Just a Reflektor – Arcade Fire’s latest album and the decline of music criticism

Arcade Fire’s latest album and the decline of music criticism

Hipsters have an easy time dismissing Arcade Fire, the Canadian rock band that took home the Album of the Year Grammy for 2010’s The Suburbs.

Each album since the band’s debut Funeral has more—more despair and gloom on Neon Bible, more feelings and memories on The Suburbs.

Antiquated tropes and costumes become more exaggerated with each album release, too, as if the band is saying, “Hey, this time around, we listened to Bruce Springsteen / U2/David Bowie a lot while making this record.

It also doesn’t help that the guerilla marketing campaign for the band’s upcoming release was essentially vandalism.

As exhausting as Arcade Fire may seem, credit is due—the band has become one of the biggest acts on the planet, a juggernaut that destroyed the term “indie” and gave Merge Records money for groceries.

On the band’s latest album, Reflektor (out Tuesday, Oct. 29), the hopeful moan of singer Win Butler has been replaced with a night on the dance floor. Teaming up with producer James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem, Arcade Fire has created its lengthiest LP. Tracks go into six, seven, and 11-minute territory. Material spills across two discs.

Excessive doesn’t even begin to describe some of these songs.

Like many a cynic before me, it’s easy for me to quickly judge Arcade Fire because everything the band does screams, “We’re important.”

The larger point remains: Reflektor isn’t even on shelves. Rather, the album was streaming on YouTube. And if you so choose, you can watch a film and read the album’s lyrics while listening. (Sheesh, do album streams need to give multi-taskers something to do now, too?)

Critics are already quick to stuff this 75-minute album down their throats and post opinions to the web. Uproxx will tell you five things you should expect. David Fricke from Rolling Stone will tell you this album is half a star away from being a classic. Will Hermes via NPR will say this album is an improvement over The Suburbs, which was a little stale for his tastes.

The question is no longer: “Is Arcade Fire’s new album any good?”

The question is: “Are critics taking the time to digest and actively listen to music anymore?”

I’m not ready to make a judgment on Reflektor yet. To my knowledge, Arcade Fire has made a bold-sounding move, using a life-changing experience in Haiti to direct the course of its music.

But these days, that detail isn’t enough. No, critics now have to rearrange their schedules as millions across Twitter and Facebook react. Reviews seem to have become gut reactions and sessions of fast-forwarding to turn in copy quicker.

I don’t doubt writers like Fricke and Hermes listened to Reflektor. I doubt the credibility of a glowing review when the reasons for such a grade are names of other bands that previously released albums the writer also considers important.

On the other side of the coin, the audience has created this fever pitch that relies on a made-up consensus. It’s not enough that a band releases a good song or album. There has to be this level of status quo achieved first from writers and social media pundits/friends before we can listen to something subjectively.

A discussion of music has been replaced with emoticons, and the album you waited years for didn’t meet your requirements of the smiley. The realms of time, place, and the craft of working out ideas into songs go out the window because the band didn’t write a sequel to your teenaged nostalgia.

I don’t have a quick review of Reflektor. I can’t quickly ascribe some meaningless number, letter or emoticon to something a group of people crafted for years so you can muster up the confidence to press play, listening to sounds you’ll forget next week.

At the end of the day, I marvel as the band describes modern culture on the title track’s lyrics, “We fell in love when I was nineteen/And now we’re staring at a screen.”

Through a computer screen is where most of us fell in love with the band. On that same screen, we’ll tear them apart just to type “First.”

Later on in the same song, Win Butler sings, “If this is heaven/I need something more.”

Me too, man. Me too.