Arcade Fire's Neon Bible

Haven't heard any of leaked stuff but the album title sounds a bit shit.

still interested to hear it all though.

What's "Black Mirror?"

A: "Because we're Pitchfork! We made this band and we can take them away!"

I'm probably reading too much into this, and maybe they do this kind of thing all the time, but it's never struck me the way it did here.

(Wow AF has a cool web site)

http://sixeyes.blogspot.com/2007/01/arcade-fire-new-mp3-black-mirror-neon.html

Track listing for album as follows.

1 Black Mirror
2 Keep the Car Running
3 Neon Bible
4 Intervention
5 Black Wave/ Bad Vibrations
6 Ocean of Noise
7 The Well and the Lighthouse
8 (Antichrist Television Blues)
9 Windowsill
10 No Cars Go
11 My Body Is a Cage

I've heard the three tracks that have leaked so far and it reminds me a bit of ELO, have to say. (which isn't a bad thing IMHO)

I like the 5 songs that had leaked off the new one better than I liked the whole first album.

I've now burned the whole new one, but have yet to listen to it.

I do like that it seems a lot darker than the first one though.

Haven't heard this new one yet but I've heard "Black Mirror" and I like it a lot, even though it kind of sounds like they're playing underwater. Which might be intentional, since they've been going for a darker sound (how much darker can you get after naming and theming an album Funeral??).

The band waled throught the crowd and set up in the middle of the hall to perform an acoustic version of Wake Up. This was pretty special and the venue must only hold about 450 people so then the band move to the stage and the gig starts proper. Platyed a load of new stuff which was great particularly Black Mirror and a song called the Well and the Lighthouse (I think). I casually sauntered to the front of the stage and watch from right at the front - past all the hooray henrys who seem to have adopted the band. Shame.

Anyway, no matter, this was magical music played by a band on top of their form. Too many highlights to recall but watching Win go out intot he crowd for an amazing Rebellion was genius and the encore of My Body is a Cage and a fucking insane version of Laika were just incredible. At the moment they are probably the best band on the planet.

The first time I saw them they opened for The Unicorns and nobody (including I) had heard of them. They blew everyone away.

I agree on the live magic--I liked their set the once I saw them.

I like the whole thing, in fact

http://www.motovideo.com/productimages/TheLegend.jpg

Go here: http://www.neonbible.com/yope.html

(if you do this in Internet Explorer, then click on 5. lyrics and you wait until the image of the girl appears, you have all the lyrics on your PC: search for a file called lyrics.xml in your Temporary Internet Files folder (size: 15 kb) and copy it somewhere else. The lyrics are all in there, edit in Word or something to convert to text/doc, and now you won't have to go to that site every time anymore)

nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!

i haven't heard it yet. i saw a track list, though. is "no cars go" on it?

passionate(?)/slick vs. passionate/ramshackle...

Maybe you can chalk it up to self-consciousness of his audience's expectations, which just weren't a factor for Funeral, but this album strikes me as just trying too hard to make a Statement, some indictment or tragic dramatization of closed-minded religious middle class American values and culture, perhaps.

In any case I can't remember the first album containing telling-not-showing groaners like, "I'm standing on a stage of fear and self-doubt" (from My Body is a Cage).

On the whole it just seems more mundane, to contain less of the wild magic that on Funeral reminded me so ineffably of NMH.

Anyone else feel something of this, more or less?

It seems like not knowing where to go or what to do with their success, they just give more, more, and more of what people liked about the first album. More group choruses, more angst, more bombast, more instruments (christ almighty, their guitar techs are probably as busy as Sonic Youths and Win Butler seemed to invested his royalties from the first album into a vintage instrument collection) and it just feels totally overloaded without the charms of the first album.

Hell, it's still gonna sell a million copies. If the Shins can debut on number 2, I imagine Neon Bible will be number 1.

Across the board annoying vocals in this band, too. Ugh.

BUT IT'S LOUD!!!! AND THEY DRESS DIFFERENTLY!!!! OH MY AWESOMENESS LOL!!!!

God damn nothing beyond that.

this is WAY BETTER than the rising AND devils & dust.

Superfamily = Norway's answer Arcade Fire

The BBC did a Culture Show special on the Arcade Fire recently. They played 'Neon Bible' and 'Guns Of Brixton' in the foyer of the Brixton Academy, in an unplugged style more reminiscent of 'Laika' than any of the the sludgily produced new album, and it was fucking beautiful.

-- Mister Craig, Sunday, 6 May 2007 13:24

saw em (3rd time in 3 years) in Berkeley Sat nite: I'd still like to shoot at least 2 band members, but they are prodigious live.

and im immune to Springsteen

Not a huge fan of theirs. I liked some to most of "Funeral" and I haven't spent much time at all with "Neon Bible" yet, but to pick on the lyrics from "Neighborhood #1" is simply not on. One of my favourite songs from the past 5 years. The entire premise is brilliant.

"our bedrooms, and our parents' bedrooms, and the bedrooms of our friends"

That's just magic.

I was at the Friday show in Berkeley and I agree with Morbius they were fantastic. I saw them 2 years ago at the Great American in SF and they have improved their live show drastically, and I'm still divided on Neon Bible.

who the hell was that woman in the videoclip at the start of the show? I was too far away. My first guesses (quickly eliminated) were Patti LaBelle or Liz Taylor.

Win Butler mentioned onstage last Saturday that cops escorted him out of the Cal Berkeley gym ... and so there is controversy.

OK what the hell is this Oct 6 thing P4k won't stfu about?

Arcade Fire The Neon Bible
Nominated by Green Gartside of Scritti Politti

People who enjoy this album may think I'm cloth-eared and unperceptive, and I accept it's the result of my personal shortcomings, but what I hear in Arcade Fire is an agglomeration of mannerisms, cliches and devices. I find it solidly unattractive, texturally nasty, a bit harmonically and melodically dull, bombastic and melodramatic, and the rhythms are pedestrian. It's monotonous in its textures and in the old-fashioned, nasty, clunky 80s rhythms and eighth-note basslines. It isn't, as people are suggesting, richly rewarding and inventive. The melodies stick too closely to the chord changes. Win Butler's voice uses certain stylistic devices - it goes wobbly and shouty, then whispery - and I guess people like wobbly and shouty going to whispery, they think it signifies real feeling. It's some people's idea of unmediated emotion. I can imagine Jeremy Clarkson liking it; it's for people in cars. It's rather flat and unlovely. The album and the response to it represent a bunch of beliefs about expression and truth that I don't share. The battle against unreconstructed rock music continues.

from here: http://music.guardian.co.uk/rock/story/0,,2102991,00.html

the one on the strokes is good too, even if it is by the fella from battles.

if a girl doesn't hug her friends, then you know she's cool.

From that oh-so-edgy feature I most identify with "there's something about Abba that I hate," and everything about the Doors and Pink Floyd obv.

I think they've really toned the Echo out in the live stuff and have cranked up the Springsteen. When I first heard Neon Bible I heard both, but the McCulloch has more or less disappeared with each successive listen. Also: very brisk well paced live show.
-- fukasaku tollbooth, Sunday, May 6, 2007 1:18 PM (4 months ago) Bookmark Link

I think the Ian McCulloch comparisons are spot on, especially for Win Butler's vocals on Neon Bible -- I can actually picture McCulloch doing a lot of these songs, vocally, if they had a more Bunnymen-esque sound instrumentally.

From that oh-so-edgy feature I most identify with "there's something about Abba that I hate," and everything about the Doors and Pink Floyd obv.

-- Dr Morbius, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 20:48

nobody said it was edgy, chum. just otm a couple of times.

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/46081-a-gift-from-the-arcade-fire-coming-this-saturday

Rest assured, it's pretty fucking cool.

...

Posted by Amy Phillips

lcd remixes neon bible? so speculatez catbirdseat.

That's the word on the street, apparently.

i like.

oooo-kay. it's a sort-of vaguely interactive video thing for the song "neon bible". unless i'm missing something deeper.

meh.

I found it fucking creepy.

A website with moving hands. Pitchfork look like dumb little cheerleaders talking about how exciting this surprise would be.

so this ended up being a pretty solid album in my book

The guy from Battles sounds like a fucking idiot in that Guardian piece max r links to.

As for the video, it's a pretty cool piece of flash... I kind of wish it was a new tune or an LCD collaboration or something, though.

didn't see this before:
black mirror video
http://www.rorrimkcalb.com/arcadefire.html
but you can toggle on/off different tracks of the song e.g. listen to the whole thing without the drums

up with this sort of thing

Gosh, blueski, that is indeed ace.

https://pitchfork.com/news/a-giant-dog-cover-arcade-fire-neon-bible-in-full-on-new-album/

full-album cover by excellent rock band a giant dog coming soon

lmao at the neon goatse album cover

Arcade Fire The Neon Bible
Nominated by Green Gartside of Scritti Politti

People who enjoy this album may think I'm cloth-eared and unperceptive, and I accept it's the result of my personal shortcomings, but what I hear in Arcade Fire is an agglomeration of mannerisms, cliches and devices. I find it solidly unattractive, texturally nasty, a bit harmonically and melodically dull, bombastic and melodramatic, and the rhythms are pedestrian. It's monotonous in its textures and in the old-fashioned, nasty, clunky 80s rhythms and eighth-note basslines. It isn't, as people are suggesting, richly rewarding and inventive. The melodies stick too closely to the chord changes. Win Butler's voice uses certain stylistic devices - it goes wobbly and shouty, then whispery - and I guess people like wobbly and shouty going to whispery, they think it signifies real feeling. It's some people's idea of unmediated emotion. I can imagine Jeremy Clarkson liking it; it's for people in cars. It's rather flat and unlovely. The album and the response to it represent a bunch of beliefs about expression and truth that I don't share. The battle against unreconstructed rock music continues.

from here: http://music.guardian.co.uk/rock/story/0,,2102991,00.html

― max r, Tuesday, October 2, 2007 9:26 PM (eleven years ago) bookmarkflaglink

This from Green Gartside still shreds all these years later <3

I suppose his pick was the easiest of that bunch, but also the most accurate.

I had never read Siobhan Donaghy's take on ABBA, that's totally nuts.

not surprised that the person who wrote "Eminem is probably the Dylan of rap, whereas Tupac just sounded like he was whining" also just came out as "sapiosexual"

Yeah, Donaghy's take doesn't make a lick of sense.

"I love the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Burt Bacharach, all those great pop melody-writers, but there's something about Abba that I hate. Maybe it's going to parties with shit DJs for most of my childhood that has made me hate them. Abba were forced on people from my generation, so there's a natural resentment towards them. "

Ah, so the Beatles, Beach Boys and Bacharach weren't forced on your generation? Really xp

finn otm

And "Dancing Queen", "Knowing Me Knowing You" and "Money Money", "annoying"? Hey, I don't share it at all with Dancing Queen and Money Money, but I suppose I could find some excuses for it. But "Knowing Me Knowing You" conveying annoyance? It's such a stark, mature, understated look at a breakup that "annoying" is the last thing I imagined it could evoke for anybody.

i love neon bible but also weirdly agree with green

It's a damning review in every respect, but eloquent and truthful all the same. And I agree with Green. 'Funeral' was my no.1 2004 album, 'Neon Bible' was, and still is, such a drag, cliché music.

I'm curious: how do you square agreeing w/ him yet loving 'Neon Bible' all the same?

idk i think the songwriting on neon bible is p strong but he's right when he says it's monotonous in its textures and clunky and pedestrian in its rhythms. the monotonous textures and overt melodrama work for what a record of bad vibes it is imo. the rhythmic problems apply to every fuckin arcade fire record

"Dark Side of the Moon" is "a bloated concept album that made punk necessary"? That's funny, because "Dark Side" is neither particularly bloated (42 minutes!) nor much of a concept album. "The Wall," on the other hand, is absolutely both of those things, and it came out after punk, so nice try, punk. Not only that, just a few weeks after its release, Pink Floyd's labelmates (!) the Clash released its own double-album, so ... advantage Pink Floyd?

That said, Neon Bible is a drag.

There are two b-sides from this album ("Surf City Eastern Bloc" and "Broken Window") that I think are really lovely and worth checking out

Re: Neon Bible.

I like Gartside's point with Win Butler's voice; it's like he keept going back and forth from Nebraska to Born to Run. Those mannerisms weren't that much of an issue in Funeral, though.

there are several power-poppy/grungy takes on the A Giant Dog version of the album I really like esp "Black Mirror," "Well and the Lighthouse" and "(Antichrist Television Blues)" which they made sound like a Savages song. the slower songs are a bit pointless

neon bible has pretty good songs but the way they were recorded didn't really do them justice, everything sounds both dull and overwrought

"my body is a cage" is still an absolutely phenomenal closer though

This album was one of my biggest letdowns in music.

i’ve always liked it more than funeral bc i’m a freak

Maybe it's supposed to feel like watching a televangelist infomercial?

Loved Funeral, couldn't bother with this much. A dabbler in the Fire ever since. The last one had some jams.

Funeral is still amazing. Neon Bible, I'd still defend it. From Suburbs and on, that's out of my reach.

i actually think suburbs is their best record at this point

it's solidly my second favourite of theirs these days, at the time it seemed a little low-key in sound for them but that's ultimately worked in its favour. there's a few tracks i'd cut but it really captured the feeling they were going for overall

the melodies on the suburbs feel the strongest to me, there's something about win's vocal melodies + the riffs on "modern man" and "city with no children" that pulls like taffy

"deep blue" is buried in the second half but is my favorite arcade fire song etc.

oh i really don't like "city with no children" lol that's one of the few i'd cut (others being "rococo" and maybe "sprawl i", and "we used to wait" could probably be cut down a little). "deep blue" and "modern man" are wonderful though, those and the title track are my favourites on it.

don't cut "rococo"!!!!

"sprawl i" fair

"rococo" is just plodding and annoying i can't get into it

the melodies on the suburbs feel the strongest to me

i generally agree with this, tho his strongest-ever melody is probably no cars go

a great underrated track from the suburbs is the extended "wasted hours" from the deluxe edition, the original is lovely but the outro that was added makes it even better

I could never understand the love for No Cars Go. Always sounded like a b-side to me.

it has win's strongest melody

ooh, maybe crown of love does, nvm

"no cars go" is almost great but a little too clunky and disjointed and the horrible footprint of its "hey!"s can't be ignored either. i think it's a lot better on live recordings than either studio version though

I really like most songs on Suburbs, I like them when they go bombastic like they do in Rococo, but as an album I find it exhausting.

It's probably the easy pick but Rebellion is so amazing. That performance in the Much Music Awards back then is still one of the greatest I've seen on TV.

i think a major reason why i've come to love crown of love so much is that it has the same chord progression as max richter's ultra-emotional theme from the leftovers

I really like most songs on Suburbs, I like them when they go bombastic like they do in Rococo, but as an album I find it exhausting.

otm

s/t EP is cruelly underrated, my favourite AF song of all time is probably "Vampire / Forest Fire".

i don't really rate the EP much as a whole but "vampire / forest fire" is a masterpiece

The EP is great for sure.

neon bible underrated

Alternatively, undergood, or at least, undercooked. Or maybe overcooked? Half-baked? Not terrible, though.

Actually, I haven't listened to it in a decade, lol. Let's see how it holds up!

Sounding good, tbh. I was trying to recall events a 100 years ago and couldn't really, so looked the album up on wikipedia, and came across this:

In 2019, Merge Records (Arcade Fire's label for their earlier records, including Neon Bible), released a full-album cover version of Neon Bible by American rock band A Giant Dog. Vocalist Sabrina Ellis commented that "the themes in the album, of outrage at U.S. leadership in the early 2000s, and a need to escape our social climate, sadly, remain pertinent today.

I didn't know about that. I suppose it's double edged to say that an album designed for/reacting to a decade ago sounds ready made for today, since the outrage and anger and frustration of this album is kind of boilerplate (which is a criticism many also have with The Suburbs, an album I like more). But then again, resonant is resonant.

I checked in last year or so and still loved it.

revisiting their first two LPs... i dismissed them years ago for whatever reason. there's some shows from around 2005 on youtube and their early energy was extraordinary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3B4iaRnyvk

even when i saw them 3-4 years ago, the energy was intense.

some of the best times of my life

Yeah, the last time I saw them, in an arena, touring behind an album I didn't like (the second in a row for me), they absolutely killed it. So the energy is still there, imo, it's the more recent songs that aren't that good.

this is their masterpiece IMO.

it is my fave arcade fire record forever yes

i actually think suburbs is their best record at this point

― american bradass (BradNelson), Friday, September 20, 2019 6:00 AM (one year ago) bookmarkflaglink

interesting opinion, me