Arcade Fire
Reflektor

When "Reflektor" was released, the public was not yet ready to admit to themselves that an Arcade Fire album could cause them gastritis, so it was met with a plebiscite that, looking back today, only makes one smile. The following year, after the thankless task of the year-end charts of 2013, the enthusiasm started to wane: War On Drugs, FKA twigs, Cloud Nothings, and various other things arrived. Needless to say, today that album is considered more or less a piece of crap.

You get it? They even went as far as re-evaluate "Funeral" negatively just because the Canadians put out a somewhat posh album, as if it were a crime. I mean, wasn't Dan Deacon trendy? Isn't Kendrick Lamar trendy? Aren't Big Thief some cool indie rock by today's standards? Certainly, having a record produced by James Murphy wasn't such a far-sighted choice, but it's also true that without his contribution, I couldn't imagine the existence of an incredible song like Reflektor today. Majestic, long, yet compressed like one of those things you peel off from a blister and take it down not to think about tomorrow. It even had a beautiful italo-disco break at the end, and the only reason they didn't go on tour with Chromatics the following year is probably because even Chromatics thought they were lousy as hell.

"Reflektor" wasn't a failure, nor was it a courageous record of change. It was simply an okay thing, and that's it. The emblem of failure for me is Andy Bell, first guitarist of Ride, then messed up by going to play bass with Oasis, then deciding to suck some more money from Liam Gallagher by supporting him in Beady Eye, and finally returning to Ride because someone told him that reunions with an open ass and playing half-assedly pay. Apparently, no one suggested to him that if you're not Jeff Mangum, these stupidities ruin your career and reputation as a cult musician.

Arcade Fire, on the other hand, opened their wealthy wallets and paid for the record they wanted to make, even nailing a handful of memorable tracks like Afterlife, Flashbulb Eyes, and Here Comes The Night Time, with their little keyboards that backtrack and mess up everything a bit. You write songs like that. Not to mention the way Supersymmetry drifts into an ocean of neon keyboards. Sure, the decision to name a song Porno screams dirty old man, and of course, there are loads of tracks inside of which I remember neither the title nor the melody because what else is a review if not a summary opinion on something not fully known?

I think the same goes for this album. Win Butler, his spouse, and a bunch of freaks tried to detach themselves from the image the world identified them with. They had something new in mind, and with that fixed idea in their heads, they did something that I don't really know if it turned out well or not, but it certainly denotes talent and a strong desire to screw. And if before their music could be identified with the usual keywords like accordion, blogosphere, anthem, and suburbia, with "Reflektor" AF entered the digital world, and if only you could go back to October 2013, you'd find them atop the Billboard as well as among Twitter's trending topics with the hashtag #telhomessoprepotentementeinquelposto.