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Artist: Broken Social Scene
Album: Broken Social Scene
Released: Oct. 4, 2005 Arts & Crafts Records
Tracklist:
1. Our Faces Split the Coast in Half
2. Ibi Dreams of Pavement (A Better Day)
3. 7/4 Shoreline
4. Finish Your Collapse and Stay for Breakfast
5. Major Label Debut
6. Fire Eye'd Boy
7. Windsurfing Nation
8. Swimmers
9. Hotel
10. Handjobs for the Holidays
11. Superconnected
12. Bandwitch
13. Tremoloa Debut
14. It's All Gonna Break
Ok, maybe `You Forgot It In People' was more immediately accessible. I mean come on, it even had an anthem for a seventeen year-old girl. It introduced the Broken Social Scene to the indie-loving world as one of those rare bands that can stand as equals among the great bands who influenced them. In this case we're talking Pavement, Sonic Youth, Flaming Lips, Dinosaur Jr., and even the Jesus and Mary Chain - the cream of the crop. Critics and indie fans alike heaped accolades on YFIIP and pre-orders for the follow-up propelled it to the top 50 on amazon before it even came out, which is no small feat. At that point Brendan Canning and Kevin Drew had to have known exactly why `Loveless' was My Bloody Valentine's last album.
What happened was the rarest of the rare: they lived up to the hype. This self-titled follow-up is everything `You Forgot It' was and then some. They somehow managed to get catchier while simultaneously becoming more experimental. Listen to "Windsurfing Nation" for a perfect example. The first minute sounds like a Kid A instrumental, hell they might as well have sampled "Pull/Pulk". Then the drums crash in and it's a hit single. It's got all the elements of a hit record: catchy hooks, a pulsating beat, handclaps, and a guest rapper even. If there had been a kitchen sink nearby they might have thrown that in as well. Oh and that guest rapper, K-OS, somehow manages to fit into this Radiohead meets the Yeah Yeah Yeahs tune seamlessly - and his cameo only lasts 12 perfect seconds.
As has been mentioned, the catchiest song that BSS have yet recorded is hidden away literally in the middle of a handful of non-essential instrumentals on the bonus EP included only on the special edition. "Major Label Debut (fast)" (who's chorus is "I'm all HOOKED up", not that other word that it sounds like) opens with a short intro riff then at the 29 second mark the drums and bass come in setting a driving pace that doesn't slow down, leads up to an actual guitar solo, which is followed by a short break from the drums before they dramatically reenter with a huge roll and drive along to a great climax. This song could have been the year's "Float On" given the right marketing scheme, which is exactly why the band got rid of it in favor of the slower mix on the album. To quote their Pitchfork interview: "We don't want to be the Gin Blossoms." You remember that Gin Blossoms song right? Yeah, I don't know what it's called either. But you damn well remember `Loveless`. Which could explain why the band also nixed a mix of "Ibi" with the vocals turned up.
There's so much good stuff going on all over this album. The opening track alone, especially when compared to "Capture the Flag" off `You Forgot It' should immediately tell you how much the band have improved on an already amazing sound. The opening riff, leading to Feist's beautiful, melodic, yet completely indecipherable vocals which leads seamlessly to the jazzy brass (which, like Feist's vocals, aren't mixed so high as to overpower any of the other instruments) section and then the music just seems to turn around backwards for the end as Feist laughs. Then "Ibi" comes blasting out at you with it's power chords juxtaposed brilliantly against that dissonant, wavering feedback. "7/4" of course has the odd time signature, but is very fast paced and carefree with Feist singing a refrain of what sounds like "let's go in a stolen car". On close inspection of the liner notes, it appears "Swimmers" was almost titled "Anthems for a 27 Year-Old Boy". It opens with what sounds like a beat made on a laptop and is joined by undistorted, very chorus-y guitar strumming and Emily Haines singing things like "if you always get up late you'll never be on time", "you look good, but you sound better", and of course "ba ba da-da-da". It's at least as good as the "17 Year-Old Girl" original.
Really I could go on for paragraphs about every song. There are just so many layers, so much going on separately and at once in every single song and always working so well that it's astonishing. At it's best moments it makes me think of those pop singles in the sixties, back when bands were experimenting with the boundaries of what could be pop. Songs such as "We Love You" by the Stones, "I Can See for Miles" by The Who, and "A Day in the Life" by The Beatles. "It's All Gonna Break", the epic nine and a half minute closing song particularly reminded me of how "A Day in the Life" transitions between two completely different songs except in this case it's at least three. "It's All Gonna Break" might just be the best song the Scene have yet written. The liner notes claim they wanted it to sound like "Bob Seger on acid". I don't quite see the Seger connection, but the acid part fits completely.
The band has stated that "we'd already made our art-house albums...the whole ideology of trying to write an actual four-minute pop song was new to so many of us." With members of this 9+ group ranging from Silver Mt. Zion and Do Make Say Think to Len, Treble Charger, Stars, and Metric you'd have never guessed that they'd have pulled this off this well and with such a complete sense of ease. Or maybe you really should have. Either way, Broken Social Scene are only getting better and seem to have limitless possibilities of where they can successfully take their music.
I think the band summed it up perfectly themselves in the lyrics to "Windsurfing Nation":
"We won't be what you want to be, OH NO!
...At the brink of an evolution we're going to linger."
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