Arcade Fire used to be an incendiary band, a once in a decade instance of a band that arrived perfectly formed upon their debut album, without an obvious predecessor, without even a whiff of corporate guidance or a all-seeing mentor lurking behind the scenes. Like The Smiths and Suede before them, they knew exactly who they were upon arrival, didn't fit into any existing niche in indie rock, and yet managed to find a huge fanbase waiting for them who didn't even know what they were waiting for until they heard it.
Watch their performance from Lollapalooza 2017, and see that on any given night (or even most nights considering how good they are on stage), they can still be that incendiary band. The talent is clearly there, their intensity and boundless energy on stage remains among the best in the world, and based on recent interviews, they still have the drive to succeed. But perhaps it's never been easier to fool jaded fans like me into thinking they still have it, based on a nostalgia-heavy live show. The Killers debuted in the same year as Arcade Fire and are the poster children for releasing three great albums and milking them ad infinitum. They can headline wherever they want, play sets based around those three albums, and be certain of sending fans home happy, anything they've released in the past decade scarcely seems to matter in the big ticket selling picture.
I hadn't seen "Miroir Noir" until now, and it's been surprisingly under-publicized over the years. Admittedly, a documentary without a narrator, obvious story arc, and barely any dialogue can be a very tough sell. It's shot almost entirely in sepia tones or antique-looking colour, and frequently resorts to odd, intrusive camera angles and the camera shakes or jitters with virtually all performance-based shots. We get a fly on the wall view of the "Neon Bible" recording sessions, and a few representative on stage performances. That's what passes for a story arc in "Miroir Noir", and the only commentary or sorts comes from the mostly crackpot calls to the 866 number that fans and interested parties could call to hear previews of the album prior to its release. Despite all this, it's not a densely abstract art film because it's packed with incredible music that produce a string of memorable moments -- "Wake Up" played acoustically amongst fans on the floor of a concert hall, the elevator versions of "Windowsill" and "Neon Bible", the orchestral recording of "Intervention", and countless more.
Where did things start to go wrong? Ten years ago, didn't I review "The Suburbs" and praise them for embracing synths, taking cues from dance music, and hope they'd continue on that road in future albums? I stand by those comments, while noting that there's a world of difference between a rock band recognizing and absorbing disco into their songs (e.g. Blondie) and concocting a fictional band name (The Reflektors) as part of a tongue in cheek promotional campaign while playing dress up on stage and encouraging audience members to do the same. When you choose to work with trendy producers because you can, while retaining a pseudo-ironic detachment from the scene you're trying to glean inspiration from, then you're making "Emotional Rescue", not "Atomic".
Through their first three albums, nobody could ever accuse Arcade Fire of not being sincere, it was their most endearing quality. Even their detractors knew that they *meant it* as much as any proverbial punk band ever had. U2's "Pop" is now considered a mis-step, and three years later they reset themselves with "All That You Can't Leave Behind", signalling to any lapsed fans that the "real" U2 was back. However, you can't say that they weren't all-in on that sound at the time -- "Zooropa" in 1993 further attests to this. Arcade Fire feel like they hedged their bets before this phase even began. If people liked "Reflektor" and "Everything Now" then great, and if not, they can reset and blame their critics for not understanding the subtext and laughing at the jokes. Oh wait, they've already started doing this!
Most of all, their last two albums annoy me as a long time dance music fan for the same reasons that I used to rip on Radiohead twenty years ago. Paranoia over a rapidly changing world, fear and distrust of technology, and criticism of consumer culture were already boring when Radiohead did it, and Arcade Fire have sadly taken many cues from them. Both bands are also trying to tell us that electronic music is vacuous due to its mostly faceless, wordless nature, and only a rock band can enable such music to reach its true potential by adding conscious lyrics and guitars, thereby providing the music with a social context that was sorely missing until they came along. Fuck all that. What emotions do these bands always bring to the music? Do they try to expand the palate of electronic music, and find new ways to express joy, rage, sadness, love, and all the other common themes in rock music? No, they always loop back the stereotypes, i.e. they use cold, emotionless electronic music as a conduit to criticize cold, emotionless, uncaring, unsympathetic corporations and misusers of technology.
That said, "Everything Now" is an incredible song, and "Afterlife" shows that if you're going to blatantly copy, you might as well copy from the very best (New Order's "Temptation"). So I still have hope.
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