weak,“ even in a comparative sense.

Shampoo Suicide

At this point, I’m starting to realize that if there’s a talent to Broken Social Scene, it’s that they know how to bring a song to a wonderful conclusion. In this case, we move from the „late nineties bedroom rock“ of this song’s beginning to a pulsating chorus of incomprehensible yet beautiful singing (all I can make out is the word „shampoo“), but as the clamour builds, there appears a single electric guitar picking out lonely reverberating notes, almost hovering above the song and casting a pall of desolation over everything. The guitar sounds distant, like it’s being played in another room while the rest of the band is having a grand party somewhere else.

Lover’s Spit

After the initial excitement of this album is gone, what do you hold in your hands? Once the heady rush of the most energetic songs becomes routine, what song will strike your fancy? It will be this song, this beautiful lament about what happens after the initial excitement is gone. The singer looks around with a mixture of resentment and jealousy at those people „drinking lovers‘ spit,“ turns to his lover and sighs, „It’s time we grow old and do some shit.“ The most beautiful thing about this album is that it knows beauty fades.

I’m Still Your Fag

Incredibly delicate and gentle, which makes it all the more startling when you hear the line, „I swore I drank your piss that night to see if I could live.“ But there’s a world of pain and longing in this sorrowful acoustic piece about a man rejected by his lover, and the quietly intoned chorus of „I’m still your fag“ rings all the louder for the hush that surrounds it.

Pitter Patter Goes My Heart

There’s a mixture of trepidation and euphoria to this song as it timidly climbs: the yearning sound of the violin constantly clawing over the quickening beat. The tune is almost coy in its tenderness, as if it were afraid to reach out and take hold of that state of bliss that the rest of the album has already touched. Every other song has been here before, and once more, it seems we are going again–but this time, shyly, with awe. And it is the last time we climb with this album into a state of nirvana, but I swear, I swear it feels like the first.

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