Arcade Fire - WE

Alright, for lack of anything better to contemplate, let's give the new Arcade Fire album WE a spin. I legitimately haven't heard an Arcade Fire song since I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor was their first single. 

C: No, that was Arctic Monkeys. 

B: Oh. Ok, Chasing Cars? 

C: No again, Snow Patrol. 

B: Ok, i give up. Which one was Arctic Fire? 

C: That's Arcade Fire, and their first two singles were The Suburbs and Rebellion (Lies). 

B: Not ringing a bell. 

C: Kids on bikes and sewer tunnels for the former, the band parading by themselves... 

B: Oh, oh, stupid silly post-animation on the marching snare hits? The "sleeping is giving in" one? No wonder i barely remember, sleeping is the single best thing humans can do with or without clothes on. Waking up is the nightmare. 

Alright, i suppose this does qualify as the most recent Age of Anxiety, WE'll give it a whirl. First though, 10 dollars off a 10 dollars too expensive album hardly qualifies as "clearance price,"  but the newest rerelease of the Beatles' Revolver has an unnecessary t-shirt inside it and i hate money to begin with, so WE'll set all that aside and scrutinize the content on its own terms. This is Folkdancepop or something, so the bar is like Avicii Mumfordson. Is their mopery valid seems to be the only relevant question. 

Well, right from the start WE have a dilemma because Win Dixie, i mean Win Butler defines me as an older generation. I was already alive before metaphor dad created the rabbit hole he says he was born inside. You wouldn't think the two months older than him i am would make much of a difference, but here we are. That of course logically means i'm outside no matter how far i go spelunking, so i guess i can't be part of this particular royal WE. Any club that would have me as a member is a Groucho Marx joke waiting to happen. 

Maybe it's me, but here at the end of the first side i'm way out of my depth in this post-ironic wilderness. I can't tell if this is sincere or sarcasm. Are you happy or sad about the end of the empire? Is "Sagittarius A" actually a pretty name, or are you making fun of the latest cycle of bizarre kids names? That's not a unique thing, but I legitimately don't know if you know that. Every generation of every culture has its crop of normal names and obnoxiously stupid names by contemporaneous standards. I went to high school with a girl named Twinkle, and i think you might be forgetting about Moon and Dweezil. Is today's stupid more or less stupid that a different day's stupid? Again, can't tell which side of sarcasm/solidarity schism you're standing on slash straddling, Win lose or draw. 

Sure, WE literally will see what's on the other side, but i almost don't believe it, you know? Is the second half of this album going to be the yang of this concept, or is it just a vapid exploitation of structural coincidence? It feels like this album is taking place inside its own bubble of cosmic irony and they're all gallows, zero humor. Maybe it works for everyone else, i said it could just be me, but it all feels like we called a taxi and i'm the only one who noticed the death cab showed up instead. Which one of us is Cutie? I can't tell if "unsubscribe" is the rebellion or the conformity, but i also can't tell if that's the intention or not. I have many more unanswerable questions, but WE have to get unconditionally struck by lightning at some point, so WE'll just rotate 90 degrees counterclockwise and get on with it (that's a joke about the half-assedly ergodic lyric layout while simultaneously reverse-justifying my mentioning of Revolver). 

Ok, ok, here's the problem, this isn't a profound album for me. It can't be. It's called WE and there's a picture of an eye on the cover. I knew what that implied before i gave up and agreed to buy it. This is a two-sides of the same coin album, but you can't buy a candy bar with it because this coin isn't recognized as legal tender anywhere i shop. You're calling for a new Age of Reason (to break from the Age of Anxiety, obviously) but you're doing it inside an Astrological rather than Astronomical universe. That's only 1 pair of ducks by my count. I voluntarily left my sarcasm satchel at the coat check, but you're doubling down in bad faith. "When everything ends, can WE do it again?" No, there's no WE afterward. It's an inverse koan. It's inverse because you aren't displaying the inadequacy of logic and reason to provoke enlightenment, you're displying the inadequacy of enlightenment to satisfy your thirst for delusion. You might not know you're doing it, but same difference. 

I guess, in the end, the process of me spoiling the revelation that this album is the actual koan, and pointing out how droll the side a = I, side b = WE thing is IS the sound of one hand clapping. Like it, hate it, change your mind, it's an album, i listened to it, zen accomplished, imaginary contractual obligation fulfilled, its terms have been met. I actually enjoyed it, but as my hero Arte Johnson might say, very interesting, but stupid. As my other hero Mindy Sterling might scream in her equally fictionally German Frau Farbissina voice, NEXT! 

Now go M. Night Shya-read it again to get all the foreshadowing you didn't notice as you read it the first time. Ow! That one hand slapping my original face made a clearly audible THWACK! As always, if this wasn't funny then you're reading it wrong, but i'll still try to do a better job next time anyway because you can always please some of the people none of the time. Cheers.