THE ARCADE FIRE POST OF LEGEND

[mistertoups]

FIVE "GREAT" RECORDS FROM 2000-2005, AND WHY FUNERAL IS NOT ONE OF THEM
a brief essay

Well, keep in mind I don't listen to much music at all, and I sure as hell don't keep up with new bands, so my lists are always a little sparse and a little weird.

These are in no order.

Brian Wilson - Smile. Does this count? Technically it was released in

Comments

i love andy

[thejuishgirl]

i've never listened to funeral. i don't know if it's accidentally or on purpose--i'm tempted to say the latter, because people keep fucking saying how arcade fire are so much better than stars and i simply cannot have that. like, set yourself on fire is the SECOND best record of 2005, next to fucking funeral. plus, whenever i just stick everything into winamp on random and a song of theirs begins to play, i don't see what the hullabaloo is about. it's like falling in love with fellowship of the ring, watching a beautiful mind win the oscar, and THEN seeing the movie. it sucked, comparatively.

i love enon. thank you again for giving me that record. and making me buy the soft bulletin. and for giving me the two least accessible songs from emergency & i at least two years before i listened to the album. anyway, this made me want to check out smile again, though given our different tastes i expect i won't like it too much. so. good job!

Re: i love andy

[mistertoups]

Nonsense! How can a person not like Smile? I mean that's like saying you don't like being happy!

I know, I sound like a broken record.

I have a bad habit of giving people the least accessible songs of an artist I want to recommend. The funny thing is that I never realize it at the time!

ANYWAY, two things:

a)What do you think of Stereolab?
b)Why the heck are you never online anymore?

[westacular]

You forgot William Shatner - Has Been.

[westacular]

And ... why do you mention Arcade Fire in the title, but nowhere in the article? Particularly because ... well, I've heard a number of people who listen to too much music speak of them in a manner that leaves no doubt they would include them in a list just like this.

[mistertoups]

...because I don't need to mention them in the article, because they're mentioned in the title?

I haven't heard that Shatner album yet. I want to! It's on my "list"!

[akkanvader]

just so you know, i'm emailing you a shatner recording.

my turn

[captainbutthole]

off the top of my head:
modest mouse - moon and antarctica
grandaddy - sophtware slump
wilco - Yankee hotel foxtrot
silver jews - bright flight
fruit bats - echolocation

if i put any thought into this at all, it would probably be completely different. and smile kind of doesn't count.

Re: my turn

[mistertoups]

Yeah, it kind of doesn't. If I listened to more music I bet my list would be completely different too.

[koyetay]

The Moon & Antartica was my favorite Modest Mouse album until I heard Sad Sappy Sucker. It's weird and obscure while somehow not being at all pretentious.

[mistertoups]

Yeah, my favorite's probably the lonesome crowded west, for what it's worth.

Sad Sappy Sucker's good though. Definitely underappreciated. It's also the only album that sounds like it would come from a band called modest mouse.

[microdelay]

Is Bishop Allen actually Alan Bishop?

Have you ever heard Jim O'Rourke's Insignificance? I would definitely put that record in my top of the first half of the decade.

[mistertoups]

No and no, in that order.

Bishop Allen is a delightful indie pop group from New England.

[microdelay]

That's cool. Alan Bishop is one of the demented geniuses in Sun City Girls. AKA Alvarius B. AKA Uncle Jim.