4 out of 5 “Paging John Hughes. John Hughes to the Maternity Ward.” See, that’s a joke. Because John Hughes, writer/director of such 80s-movie classics as Weird Science, Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, and The Breakfast Club, just had a baby with some hipsters and they named it M83’s Saturdays=Youth. This record is everything anyone could want out of the soundtrack to their very own teen romantic dramedy if everything you could want happens to have taken place in the decade of neon, Republican presidents, post-punk, and synthesizers…wait…is it the 80s?
But I digress, this really is a good album. Reminiscent of the all-encompassing fuzz & drone of My Bloody Valentine, the icy Northern Lights atmospherics of Sigur Rós, as well as the slightly Goth synthesizer-pop of The Cure, Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark, The Cocteau Twins, Saturdays=Youth is hypnotizing and every bit as late-afternoon-sun-shining-through-the-trees as the album cover art suggests.
“Skin of the Night,” which pretty much sounds exactly like its title would suggest, would be an ideal over-dub for Jason Patric & Jami Gertz’s love scene in The Lost Boys, and the f
ollow-up track, “Graveyard Girl,” is perfect Psychedelic Furs rock meets Morrissey lyrics. It’s what the soundtrack to Lost In Translation would have sounded like if it were made in 1986, even if the spoken word interlude is incredibly cheesy and calls to mind the overly dramatic teenage poetry of Lost… director Sofia Coppola’s breakthrough feature, The Virgin Suicides (but also the sunny earth-toned nostalgia of the same).
“Couleurs” is the most beat-centric track on the album, and sounds like New Order’s “True Faith” and “Blue Monday” mashed-up/remixed/appropriated by Brooklyn-and-critic darling LCD Soundsystem. And, after the Madonna by way of vampirized Tori Amos “Up!” and the Bono fronting The Cure “We Own the Sky,” the album does start to drag for the last few tracks.
“Highway of Endless Dreams” actually feels endless (which, at 4 ½ minutes isn’t a good sign compared to the 8 ½ minute long “Couleurs”), and the final track, “Midnight Souls Still Remain,” might as well be 11 minutes of fade-out with just two alternating chords to its name.
But I digress, this really is a good album. Reminiscent of the all-encompassing fuzz & drone of My Bloody Valentine, the icy Northern Lights atmospherics of Sigur Rós, as well as the slightly Goth synthesizer-pop of The Cure, Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark, The Cocteau Twins, Saturdays=Youth is hypnotizing and every bit as late-afternoon-sun-shining-through-the-trees as the album cover art suggests.
“Skin of the Night,” which pretty much sounds exactly like its title would suggest, would be an ideal over-dub for Jason Patric & Jami Gertz’s love scene in The Lost Boys, and the f
ollow-up track, “Graveyard Girl,” is perfect Psychedelic Furs rock meets Morrissey lyrics. It’s what the soundtrack to Lost In Translation would have sounded like if it were made in 1986, even if the spoken word interlude is incredibly cheesy and calls to mind the overly dramatic teenage poetry of Lost… director Sofia Coppola’s breakthrough feature, The Virgin Suicides (but also the sunny earth-toned nostalgia of the same).“Couleurs” is the most beat-centric track on the album, and sounds like New Order’s “True Faith” and “Blue Monday” mashed-up/remixed/appropriated by Brooklyn-and-critic darling LCD Soundsystem. And, after the Madonna by way of vampirized Tori Amos “Up!” and the Bono fronting The Cure “We Own the Sky,” the album does start to drag for the last few tracks.
“Highway of Endless Dreams” actually feels endless (which, at 4 ½ minutes isn’t a good sign compared to the 8 ½ minute long “Couleurs”), and the final track, “Midnight Souls Still Remain,” might as well be 11 minutes of fade-out with just two alternating chords to its name.
With lyrics like “Like a wall of stars, we are ripe to fall,” “Death is her boyfriend, she spits on summers and smiles to the night,” and “Everything is wrapped in grey, can you hear me in the void,” this is a deceptively dark album, sounding as it does perfect for a sun-bleached Volkswagen commercial (complete with Indie-looking girl sprawled on the back seat with her feet out one window and her wind-blown hair out the other). But, after all, what perfect teenage life isn’t?
=james
=james
No comments:
Post a Comment