The Top 30 Albums of 2008: # 29

M83
Saturdays = Youth

Let's make something clear, lest it be assumed that TFO can be taken in by small slices of cheese, when it should be clear that we prefer massive wheels:  Saturdays = Youth did not make this list because it uses a synthesized cowbell on the song "Couleurs."  Yes, they use a cowbell, yes, they use that cowbell to great success to add to one of the most "aggressive" songs on an otherwise playful, almost saccharine, line-up of lengthy songscapes.  But we are not swayed by cowbells to place songs on lists.  It's been years since Christopher Walken convinced the world that they should pay attention to cowbells, and the desire to cater to old Saturday Night Live sketches as a pop culture reference point was extinguished right around the time people started wearing T-shirts with the phrase "More Cowbell" etched on them.  Novelty T-shirts can kill anything.  (Or if it can't, it really should.)

See, M83 was already on the list--it held up the spot that Neon Neon had.  The switch came down the pipeline when it was realized that a cowbell was better then the guest appearance of the still-don't-get-the-joke Har Mar Superstar spot on Stainless Style's "Trick For Treat."  [Side note to all artists:  Spank Rock doesn't need assistance when he's guesting on a track.  He's Spank Rock.  Nobody watches Manhunter and says "Hey, think how great this would be if Michael Mann let Garry Marshall direct some of it?  Wouldn't that be fantastic?"]  So the switch came down the pipeline, and since the pipeline is short, the only reason you know about it is because some people narc themselves out just in case it comes up in a Devil & Daniel Webster style negotiation

The main criticism/condemnation/praise for Saturdays = Youth has pretty much been the exact same thing, repeated ad infinitum to the point where I'd really like to see the original press packet for the album and figure out whether it's in there, because rarely do Pitchfork, All Music, The New York Times & Monkey Blog The Retard Show all appear to be written by one person.  That comment, as it's been roughly described, is that M83 were shooting to make a tribute/homage/ode/parody/satire/joke/serious statement/politicized motive/popular album about the late 80's in terms of the 80's relationship to films by John Hughes.  Seriously, that's what people keep saying.  Seriously, that's something the band talks about sometimes when they aren't still figuring out ways to explain that Nicolas Fromageau wasn't that big of a deal despite being referred to as a founding member.  Seriously, John Hughes?  Doesn't that mean it's going to sound like Tears for Fears, or the Bow Chicka Bow song?

Have no fear:  Saturdays = Youth may have the passion and love that rides behind Molly Ringwald's eyes, but the 80's movie this album most defines rests, like all good M83 music, in the lands trod by Andrew McCarthy and Robert Downey Jr--the lands that are on the outskirts of the sun going down, the ones you find when you drive down the highway with the top down.  This ain't Ferris Bueller, it ain't Sixteen Candles--fuck, no matter what you see on the album art, this ain't the Breakfast Club.  Saturdays = Youth doesn't belong to Anthony Gonzalez, it belongs to the synthesizer, the digital implosion, the way minimalism keeps finding it's way out of German art labels and into pop music, it belongs to the days when a movie had a Tangerine Dream soundtrack or it didn't have a soundtrack at all, it belongs to the nights when you can't stop moving and the mornings you need sunglasses and liquor to wake yourself up.  It's not for the doe eyes of the redhead Ringwald, it's not for the gloom of an Ally Sheedy, it's for Jami Gertz, the girl that anybody would've stolen a car for, because you can't get Robert Downey Jr. to stop sucking dick for James Spader.  It's Less Than Zero, and it's all about figuring out what a doe-eyed Gertz most wants, and who you can screw over to get it from.  Does it go on a little longer than it should?  Does it sometimes not realize that you can't just think about a Brian Eno soundscape of ambiance, you've got to construct something as well?  Sure.  All the leverage you can apply to knock at the paper-thin walls and the over-the-top sentimentality will find purchase, if that's what you want.  But if you're willing to ride with this one--if you're willing to find that dusky highway that "Couleurs" deserves, if your lady love is willing to let you play Kim & Jessie and stand on a midnight rooftop no matter the temperature (or whatever version of "make my life into a music video because movies killed my relationship with passion" you put stock in), the sugar here will melt your heart.  After all--there's music for fucking, and there's music for love.

If you play your cards right?  Maybe you'll figure out how to make this both.

-Tucker Stone, 2008

Comments

[Marty]

Interestingly enough, Anthony Gonzalez was literally aiming for a Tears For Fears sound with "Kim & Jessie." He cites "Head Over Heels" as the major influence.

[Tucker Stone]

I've never read anything by Anthony Gonzalez that led me to believe he knows what the hell he's talking about. Talented and intelligent musician? Sure. But has he ever hit the mark when he described his tunes? Part of what gives M83 such enjoyability is that they fail, consistently, to make crowd-pleasing expansive songs. Take a listen to "couleurs"-- what you have is a band shooting to make something that's in the banger domain, something that they think will segue right into some weird neo-rave context, something that a band like Justice would drop into their mixlist--and yet couleurs pretty much only works on the personal level, it's a song that's so heavily mixed that it's completely off-putting through the big speakers after you've heard it once through the cans. Kim & Jessie has potential to be soundtrack music, sure--but it's not the kind of closing/montage sequencing that a Tears for Fears can pull off. Kim & Jessie is fumbled make-out music, it's fumbled break-up music.

The thing is, I think that's what makes it great! I've rocked M83 more this past month at the office-through the company speaks in the common room--more than anything else (except Burial.) It's still fun, solid pop on that level. But at the personal, play it through the grados level? That's the only way to really get into the sound they're playing with, and if you make room for Eno, you've got a straight line connecting M83 back to Spector.