Well, look who took home top prize at the music industry's annual closed-circle-jerk. Doubtlessly, such an achievement by a 1.3 million-selling band that has licensed its songs to major corporations, has performed at private functions for political insiders, and whose record label doesn't happen to have a corporate parent, will be hailed as another culture-industry equivalent to David taking down Goliath. Backslaps all around, you smug pricks!Honestly, who is excited by this band any more? Scratch that - who ever thought an anemic, sphincter-clenching hybrid of "Once In a Lifetime" and "Born To Run" was a good idea? I swear, anyone thrilled by the Arcade Fire's coronation at the Cocksucker's Ball is such a boring, beige-souled, conservative bastard that they'd have similarly picked Tom Jones' "Green, Green Grass of Home" over anything off Revolver for Record of the Year 1966.
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4 comments:
Oh, we are two of a mind here. I still think Arcade Fire is a more interesting choice than most anything else who I can remember in recent memory. But your comment on Revolver losing out to Tom Jones is spot on. This is why I still think the Mercury Prize is meaningful.
I'm not really a fan of Arcade Fire, but I still rather listen to them than, say, Beyonce, Kanye Worst or Katy Perry.
I think what put me off Arcade Fire (whose albums always sound muddy to me - Wall of Sound by people who don't quite get it) was a performance I saw on Austin City Limits a couple years back. They seem to be trying really hard to be odd and non-rock starrish.
Indeed, things like the Mercury & Polaris prizes are (if only relatively) more adventuresome and pull public attention to artists deserving of more attention.
But see, I resent acts like the Arcade Fire or White Stripes or Fleet Foxes in a way that I don't Kanye, Katy, or even the *gurk* Black Eyed Peas. Pop music may be saccharine & vapid, dissolving quicker than cotton candy - but that's pop music's purpose. "Serious" artists blustering with pretense convince their listeners that they're more adventuresome, open-minded, and aesthetically experimental than they are. At least Kings of Leon cop to being typical rock-star hacks; the Arcade Fire, on the other hand, foster a musical conservatism that is downright unhealthy to the art.
Arcade Fire are a perfect band for the Obama era.
It's more important to pretend to be something with your air of _________ (insert relevant genre, i.e. politics, music, fiction) gravitas, than it is to possess that gravitas, that creativity, that level of artistic, political or intellectual insight and novelty.
The Arcade Fire pretends to be deep, meaningful, and artistic, while providing none of the above. However, if your own musical tastes have been confined to Commercial Pop Radio programming (what was called "Top 40" in my youth), perhaps Arcade Fire seems unique and revelatory.
But what seems often is not what is, and in this case, that's the case.
They're the Hootie & the Blowfish of 2010's decade.
Well said, Mr. Oxtrot. They are the Oasis to Obama's New Labour.
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