Late thoughts on The Suburbs

AF's new Jonathan Franzen Novel

My pal Win Butler.  I’ll hand it to him, he likes to raise the stakes on himself.  He bemoans our fragmented modern condition in big, bold rock-star gestures so convincingly that it almost serves as a perfunctory answer to the perennial boomer question “what happened to music that meant something?”  And he’s mostly successful at it.  Whereas Neon Bible had some cringe worthy over the top pontifications, The Suburbs is just balanced enough not be an embarrassment, and it certainly had every possibility to be.  This is a capital A Album, it is about us, the kids, the suburbs, downtown.  This is about getting old and shedding off the optimism of youth in a terrifying world.  This is an album about punching the clock by one of the few indie bands that doesn’t have to.

The songwriting is much more mature and nuanced, but like on Neon Bible, Win is still always onstage.  Even his more intimate offerings are still backed up by mile long reverb trails and a full string section.  And he’s never really talking to anyone specific, he’s witnessing to the masses, shouting to the mountaintops, standing self aware in a specific moment of history.  I don’t think the Arcade Fire are ever gonna get away from that, that is what they do after all.  It’s just that Funeral sounded like a shout to the sky, The Suburbs sounds like a polemic.

According to their website, “each of the 16 tracks is mastered to a 12 inch lacquer and then transferred back to digital format so that the CD and digital version of the record sound just like the vinyl.”  Like I said, it’s an “Album” motherfuckers, one that has all the hallmarks of an album of the year if not an album for a generation (or at least a sequel to one depending how you feel).  But those hallmarks may be exactly what hinders it from being either.  At 16 tracks, you’re not really left wanting more.  As bleak as Win’s outlook gets, his lack of brevity steals all the punch of his warnings.  What’s put forth as a grand statement ends up being 16 variations on a single theme, sequenced as if they add up to a coherent narrative.  It doesn’t really come together.  The trick would be to cut redundant exercises like “Month of May” or “City With No Children,” because they really just kill time and add heft to what could be a surprisingly elegant and restrained album with a little editing.