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EDIT INFOBroken Social Scene - You Forgot It In People
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Album Details
- Artist: Broken Social Scene
- Album: You Forgot It In People
- Label: Arts & Crafts
- Year of Release: 2002
- ME Rating:
- Reviewed by: dscanland on 2003-04-22
RecommendBroken Social Scene is one of those schizophrenic bands that changes their style throughout the entire album. You Forgot It In People is the bands sophomore album but it is sure to catch on with everybody raving about it. The album opens up with the Pink Floyd-like "Capture The Flag" with a spacey and ethereal feeling. Next up on the plate is the song called "KC Accidental" named after the band's Kevin Drew's former band of the same name. With a couple core members (Kevin and Brendan Canning, formerly of By Divine Right) they reached out into the Toronto music scene and formed a musical collective that they could draw on for help and inspiration. It's really on "Stars and Sons" where this really comes into play. It's not a full-on rocker but instead a song that builds up with gentle Dinosaur Jr style vocals. Another superb highlight is "Looks Just Like The Sun", which is a mellow track along the lines of more poppy Ron Sexsmith. "Pacific Theme" sounds like a Cure instrumental. There isn't even a bad song on here despite the genre shifting. You Forgot It In People comes off more as a perfect mixed tape rather than a complete album. This album makes me proud to be Canadian.
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Tell us why this album is great or sucks ass, or correct the reviewer. If you write enough quality reviews you may find yourself on the editorial staff.
Reviews have to be over 100 words, shorter ones are classed as comments.
Log In or Register to Rate Albumson 2011-03-29 SolitaryMan Said:
"Anthems" is actually one of my favorite songs ever, it has a mood about it that is indeed captivating.
Not Rated
Review:
on 2011-03-29 CharlesMartel Said:
In an indeterminate number of years to come, I will either regard this album as one of my finest prospective purchases, or as one my more embarrassing musical moments. Up front, I have to be in the mood to listen to this and that mood comes sporadically. It is chaotic, follows no logical pattern or style and generally refuses to be categorised. It is as if everyone associated with it was asked to go away and come back only when they had written a track for the album. These are both positive and negative features of the album. One thing is for sure though: at a time when Canadian music was riding high, it was really good to see true Canadian music put in an appearance, as opposed to simply Canadian versions of American or British rock bands.
Broken Social Scene would appear to be, were their collective biography not true, an exercise in pretension and arty-farty exclusionism, intended only for those sophisticated enough to know. This was not a promising start for I really hate bands where there is an in-crowd and an out-crowd: I instinctively move towards the out-crowd with a swift two fingers up at the lot of them. Yet Broken Social Scene are more of a collective than a band. The consequence of the ever shifting patchwork of members is a musical diversity which, were it not somehow contained by the cohesion of the core of the band, would just overwhelm it and shatter any form of musical cohesion. The band therefore constantly teeters on the precipice of art for art's sake contrived pretension. Whenever you listen to the album you can sense that this precipice is something the band is aware of but seemingly unable or unwilling to do anything about. It makes for an unsettling listen at times.
As anyone who has read a lot of my reviews will know, I require an album to have a track which picks me up and carries me through the album as a whole. Albums which have that track tend to receive better ratings than those which do not. The track may not need to be the best on the album, but it needs to be the most accessible. That is why I struggle with My Bloody Valentine, Liz Phair and most prog rock - there is nothing which grips me, holds me and leads me through the rest of the album, musically speaking. What is unusual about "You Forgot It in People" is the track which fulfilled that role. The rather monotonous droning, sung as if through the speaker of a slightly off-tuned analogue radio of " Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl" is a highly unlikely candidate for album portal. Yet it was the one. And I suppose if I could find that the most accessible track on the album, that says a lot about the rest of it.
And therein lies the conundrum with this album. I will either grow to love the incredible mix of music and styles which this CD comprises. Or I will come to despise the disjointed and general all-over-the-place feel to this album. It is going to take some time for it to become clear which way I will go. For the meantime, watch this space. As far as I am concerned, the jury is most definitely still out on this one, although as I write, it is easily the best album of that year so far, which in turn says a lot about what else has been put out this year. Whether it will stay that way is something which cannot be foretold, hence the opening statement of this review.
Rating: 7/10
