The Suburbs Turns 10

In 2010, Arcade Fire was at the pinnacle of their career. They were the biggest band in 'indie rock,' off the heels of two critically acclaimed works and surging into their third, reliably another three years after their previous one, which came three years after their debut. They weren't too indie that they couldn't feature songs in the film adaption of Where the Wild Things Are, but they weren't mainstream enough to have any fighting chance to win the Grammy for Album of the Year for this album... which they did shockingly win?!

Calling an album The Suburbs directly indicates that you are going to make an entire album about ... the suburbs. But what about them specifically? And it wasn't a new topic for them. Consider that they began their career with Funeral, on which four of the ten songs started out with "Neighborhood" in their titles. On the surface, the themes of both albums are somewhat similar, but where they spent a fair amount of Funeral focusing on the death of family members in those neighborhoods, this album more directly deals with the literal makeup of the suburbs that Win Butler & crew grew up in, their thoughts about them today and how it influenced them as kids.

Well, I grew up in the suburbs, too. Would my experiences be akin to theirs, were they brushing with a broad stroke or would I really not jive with the picture they were trying to paint? It's a mix of all three, to be sure, but even though I'd never really considered the way in which my hometown borough was built ("first they built the road, then they built the town"), went to art school ("Rococo") or ever felt like I was in a "City With No Children," I most certainly grasped the feeling of being a kid, driving around at night and just letting life come to you -- as opposed to chasing after it.

Before I delve into this track by track, it's just amazing to me how this successfully feels like it takes place over an entire night, like it's trying to race the moon as it dips and the sun comes out. "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)" sounds like the sun coming up after a long night, with "The Suburbs (Continued)" being the hangover, wiped feeling of having stayed up all night and doing all that being young and without responsibility entails. But though The Suburbs is largely about being a kid growing up in the suburbs, it's also about the start of the bridge to adulthood and looking back on your childhood. I'm just wasting time here -- is that bad or do I want that? Will I one day want to return to this feeling, this place? What are my fears, hopes and dreams? Is there a future at all or is this all there is?

Arcade Fire only makes serious albums, and this is a prime example. Ready? Let's break it down.

1. "The Suburbs"

Cymbal crash, and we're off. This entire song is just five simple chords, with one easy chord change during the chorus. The tone is set immediately from the piano, with the third chord (E) played low on the scale to set a dour mood. Some of the notes winding back to the start of each stanza sound a little fake-frolic-y, like it's a game show or something -- which it is certainly not.

The mantra of the album comes clear for the first time: "Sometimes I can't believe it / I'm moving past the feeling." It's an apt phrase for many points on this album and is useful for our everyday life; our pandemic, police brutality, the incoherent ramblings of our deranged president: how often do these things happen, we are stunned and then accept them as normal? That's why I like when Win sometimes adds "again" to the end of that line - because this doesn't just happen once, it happens over and over.

Finally, I love the lonely electric guitar notes in the background as the song progresses. As happens many times on the album, the primary band instruments combine with strings to add beautiful and sometimes dark texture.

2. "Ready to Start"

I love the fuzzed out, cocky sound to this one. There's something about having the chorus to a song be "Now I'm ready to start" and the song ending after the word "ready," like nothing ever actually starts. The music does feel like you're warming yourself up to do something, a boxer taking jabs by the wall before being called out for the fight. The abrupt ending is the door opening as the lights shine on him or her, the crowd going wild.

Lyrically, this one has a few gems. Though the song appears to be a reference to capitalism and shedding your skin to live as your true self, the lines "You say, 'Can we still be friends?' If I was scared, I would / If I was bored, you know I would / And if I was yours, but I'm not" could easily also be applied in a breakup scenario. You still want to buy my art/hang out with me? If I had no one else or nothing else to do, if I was scared about the future and not finding something/someone else or bored enough, sure. But I'm not. "I would rather be alone than pretend I feel alright" is the classic feeling that one might have when in a bad place and asked to go out and do something. I certainly feel that one.

I enjoy the breakdown where it slows, like you're in a nightmare, walking in syrup. Then it picks back up instantly and you throttle forward to the end of the song. I like the harmonies on "Bow down to him anyway" and the chorus as we chug along to that abrupt ending.

When they played this after winning the Grammy for best album, I was awestruck and in tears. It was a powerful moment and made me feel like the music I was passionate about was slowly seeping into the consciousness of the pop-inclined masses.

3. "Modern Man"

The first thing you notice is the different time signature. It throws you off a little bit, but you soon get used to it. I love the guitars during the instrumental passages... there's a little bit of a twang to the steel. They echo back and forth like you're ping-ponging off the walls, longing for something and unsure of what to do or how to go on. And I like when Win sings "something don't feel right" up in his register later on in the song; the performance matches the uncertainty of the lyric there.

I just picture an endless string of men waiting in line to get the newest iPhone or whatever it may be, secretly knowing inside it will never solve any real-world issue or fear they are facing. On the outside, though, they're all modern men, ready to accept and take on the latest technology headstrong with a fake face to the world. And you could say this for just about every song on the album, but for some reason I feel like this song in particular most embodies the album art; it sounds worn in but ... modern ... at the same time.

4. "Rococo"

It's all about the kids! First we start with an ominous swirl of strings. I like how Win's anger builds creepily and steadily with every "Rococo" he utters; they change from inner mantra to stomping storm without skipping a beat. And I had no idea what rococo was before this, which I think is kind of the point -- that the kids at art school will repeat whatever mumbo jumbo they're fed ad nauseam even if they have no idea what it means.

Many - if not all - of the songs on this album deal with the "kids" in suburbia. Sometimes they're playful, reckless, naive or a combination of descriptors like those, but here they're extremely impressionable and trying to fit into a social fabric. "They seem wild but they are so tame" -- they have no real bite, their demeanor is misleading.

I like the feedback in the background as the song progresses, our narrator growing more restless. I like the guitar solo here, too. Every 'solo' on the album is pretty simple, but incredibly effective. I feel that the musicianship and craft on each of these songs is practically perfect. Finally, the pounding of the groups of three chords to end the song is very stern.

5. "Empty Room"

Again we have strings being played in a particular way to signal in the mood of a new song. Here they are skittering, like you're being enveloped in a tornado or your fellow speed skater is pushing you right into the next portion of the relay. The lyrics slay me, and as Regine continues, the tornado swells, she begins singing in French, and it just makes me sadder and sadder. Then the song gets cut short as the ripping electric guitar bleeds into the start of the next song.

French aside, the words Regine sings are stark. "Said your name in an empty room / Something I would never do / I'm alone again." I'm getting goosebumps just writing this. What could be more hopeless, lonesome than calling out for someone who's abandoned you by yourself in an empty room, especially after you've told yourself you'd never get that hung up? The chorus offers some hope, though: "When I'm by myself / I can be myself / And my life is coming / Though I don't know when." Alright, I may have to face this challenge now, but I am OK on my own and the next great thing will happen for me ... sometime. Just have to have faith.

6. "City With No Children"

This is one of the more Springsteenian songs on here. I don't have a ton to say for this one; there's a lot more singing about being young in a dead-end suburb and fearing the future. More about the transition from childhood to adulthood and the death of the child inside of us. Wishing you could have taken more advantage of being a kid ("I wish that I could have loved you then / Before our age was through") ... Not only does the singer wish he had one more partner when he was younger, he's upset that the time has passed him by and he cannot go back.

7. "Half Light I"

My memories of listening to this as I literally walked through the half-light help accentuate the feeling and certain lyrics of this song. I am numb, stuck in place. My footsteps are crossing the stones, pebbles and rocks as I make my way to the bridge. What just happened? What will happen? A sense of uncertainty.

I love how the guitar kind of quacks, almost reggae-sounding, in a way, but much faster and on the wrong beats. The strings are gorgeous, and though they are patient throughout, they become in turn pleading during the final stanza before the outro and then uncomfortable, lingering as the song ends. Additionally, I like how during that section ("Our heads are just houses without enough windows") it gets a little quieter as Win and Regine's voices intertwine. Then the drums come back, and there's a warning in the ending with the lyrics mimicking/mocking the strings: "We are not asleep / We are in the streets."

This is like the musical equivalent of a teenage movie, with kids rebelling, living their lives and just trying to be free.

8. "Half Light II (No Celebration)"

Another song that's very concerned with the ramped-up technologization of our society and getting older. "Pray to God I won't live to see the death of everything that's wild" -- be it anything in nature or the simple pleasures of spontaneous hangouts, to me this rings of him being concerned that phones and screens will dilute our former pleasures, of just going out and living our lives before we become slaves to our devices and grounded inside.

On this album there's so much talk about kids and traveling and suburbs and cities ... but it's as much about the narrators changing throughout their lives as it is their surroundings changing and their surroundings affecting that change within them. And I love that the same 'song' can have two parts with two very different feels to them, because as you change, your thoughts on things obviously change, too. So "Half Light I" is from the point of view of that kid, going out into the night and being young, and "Half Light II (No Celebration)" sees our narrator a little older, worrying more about where he's going, where he's been and what's happened in between that made him get to this point.

Like "City With No Children" and "Month of May," while still certainly introspective and melancholy, this is a song that's not quite as overtly sad as some of the other ones - musically, anyway - so I consider it a bit of a respite in that regard. (More on that later.) These three all also sound very Springsteenian.

But then we get to...

9. "Suburban War"

This is probably my favorite song on the album and also the saddest. I could cry basically upon hearing the start of it. I love the electric guitar melody so much, and the content of the song guts me. One of the main reasons why I love this album is because it is focused on a theme that I'm obsessed with: the passage of time and the past fading away. To me, it doesn't get more real than "All my old friends, they don't know me now." Even if they were peripheral acquaintances and I was super young, or they were better friends and it was more recent -- though I'm incredibly happy in my life now -- there's always a tinge of sadness that I can't hold on to everything, and I'm not talking physically.

The harmonizing that carries us into the final verse is haunting and holy, and then when the tempo changes before the outro, the guitar becomes even more evocative with more drum splashing. Win's singing of the aforementioned line can make me weep. Thoughts of "I don't want to get older ... I want to go back to the suburbs as a kid and be in my room and not comprehend the realities of being a real person in the world" crash like waves in my brain during this part, and it can be painful to think about.

Lyrically, Win repeats the exact first line of this album when he sings, "In the suburbs I, I learned to drive." There's just something about driving in the suburbs that's just so innocent and pervasive, it evokes so much feeling. It's a big jump in freedom as a kid, because then you can really start going places on your own. Again, just another moment to convey how tied we are to our upbringings and surroundings during that fertile time in our lives. And they've come a long way with regards to transportation. 😉

10. "Month of May"

One of the singles from the album, I don't really care for it too much. It's kind of a faux-punk, driving rock song. Again, a nice palette cleanser ... I can think of a fair amount of albums where normally the slow songs (think interludes) are the palette cleansers, but here the loud, rock songs are. "Gonna make a record in the month of May" is a line where I understand where Win is coming from about literally doing that, but that and "2009, 2010: wanna make a record how I felt then" kind of take you out of the narrative of the album, referencing the current time and his personal life that's not quite as relatable as the rest.

The song's pulse is also somewhat reminiscent of Queens of the Stone Age's "Go With the Flow."

11. "Wasted Hours"

This section of the album feels like candy to me. I can't believe we keep getting one gem after another. This is yet another song about just being young and living and not thinking of the future. I have distinct memories of standing around in my bunk at camp by myself, at a pivotal juncture of my life, just kind of wasting time and wondering what would happen after summer -- my final one, unofficially, since I was a rising senior in college.

Again, the simple electric guitar in the background just lifts the spirit of the song and evokes something so meaningful. The drums during the verses are the perfect accompaniment to render this a great driving song. The strings that come in during the 2nd half of the song are gorgeous, particularly on the word "disappear." I also like how during the chorus -- when he's singing about "wasted hours" -- a lot of the instrumentation stops, evoking both just how slow and boring things in the suburbs can be and also how pleasurable it can be to sit around and do nothing sometimes.

Looking at the words of the chorus, Win makes the point that whereas that downtime initially can seem, perhaps, meaningless or perfunctory ("Wasted hours before we knew / Where to go or what to do"), it can become real and long-lasting ("Wasted hours that you made new / And turn into a life that we could live"). What started out as something we just happened to be doing -- sitting around, spending time with each other -- can turn into our whole lives if we really enjoy it, love each other and become lifelong friends or partners, etc., and want to be together on purpose, regardless of what we're doing.

(Additionally, I just heard the extended version on the deluxe issue of the album, and while the outro is awesome, I agree that it definitely would not have fit on this record as constituted.)

12. "Deep Blue"

More candy. I love the music here ... the acoustic strumming, piano plinks in between verses, the electric guitar that eventually creeps in. That same feeling of moving on and the past slipping away is referenced again: "The memory's fading..." The strings and guitar during the bridge make me swoon.

Thematically, we're back to man vs. technology and how the fabric of our beings are being corrupted. "Put the cellphone/laptop down for a while / In the night there is something wild" ... Get out there and do something real instead of scrolling through social media. Explore nature and be with other people. "The feeling is leaving me..." Do it quickly before you forget what it's like and become a millennial robot.

Also notice the sounds of cars driving and pulling up at the end. I'm also hearing birds, maybe.

13. "We Used to Wait"

The candy overfloweth. In what may be the crown jewel and arena anthem of the album, it's pretty literal but very effective. I don't even know how to describe how well the music fits the song; it's just perfect. You've got insistent piano playing, drums in lock-step providing the beat and the bass kicking in is almost sinister, slithery like Death Eaters sneaking around trying to catch Harry Potter.

Lyrically, it may be a little bit on-the-nose sometimes, but it's just so meaningful. I could quote every line here: "Now our lives are changing fast / Hope that something pure can last" ... "I used to sleep at night / Before the flashing lights settled deep in my brain" ... "It seems strange / How we used to wait for letters to arrive / But what's stranger still / Is how something so small could keep you alive" ... "We used to wait!" We literally used to wait for things; now everything has to be now, now, now, as fast as possible.

More wasting and waiting. "We used to wait / We used to waste hours just walking around." A hearken back to "Wasted Hours" and the days of just ... being ... without a goal in mind. "Sometimes it never came" ... Not everything is completely dependable and that's fine. Can you imagine something you ordered or were expecting to happen not happen, and it being ok?? And it's not like that was that long ago, even for when this song was written. "Now our lives are changing fast," indeed.

I like the string swells leading up to the reveal of the 1st chorus, and the longing guitars again in the background evoking a sense of sadness for what's not there anymore. More catharsis hearing him sing "We used to wait" as the string notes start to go up, then we hit the outro and the keyboard flourishes with the drums.

Seeing this live at the Barclays Center was one of the best concert moments ever. If we ever get out of this pandemic, don't miss out and see Arcade Fire on tour. Guess we'll have to "WAIT FOR IT."

14. "Sprawl I (Flatland)"

Part one of our final suite. Again, you first hear the tires wheeling down an empty road. Win & Will Butler have returned to Houston to investigate the suburb they grew up in and see what it's like now. The arpeggiated guitar is slow and sturdy, dark and almost foreboding. Sad, again. Sad. They can't even find their own house anymore. Strings come in when his voice goes down three notes, then the guitar does something similar. Then the song whooshes back in time and we have another snapshot of kids being kids ("on the reflectors of our bikes" -- not yet even driving age) and it just illuminates the fundamental discord between kids and adults ... getting in trouble with the police for having innocent fun; they completely misunderstand each other and where they're at in their lives. Have these adult cops so soon forgotten what it was like to be young?

15. "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)"

Let's dance! But cry while doing so. Regine takes the reins one more time. "They heard me singing and they told me stop / Quit these pretentious things and just punch the clock!" Though it's upbeat and sung with force, I am wrecked every time I hear her sing this. You need to put yourself in others' shoes. It's really sad when people don't understand your hobbies or things you need to do in order to live and do other things, or maybe that is your ticket to your life and you need your vocations to be encouraged. And the second rendition of the first verse when she hollers "They heard me singing and they told me to stop!" makes me furious, every time. The third "Sometimes I wonder if the world's so small!" is very powerful, too.

More than any other song here, this foreshadows the turn they'll take next a few years later on Reflektor. You can hear it in the synths in the 2nd verse that snap back and forth, and just the overall dance floor vibe of the track. Love the flourish of strings before the final "I need the darkness / Someone, please cut the lights." And that lyric is a fitting way to end the album, as I envision this whole thing taking place over the course of one entire night. You're in the park with your friends, being chased by the police and the sun is coming up but you want to stay there, having fun, being innocent, being a kid, naive to the horrors of the world that await you. To forget about everything, to live in the moment.

16. "The Suburbs (Continued)"

The effect on Win's voice here makes him sound a bit older, and it's very telling that he comes back to the same theme from the beginning of the album, looking back on his life. "If I could have it back, all the time that we wasted / I'd only waste it again." Maybe it was boring or scary sometimes, but he wishes he could relive his past and be that kid in the suburbs again, free of burden or expectations. The album could have ended with the previous song, but this reprise is a perfect coda on the record and brings everything full circle.

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The Suburbs is a true masterpiece of our time, and at least one of the best records of this century thus far. Though it makes me sad to listen to and doesn't necessarily reflect my suburbs experience as a whole, the feeling that's evoked throughout is one I latch onto immediately and it's comforting to know that some of these sensations are so universal and can be shared so evocatively.

I'll always love this album. Its production, like its timeless album cover, sounds and looks like it could have been done/made in the 70s but has some sort of modern filter over it. I can't believe it's 10 years old. I don't know how I feel about the fact that I still feel similar feelings as I did ⅔ of my life ago, the first summer this came out. The other main question is, is this their best album? Most Arcade Fire stans probably have Funeral at the top, but I think this one takes the cake for me, if not at least 1A and 1B. It's a complete package, thematically on point and wholly resonant. As I've said before, Reflektor was pretty great but maybe a little too ambitious, and Everything Now was lacking. But out of their five albums, at least 3.5 are stone-cold solid, so I'm very excited to hear what they come back with next.

"Sometimes I can't believe it ... I'm moving past the feeling again."