607 long gone

Arcade Fire, Sharon Van Etten and Angel Olsen, and Pedro the Lion

You didn’t miss anything—check out 602 reputation, 603 restless heart, 604 i just do, 605 when you’re not around, and 606 seem to.

Music is often compared, in an abstract way, to food. We consume it, it satiates and satisfies, the intricacies of songs are sometimes likened to ingredients. I think the most apt musical metaphor is a craving; I crave music all the time, like a real feeling in my body. I pursue these feelings, always—a song pops into my head, apropos of nothing, and I have to seek it out, listen to it immediately. Or sometimes, like the scent emanating from a bakery, a spoken phrase or series of tones reminds me of a song that I haven’t thought about in a long time.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how I can cultivate more indulgence in my day to day life through music. Having basically every song ever made at your fingertips with a subscription to a streaming service can be overwhelming; too many options creates a paradox of choice in which so many different kinds of stimulation are accessible, an even slightly imperfect selection can ruin your groove. I listen to music somewhere around four to five hours per day and sometimes for the sake of discovery more than pure enjoyment, but generally I feel I’ve worked hard on having an intuitive sense of what I want to hear. It feels so good to hit a bullseye on the intangible feeling you’re looking to satisfy with the perfect song, and it costs us nothing to give ourselves that pleasure. I find that leaning into those cravings is gratifying.

All this to say, recently I had one random thought about Arcade Fire and naturally went down a weeklong rabbit hole of their discography. Arcade Fire was a deep pandemic band for me—I used to ride down to the marina on my bike in the summer of 2020 listening to “Keep the Car Running” and “Crown of Love” on repeat—so it has some nostalgic, transportive effect on me. The song featured on this playlist is from their third studio album, The Suburbs (2010).

By the time this record came out, Arcade Fire had already released a two critically acclaimed albums, Neon Bible (2007) and Funeral (2004). Funeral is arguably the most impressive debut of all time; contextualized by its release date, it’s wildly cutting edge, perhaps one of the main influences on the course of the alternative music scene up through today. Neon Bible is often credited as one of the first popular indie rock albums, among other giants of that year like We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank (2007) and Wincing the Night Away (2007). Arcade Fire had nothing to prove with The Suburbs, and yet they did anyway—they managed to imbue yet another extremely listenable album with thoughtful commentary, this time on the nature of childhood, family, and home.

This city's changed so much
Since I was a little child
Pray to God I won't live to see
The death of everything that's wild

Win Butler’s writing is often concerned with honest portraits of both his personal life and his understanding of the world. His analysis was often prescient; The Suburbs could have been written about the fast-paced nature of culture post-social media, the ways that technology has fundamentally changed every banal human interaction and process. It casts a shadow on the transition from child to adult, the cyclical nature of growing up:

So can you understand
That I want a daughter while I'm still young?
I want to hold her hand
And show her some beauty before this damage is done

The Suburbs is strangely self-aware; Win Butler is oft quoted saying that the album is “neither a love letter to, nor an indictment of, the suburbs – it’s a letter from the suburbs.” The album captures this subtle perspective, which in turn has captured the minds of a generation of indie rock musicians and influenced the subsequent popularity of the anxious, restless lyrical tone prominent today.

On the other end of the spectrum entirely, “Like I Used To” is a joyful reminiscence on the past:

Lighting one up like I used to
Dancing all alone like I used to
Giving it up like I used to
Falling in love like I used to

Sharon Van Etten and Angel Olsen are a dream team. I’m surprised it’s taken me this long to put this song on a playlist; it’s been on heavy rotation since it came out, the perfect windows-down-sunny-afternoon track. They recently announced a tour with Julien Baker, where I’m sure we’ll all be graced by a rendition of this absolute banger, but I was lucky enough to see them play it live already at Outside Lands, where they were both serendipitously slated to perform. Sharon Van Etten brought Angel Olsen out onto the stage at the end of her set, and, as predicted by this Pitchfork review, closed the show spectacularly with “Like I Used To.”

Pedro the Lion just put out a surprise album, Havasu (2022). David Bazan happens to make some of the only good music about Arizona (some of the only music about Arizona?), which endears him to me greatly. I listened to Phoenix (2019) intently in my first year of undergrad, walking around my college campus feeling a strange sensation in my stomach I’ve now identified as homesickness. Havasu is about the next town he lived in, next to the Lake Havasu reservoir in northern Arizona. It’s therefore also about the next phase of his childhood, the one in which young people start to unintentionally hurt one another in silly, terrible ways. “Teenage Sequencer” chronicles the excitement and confusion and regret that comes along with the territory of a first relationship:

There goes nature
Pulling me along like a sequencer
Right on time
Turning me into a teenager

I’m always impressed by David Bazan’s ability to write with so much empathy towards those massive feelings of his younger self. He treats each scene with care and gently recounts his own embarrassing, painful, beautiful memories. His expert translation of those emotions reminds me of Lucy Dacus’ heartbreaking album Home Video (2021), in which she similarly explores her childhood, the trials that shaped her. There’s a reason these records resonate so strongly with all of us: we were all David Bazan once—he’s just brave enough to write about it:

Too much desperation
For a casual conversation
Way too much information
To try and bridge the distance at all