Een van verlede jaar se mooiste albums is die Kanadese band Arcade Fire se The Suburbs. Hulle woon in Montreal. Een resensent het die album met Radiohead se OK Computer vergelyk, maar dink dis selfs beter as OK Computer. Die klank laat ʼn mens ʼn bietjie aan Radiohead dink, alhoewel die band beweer dat hulle ʼn klank uit hulle jeug wou kry – iewers tussen Niel Young en Depeche Mode.
Die een waarna ek op die oomblik terugkeer na ek die hele CD geluister het, is nr. 9, “Suburban War”. Luister gerus hier daarna as jy nog nie die CD het nie. Hier is uittreksels uit die liriek:
Let’s go for a drive and see the town tonight
There’s nothing to do but I don’t mind when I’m with you
This town’s so strange they built it to change
And while we sleep we know the streets get rearranged
With my old friends it was so different then
Before your war against the suburbs began…
Now the music divides us into tribes
You grew your hair so I grew mine
You said the past won’t rest
Until we jump the fence and leave it behind
With my old friends I can remember when
You cut your hair, I never saw you again
Now the cities we live in could be distant stars
And I search for you in every passing car…
In the suburbs I, I learned to drive
And you told me we would never survive,
So grab your mother’s keys we leave tonight
But you started a war that we can’t win
They keep erasing all the streets we grew up in
Now the music divides us into tribes
You choose your side, I’ll choose my side
All my old friends they don’t know me now
All my old friends are staring through me now…
All my old friends, wait…
Harry, dis ‘n goeie beskrywing vir The National. Ek was hierdie week drie keer in Johannesburg; vir band practice, vir aandete in die Flamingo en gisteraand by die Mark vir Hugh Masekela se “Songs of Migration”. Gelukkig is Pretoria naby aan Johannesburg!
ek weet nie of ek jou gese het nie andries maar die eertse keer toe ek the national hoor het ek gedoeg gert vlok nel het ‘n backing band gekry en engels begin sing. geluk met die twee albums in die top tien
Southern Seas is beeldskoon O jitte ja. Ek weet op die ommblik nie hoe om tyd te maak vir die fiksie wat ek wil lees EN die akademiese werk wat ek moet/wil lees nie. Maar laat ek nie weer begin kla nie!!
Desmond, dis “Southern Seas”. Ek gaan dit nou eers vir ‘n kollega in politieke studies oorhandig en die eerste een by haar kry om daarmee te begin. Sy’t ook ‘n paar van die ander gekoop, waarby ek sal uitkom as sy klaar is met hulle.
The National se High Violet het my stadig en fundamenteel oorrompel, totdat ek op ‘n stadium laasjaar nie in my kar kon ry sonder om daarna te luister nie. Daar is ‘n gefokusdheid aan die hele album (dis werklik ‘n ‘song cycle’, ‘n soort Winterreise vir laat-kapitalistiese, post-romantiese kantoorwerkers soos ek!), en ‘n soort ‘gelaagde minimalisme’ (as so iets moontlik is!!) wat dit vir my beter maak as die steeds uitstekende Arcade Fire.
Andries, watter Montalban? Ek het Bolano se 2666 begin lees en toe by bl. 650 totaal momentum verloor. Ek hoop tog maar ek kan vasbyt en klaarmaak. Maar eers die jaar aan gang kry — sonder my kantoor.
Danie, ek sal dit beslis kry. Met musiek is ek gewoonlik unfashionably late, helaas. Maar as ek eers aankom geniet ek die party meer as al die ander mense, al het hulle al na elders aanbeweeg.
Andries, jy sal maar moet tyd maak vir The National – the rest is noise. Oukei, nie die Arcade Fire en ‘n paar honderd ander waaraan ek kan dink nie, maar The National is rêrig essensieel vir enige ernstige melancholikus uit die middelklas. Hier is vir jou ‘n paar liriekfragmente ter aansporing:
Sorrow found me when I was young / Sorrow waited, sorrow won […] Sorrow’s a girl inside my cake / I live in a city sorrow built / It’s in my honey, it’s in my milk (“Sorrow”)
I defend my family with my orange umbrella / I’m afraid of everyone […] With my kid on my shoulders I try / Not to hurt anybody I like / But I don’t have the drugs to sort it out” (“Afraid of Everyone”)
Livin’ or dyin’ in New York it means nothing to me […] But it’ll take a better war to kill a college man like me (“Lemonworld”)
All the very best of us / String ourselves up for love […] Hangin’ from chandeliers / Same small world / At your heels (“Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks”)
En wat “The Daughters of the Soho Riots” betref: “How can anybody know how they got to be this way?”
Desmond, ek hou ook van The National, maar het in weerwil van die rave reviews nog nie hul laaste een geluister nie, at my own peril. Ek probeer nog uitfigure waaroor die “sons and daughters of the Soho riots” werklik gaan. Intussen het ek “The Rest is Noise” aangeskaf, asook ‘n Montalban. ‘n Week die vakansie in het ek egter heeltemal ophou lees, soos in HEELTEMAL. Die gevolg is darem vyf nuwe songs. Sterkte met al daai admin, ek is ook reeds daarin verstrengel.
Hierdie en The National se High Violet was ook onder my gunsteling rock albums van 2010. Die ‘sprawling’ The Suburbs laat my ook dink aan Springsteen se dubbel-album The River, uit 1980 — veral aan songs soos die briljante Jackson Cage:
Driving home she grabs something to eat
Turns a corner and drives down her street
Into a row of houses she just melts away
Like the scenery in another man’s play
Into a house where the blinds are closed
To keep from seeing things she don’t wanna know
She pulls the blinds and looks out on the street
The cool of the night takes the edge off the heat
In the Jackson Cage
Down in Jackson Cage
You can try with all your might
But you’re reminded every night
That you been judged and handed life
Down in Jackson Cage
Every day ends in wasted motion
Just crossed swords on the killing floor
To settle back is to settle without knowing
The hard edge that you’re settling for
Because there’s always just one more day
And it’s always gonna be that way
Little girl you’ve been down here so long
I can tell by the way that you move you belong to
The Jackson Cage
Down in Jackson Cage
And it don’t matter just what you say
Are you tough enough to play the game they play
Or will you just do your time and fade away
Down into the Jackson Cage
Baby there’s nights when I dream of a better world
But I wake up so downhearted girl
I see you feeling so tired and confused
I wonder what it’s worth to me or you
Just waiting to see some sun
Never knowing if that day will ever come
Left alone standing out on the street
Till you become the hand that turns the key down in
Jackson Cage
Down in Jackson Cage
Well darlin’ can you understand
The way that they will turn a man
Into a stranger to waste away