Infinite Content

I had breakfast this morning at a neighborhood diner where the guy behind the counter (let’s call him Jonathan) asked me what I’d be doing today and was interested to find out I’d be writing a review of Arcade Fire’s latest album. We talked about a number of other aspects of Everything Now that could be considered paradoxical—like keyboardist Regine Chassagne’s voice…

♪ On and on, and I don’t know what I want On and on, and I don’t know if I want it

…which is part operatic and part punk, frantic but consummately controlled at the same time… and the song, or maybe songs, called “Infinite Content,”

♪ Infinite content, infinite content, we’re infinitely content

which appears first as the punk song you’re hearing right now, spelled “Infinite Content”, and then as a country song, spelled “Infinite_Content”. The punk bit and the country bit have separate track listings, but the same lyrics and melody. And the former flows directly into the latter no silence in between. So are we talking about one song here, or two?

Clearly, Arcade Fire is not a band that’s too caught up in being one thing or another.

And I suspect that’s what Jonathan was thinking when he summed up what I consider to be the foremost paradox of this album. He said, “I like that it’s got a message that’s there if you want it, but you can also just ignore it and enjoy the grooves.”

In prepping for this episode, I read a fair number of reviews of this album, and I noticed that one of the most common criticisms of Everything Now has to do with it being both a message album and a dance album. Some critics are saying that Arcade Fire has forsaken its indie roots and should stop trying to be a dance band. Others are saying they should make up their minds and be either a message band or a dance band—but not both.

As for me, I’m inclined to agree with Jonathan. I think it’s perfectly fine to be both. And guessing from Everything Now’s performance on the Billboard album charts—currently number one in both rock and alternative rock—the public at large seems just fine with the paradox as well. A cautionary message about existential estrangement in the age of connectivity might not sound like a good time for everybody, but if it sounds like 1970s big-production disco, you can always just dance.

If you're interested, the full review (5 Delicious Paradoxes of Arcade Fire's "Everything Now" is here: http://whatsthisalbumabout.podbean.com/e/ep-7-everything-now-by-arcade-fire/