rise again

OK, I give up

I thought I had a good case for not listening to Phoenix, based for once not on an irrational hater mentality, but rather developed empirically over the past few years. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not always logical when it comes to bands I could listen to based on my general musical tastes, but choose not to. Yet for these guys the crux of my argument was pretty simple: I didn’t like the songs. I never listened to a complete album, but I kept hearing their songs here and there and nothing really struck me. It seemed to me they suffered from the same problem that affects Coldplay on its bad days, let's call it mainstreamitis. Too bland, too nice without being perfect, I figured this was a band that I’d just do without. Then I saw them play at Rock en Seine 2007 and that was the clincher: they were far from bad, just not… interesting. Which is the kiss of death when it comes to my overcrowded iTunes library. From that point on I just wrote them off, disregarding the various times I heard people around me talk them up.

When their latest album, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, was released this year, I paid no mind. The clamor was pretty strong in my music circles before it came out, and only increased after, compounded once they started touring and good reviews kept streaming in. I thought to myself that I should maybe give them a quick try, just to confirm my previous impressions, but kept pushing it off. Then last week while browsing in a store they played a ditty with an unshakeable hook (you know where this is going) that made me stop and notice within seconds. After some furious iPhone querying I was able to ascertain that it was, in fact, a song from my Gallic brethren. So to recap, I was shopping at Urban Outfitters when I used my iPhone to discover the name of a Phoenix song. Yes I am a huge indie yuppie cliché. Anyway I finally did give them a proper listen soon thereafter…and have since disregarded all my previous opinions of their music.

It is with no qualms that I can say this album is a mix of some of the best pop moments I’ve heard in recent years. It’s sweet, it’s fast, it’s cheery. I kept hearing people describe them as “Air rocking out” which is pretty ridiculous , but it is actually undeniable at times, and this often sounds like Air jamming with the Strokes. Songs like Lasso, Rome or Girlfriend just latch on to your cranium and refuse to leave. These aren’t perfect 3 minute pop songs, but they never overstay their welcome, either. There’s an instrumental portion that might be the weakest part of the album, but even that is far from the cringe-fest it could be. The lyrics are pretty much what you’d expect (“I never loved you/ And if I loved you /I wouldn’t say I’m sorry oh no”), but the singer’s belts them out w/ a sure confidence that washes away any nagging doubts about their authenticity. In fact confidence is probably the best word to describe this entire effort, from the songwriting to the instrumentation.
To be fair I’ve since gone back and listened to some of their previous output, and feel like I was almost justified in my non-interest. But on this album the effort feels complete, organic, and entirely satisfying. So it might’ve taken them four LPs to corral me in their camp, but from now on I will definitely pay them the interest they deserve.