Air
Talkie Walkie

It's incredible how times change.
I know, it sounds like a cliché, but market laws have definitively changed our way of living. We've noticed that, right?
Once albums would be released just a few days after the final recording, just the time to refine the mix, press the vinyl, break the news to the newspapers, and distribute them in stores. The wait was always frantic and exciting because there wasn't a precise date; you'd know, there was news in the air about a new album, but only when the single was played on the radio and the album was in shop windows would you rejoice and rush to buy it.
Now musical works are like movies... we already know that in May 2005, Star Wars Episode 3 will be released, or on www.apple.com/trailers/ you can download trailers with images of films that will be in theaters in summer 2004 when today I don't even know if on the afternoon of Christmas 2003 I'll go see Finding Nemo or stay home gurgling and reflecting on a lasagna overdose.

In about 50 days, the new AIR album entitled TALKIE WALKIE will be released... I found out by chance today when someone sent me a 60 MB .zip containing the 10 tracks... bah... I'm sad.
I don't know if you understand me if this feeling I have is shared with those reading... but even though I consider myself a fan of AIR, this thing leaves me so perplexed, so very bitter, "oh look, a new album by my favorite band will be out in 2 months, let me listen to it while I finish a job"... maybe it's the fault of the record itself that plays while I write. Trite, boring.

How awful to dismiss a record like that, using two adjectives and that's it, without saying why and how. I like the color BLUE. At my house, the microwave is blue, just like the glass plates I use every day, the curtains in my bedroom, the courtesy light near the TV, or the adhesive tape I've artistically pasted on the wall to cover some cracks. Why do I like blue? I really don't know. Is there a reason I should seek? So, in the same way, for this album...

It's not the usual "Moon Safari is unique, nothing like it ever" discussion because I really enjoyed the cinematic gloom of "The Virgin Suicides" as well as the primal roughness of "Premiers Symptomes". So what does this Talkie Walkie have that doesn't work? Perhaps I should have waited until January 24 to listen to it, without ruining the 50-day wait that the marketing studies of the AIR entourage had planned to make me desire and enjoy it more. Damn, it's my fault.

I've never believed in those sayings "you learn to appreciate it over time". When you encounter a "love" it should be lightning, there must be something that makes you say or think "HOLY COW IT'S HIM/HER"... then, over time, you can build, you can increase the pleasure, you can discover and even rethink if you want. But the first dialogue with a person, just like the first listen to a record must be explosive, it should make you want to "stop and rewind" the song just heard, not "fast forward" in anticipation of "let's see if there will be something better next".

This is how I see it. The songs are well played anyway. No one questions AIR's talent.