M83 - Saturdays=Youth
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Free Music Notes for Saturdays=Youth
Free Music Review: A Brilliantly-Executed New Wave Revival!
Hit: 5 Stars
M83's Anthony Gonzalez has always embraced the epic nature of his songs. When browsing through his catalog of amazing songs, you start to realize that his best are always the ones that build into grand displays of what electronic music can be with the right person behind the synth keys. On, Saturdays=Youth, Gonzalez is expanding this idea by introducing an increased importance placed on songwriting and pop sensibilities. The album is, by all accounts, a new wave album in the purest sense of the genre. Recalling the best work of groups like New Order, Flock of Seagulls, or Depeche Mode, Gonzalez has created what could possibly be his most impressive album to date.
Saturdays=Youth plays out like the long-lost soundtrack to a John Hughes movie (actually cited by Anthony as an inspiration for the album), or a bonus CD for Donnie Darko. The scene pictured on the album cover should back me up on this. Gonzalez does more than just capture the mood of the cinematic era, however. The majority of the lyrics on the album are just as lovingly cheesy and melodramatic as can be, filled with such poignantly bad lines like "7am/dusty road/I'm going to drive until it burns my bones" or "The cemetary is my home/I want to be a part of it/invisible even to the night/and I'll read poetry to the stars." But these awesomely bad lines hardly distract from the mood of the album; if anything, they enhance it! It's like watching Sixteen Candles all over again!
That's not to say that you had to be around in the 80s to enjoy this though. I'm too young to remember anything from that era, and everything I know about it is second hand (Anthony, himself, is only 26). Still, I've found Saturdays=Youth to be an enchanting album. In the past, M83 has been about these really deep synth-heavy songs that build and build and assault your eardrums with pure electronic bliss. This album is a much softer, spread-out experience. There's never a sound that is too harsh or commanding, despite the fact that every song is built upon several layers of different synthetic instruments. Album opener, "You, Appearing," for example, never ventures beyond a simple piano line and atmospheric synth harmonies.
"Kim & Jessie," meanwhile, starts out of the gate with heavy drums and a blast-from-the-past synth lead that should totally be the intro song to some 80s throwback film, like Tears for Fears' "Head Over Heals" on the aforementioned Donnie Darko. "Skin of the Night" is a brilliantly sexy tune with shrill female vocals. She sings, "She digs her nails into her naked chest/miles of veins fan out like a road map/she pulls back the skin to show her ribs/that twinkle like shooting stars." It's pretty decent "mood" music for anyone who happens to still be living in 1985. "Graveyard Girl" replaces a lot of the keyboards for guitars, and the overall feel is unlike anything else the album has to offer. Gonzalez does manage to throw in some vocal synths, however; you know, the choral sounds on a keyboard that never get used? To be able to make them sound cool, to me, is a great sign of talent.
Possibly the greatest thing about Saturdays=Youth is that everything feels familiar despite the fact that this is all original material. There are not very many artists out there today who share Anthony's love for 80s new wave music and bring that love out in their music; so being able to hear a fairly stellar recreation of it is entirely welcomed. It should go without saying that many M83 fans may feel disenfranchised with the new approach that Gonzalez is taking to creating music. There are only a few moments on the album that sound like they could've been on another one of his works. "Couleurs," is clearly one of them, as is "Dark Moves of Love." Beyond that, however, this is completely new territory; both for Gonzalez and his fans. Personally, though I enjoyed his past albums almost without exception, Saturdays=Youth seems like the culmination of his work; an album that will not die out after a handful of listens, but one that will continue to receive plays for years. New wave is not my favorite of genres, to be honest, but this is an album that I simply cannot get enough of! I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to relive the 80s, or at least be reminded of their better musical moments.
Key Tracks:
1. "Kim & Jessie"
2. "Skin of the Night"
3. "Graveyard Girl"
4. "Up!"
5. "We Own the Sky"
9 out of 10 Stars
Free Music Review: the 1980's when we all needed it most
Hit: 5 Stars
Shamefully unaware of the existence of the coded "m83" artist/band, I powered-on my Pandora station seeded upon the glorious Tears for Fears "Everybody Wants to Rule the World." I am certain, reader, you know where this is going. Following the usual lovely 80's-fare, a song dripping with synth-seagulls and muffled-esque vocals wandered along the player. I failed to look up instantly, continuing to focus upon my grad school reading at the time. Initially, "I don't know this 80's song," was the only fleeting thought across my mind. As the unsuspecting chorus engaged, however, I could no longer ignore the calling. "What IS this?," I strongly inquired to an empty room. I was almost angry that I did not recognize a genuine new-wave classic (PS - Yes, New Wave is a very real genre. End the debate). In viewing the little Pandora player, I was inundated by 3 lines of nonsense: "Kim & Jessie"; "m83"; "Saturdays=Youth." Research ensued, uncovering the jarring reality that this was, indeed, a CURRENT band.
Following a brief MySpace listen, the purchase was on it's way. Subsequent to receipt of tangible CD (yes, I believe in those, too), the tunes nary left the headphones or space of my experiences. Do any of you recall those formative albums, where the listen ushers in instant transportation of nostalgic times? Akin to the the way the scent of apple-cinnamon takes one back to grandma's house as a child, certain albums were crafted with such heart and thoughtfulness that they capture the spirit of one's life transition of the time. Remember those? Think: Songs from the Big Chair for my childhood, Vitalogy for my tweens and high school, Dashboard for college, and Copeland's Eat Sleep Repeat for the post-college years. While I could go on, the instance remains rare. Well, at 27 years of age, it occurred again. The reminiscent synth and verb of yesteryears came to color and shape the years of current. Consequently, m83 (along with the Album Leaf) captured my grad school years.
If for some reason you have not heard this album, know little of this 'band,' fear not, I urge you. Careening through nostalgic keys and dream-wave melodies, this is NOT reminiscent of the 80's in a power-cheese manner. On the contrary, the album's return to the past teems with such heartfelt emotion, passion, and I-am-reliving-it-again memories that it works. Scratch that, it does not 'work,' it stirs the soul. New wave stirs the soul? Undoubtedly. While initially odd, the title of the album resounds well with the spirit of the album. Saturday WAS once the freedom of existence. The songs whisper to the heart's longings to the lost innocence of past. The album is, really, a lament.
Free Music Review: At the bend of the road to oblivion
Hit: 5 Stars
This is the most perfect M83 album yet. Compared to Gonzalez's previous ambitious, yet somewhat tiresome When the Dawn Heals Us, Saturdays=Youth is a refinedly concentrated short story of shoegaze/retro bliss. The undeniable melodrama of his fragmented narratives (see "Graveyard Girl") is more digestably sparse in the smaller architecture of the 11-song heartbeat; but the awkward, naive statements effectively serve to enhance the awkward stages of Gonzalez's characters. The vulnerable, diaphanous and hopeful retro sensibility breathes vividly in Gonzalez's soul, and yet his carefully chosen sounds reveal the added shimmer and depth of 21st century techno. His tunes are so thoughtfully derived with historical precision that they work to disarmingly transfigure a pure moment from the 80s (perhaps even more pure...). Moreover, Saturdays=Youth is so obsessed with avoiding even the slightest hint of superfluous ambience and percussion that the effect is slick and masterful.
The artwork says it all: Francis Bacon-ly beautiful, fashion-conscious kiddos brim-full of inexplicable emotions, gathering at the edge of an autumnal wood. The deep colors, pale fires within those fading trees is a testament not to what those kids are feeling, but rather that they are still able to feel at all. It's easy to roll busy eyes and judge a scene like this as the classic Western petri dish of youthful self-obsession--self-fulfilling Goth-mentalities of longing and despair; obstinate druggies replaying irrational fantasies in their growingly incompatible minds; lone dancers, searching aimlessly; unfounded Greco ideals of divine love that serve consumed egos. Even while Gonzalez may be having some fun with certain trendy, filmatic cliches of the past, I think his vision suggests something perhaps more important--it's a photographic warning of the death-nail engaged into the hearts of the eager by a matured society, dulled into oblivion by its perpetually successful ritual of grinding every innate emotion you have into vapor. In these kids' faces gradually appears the fear of creativity's death.
Gonzalez's youths represent the last ceremonies of emotional freedom. They not only inhabit the earth, but apprehend it. They meditate within the private spheres of night, resting on Whitman's bed under the stars of contemplation. They celebrate the loves of their friends, immortalizing their names in harmony. They embrace their dustness like the Beats chasing their Beatrices. They are infused with everything.
But the innumerable stresses will be sent; it will invite itself into the very fabric of their clothing. They'll forget how it all went exactly.
Free Music Review: Bringing Back What Was Great About the 1980's
Hit: 5 Stars
Please listen to me and ignore Metacritic on this one. If you search the three M83 albums it lists to date, this one ranks at the bottom with a composite score of 69. I have been following France's Anthony Gonzalez aka M83 for some time now, and I can definitely say that Saturdays=Youth is his finest album to date, and also one of the best of 2008. While his first two albums are both refreshing and disturbing sonic landscapes (I could appreciate them both, but neither was a particular favorite of mine), this latest album is an actual record that you can listen to while you're not doing anything else.
There is something undescribable about this album that taps into my subconscious and somehow reminds me of what it was like to be a kid who grew up in the 80's. Apparently, Gonzalez is 26 (I am 27, born in 1980), so we must have seen some of the same flicks and listened to the same Top 40 countdowns. As usual, Pitchfork explains it best:
"The album has the same nostalgic sparkle as Hughes' (John Hughes of Pretty in Pink/Breakfast Club/Ferris Bueller/Better of Dead fame) films, a soft-focused mythology of eternal summers and young love. In the liner notes, Gonzalez dedicates it to "all the friends, music, movies, joints, and crazy teachers that made my teenage years so great!" At 26, Gonzalez is just the right age to look back on this era with rose-tinted glasses, forgetting the alienation and anxiety, remembering only the sweetness. Whenever the darker side of teenhood rears its head, it's heroically battled back: On the shoegaze-thick "Dark Moves of Love", "everything is wrecked and grey," but the song ends on a poignant note: "I will fight the time and bring you back!" On the album's cover, heartbreakingly radiant youths (one of them a dead ringer for Molly Ringwald) strike poses in a gold and russet pasture-- the same kind of beautiful misfits that Hughes arranged in after-school detention. In lyrics filled with lusty eruptions ("They are Gods! They are lightning!"), archetypal teens invent themselves with innocent fervor: A love-struck young couple in "Kim & Jessie"; a goth with a crown of black roses and a heart of bubblegum in "Graveyard Girl".
Does "Couleurs" remind anyone else of an Orbital track?
Check out the wonderful low-budget videos for "Kim and Jessie" and "Graveyard Girl" at Youtube.
Free Music Review: It's very new-wave, but don't let that fool you.
Hit: 5 Stars
This is one of the best albums I've heard in a long time. Here's a track-by-track review:
1. "You, Appearing" is the quiet opener. It's slow, and other than the vocals, one can't really assess what the rest of the album is going to sound like. (B)
2. "Kim & Jessie" really sets the mood for most of the album. Here, you can really hear the new wave influences, with hints of Duran Duran here and there. (B)
3. "Skin of the Night" is the first ballad, sung by a female, in the album to make use of the new wave sound. A great guitar riff is played towards the end of the song. (A)
4. "Graveyard Girl" doesn't stray much from "Kim & Jessie," except for the fact that there's a break in the middle where the girl talks. An excellent addition. (B)
5. The eight-minute "Coleurs" can actually be two songs in one. The way I describe it is it sounds like taking Depeche Mode and splashing it with Daft Punk. (A)
6. "Up!" sounds like an extension of "Skin of the Night." It's another ballad and makes great use of synths to create the atmosphere of the song. (A)
7. "We Own the Sky" is "Teen Angst" slowed down. Again, synths create the atmosphere of the song, with bleeps later on in the song that sound like how rain should sound like when it drops onto something. (A)
8. "Highway of Endless Dreams" is the first soundtrack piece of the album. Most of the song consists of the riff found on "Skin of the Night" but is isolated and brought forward in all its glory. (A)
9. "Too Late" is a fitting signal that the album will end soon. It would fit well with Coldplay's ballads. (A)
10. "Dark Moves of Love" continues the sound of something that's going to come to an inevitable end. It's a bit faster and harder than the previous track, but still has an optimistic, but depressed, sound. It eventually becomes... (B)
11. ..."Midnight Souls Still Remain," the most ambient track on the album. Unlike "Highway of Endless Dreams," which could be played during the climax of a movie, this track would fit well on its end credits. A great ending track. (A)
Although the entire album is noteworthy, the key tracks are:
"Skin of the Night"
"Graveyard Girl"
***"Coleurs"***
"We Own the Sky"