{"id":45041,"date":"2017-08-07T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-08-07T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/everything-now\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T11:20:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T11:20:10","slug":"everything-now","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/everything-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Everything Now"},"content":{"rendered":"

In my review<\/a> for the superb but overblown Reflektor<\/i>, I posited that Arcade Fire had reached the end of that particular road of music and would likely scale back on their fifth album, possibly back to the sound and spirit of Funeral <\/i>in an attempt to recapture their original spirit.<\/p>\n

Well, I was partially wrong.<\/p>\n

Everything Now <\/i>is indeed only one disc and 47 minutes long, but it takes the pop and light disco underpinnings of Reflektor <\/i>to ridiculous neo-disco heights, resulting in a gaudy, shimmering album with lots of cool old-school dance beats and very little substance. And as substance is something every Arcade Fire album possesses, this is a problem. Foster The People\u2019s glittery new album suffers from the same problem, that of a talented band stuck in a current party it can\u2019t seem to escape, except FTP\u2019s started last night and Win Butler\u2019s started in 1978 with an ABBA record.<\/p>\n

I mean, it\u2019s tough to hate on a disco-flavored album. They are fun and catchy. Reflektor<\/i>\u2019s title track and \u201cWe Exist\u201d are two of the band\u2019s best songs. Daft Punk came out of nowhere with 2013\u2019s Random Access Memories<\/i>, which was everywhere. Perhaps remembering this, Arcade Fire enlists that duo\u2019s Thomas Bangalter for production help on Everything Now<\/i>, part of a high-profile producer list here that only serves to prove the band was striving for sound over content. This is a shame, actually, since the content here has depth and resonance, with lyrics concerning our reliance on technology and experiencing the world through fleeting moments and electronic feedback instead of true joy and deeper meaning. I write this as my Facebook feed scrolls past on my phone and hope that my recent post about a dinner my wife and I cooked gets a few likes, so maybe Butler is on to something lyrically.<\/p>\n

But musically\u2026not so much. Seriously, \u201cCreature Comfort\u201d has to be one of the worst songs this band has recorded yet. The music is a cross between Men Without Hats\u2019 \u201cSafety Dance\u201d and one of those \u201880s arcade games (fitting, I guess) where you\u2019re getting attacked by a spaceship from the planet Voltron or something, and it never changes chords. Butler\u2019s lyrics are interspersed with Regina\u2019s shrill background yells, and dear God make it stop. There\u2019s a germ of an idea in the lyrics, but it\u2019s hard to relate to \u201cIf you can\u2019t make me famous \/ Just make it painless,\u201d as if being universally loved cures all ills or numbs the pain. Maybe briefly, but how many of us will ever know that?<\/p>\n

\u201cInfinite Content\u201d comes in two equally annoying parts, one a screeching punk rocker, one a laid-back country drawl. Each is about two minutes and repeats the title over and over. And if you heard \u201cElectric Blue\u201d out of context, you may not be sure who you are listening to, as Regina wails like a choral nun over a disco beat. To its credit, the song has an icy sheen that still pulses with humanity, a digital dream with a bleeding heart. It also kickstarts the album (about 2\/3 of the way through) with a solid run of songs that remind you who this band is, after all, and it saves the album from being a loss. <\/p>\n

The best of these is \u201cPut Your Money On Me,\u201d which uses a tamer, more insidious disco bass riff and some great tandem vocals to really get under your skin. I wanted to hear it again when it ended, and that\u2019s high praise. \u201cWe Don\u2019t Deserve Love\u201d benefits from a good Radiohead vibe and \u201cEverything Now (Continued)\u201d closes the album on a morose yet hopeful note.<\/p>\n

So there are a few gems hidden on the dance floor of Arcade Fire\u2019s newest, but I can\u2019t help think fans and newcomers will be somewhat disappointed with this disc. \u201cBut I like ABBA,\u201d you may say if you\u2019re over 40. Then by all means, come on down. But this isn\u2019t the Arcade Fire we know and love.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":33232,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7667],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-45041","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-arcade-fire","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=45041"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=45041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}