On July 28, 2017, Arcade Fire released their fifth studio album, "Everything Now," in the United States. The Montreal based indie group has made its name for making brilliant music with intense meaning, often as expressions of what band members are feeling. The band's debut album, "Funeral" (2004), predominately featured antique instruments and a more lo-fi quality sound to express the melancholy that some of the members were going through when several of one's family passed away.
Their second album, "Neon Bible" (2007), used slightly more updated instruments in a more refined manner while explaining their view of organized religion as a scam that preyed on the weak. The third album, "The Suburbs "(2010), won the Grammy for Best Album in 2011 and was a concept album describing the life of growing up in a suburb. 2013's "Reflector" featured more electronic instruments and incorporated styles from Haiti, an island country that has been a focus of the band's philanthropy.
This year's album "Everything Now" is on the surface, a neo-disco album, but what lurks underneath all of the synth-charged and electric guitar strummed bliss is dark and depressing. The album is a look at the empty shell of excessive materialism, the use of physical attributes to heighten one's morality, and the inevitable emotional turmoil that it results in. This is all that I have theorized from listening to the album and observing the album art. My words don't reflect the words of the band Arcade Fire.
Let's start with the album cover artwork itself. At first glance, it is a mountain in an arid landscape with the words "Everything Now" written in neon pink letters. Upon Further inspection, it is found that the mountain in the picture is actually a billboard in the shape of a mountain and the album's title is a neon sign hanging underneath the cutout. It is a fake mountain.
The album's title track "Everything Now" is a five-minute song with a catchy piano melody and bumping bass line. It is light and sunny in tune, but the lyrics depict a world and life of an addict. It is about wanting and having everything at once. The chorus "I need it./Everything now./ I want it./ I can't live without." shows a little of what I mean. "Every inch of space in my heart/ is filled with something I'll never/ start." It is about surrounding yourself with products in an attempt to achieve happiness. And failure would essentially be death.
The tracks "Signs Of Life" is about looking for meaning to life in the world around us. "Creature Comfort" is white-knuckle look at suicide "Saying, 'God make me famous. If you can't, just make it/painless.' Just make it painless./It's not painless, she was a friend of mine. A friend of mine./ And we're not nameless, oh." The line "white lie of American prosperity," ties into my theory the idea that the unending quest of contentment can lead people to risk their lives, and in some instances, take it themselves.
"Peter Pan" continues this idea of selling your life for success, making allusions to the story "Peter Pan" about a boy who lives in a fictional world where children never grow up and never have to face the harsh world. I'm not going to lie, I don't really care much for the song "Chemistry" so I'm not going to bother with it in this essay.
"Infinite Content" is a less subtle approach to the thesis of deriving moral conscience from material wealth. The song's lyrics are almost entirely a repeating "Infinite content./ Infinite content. We're infinitely/ content." It is a play on content meaning both physical matter and contentment as in a feeling of satisfaction and comfort.
"Electric Blue" doesn't really have anything to do with my theories, but it is a really good song and I like listening to it.
"Good God Damn" is a reiteration of the thesis from "Neon Bible", which is the lead singer's (Win Butler) discontent in organized religion. From what I know about that album and the personal history of Butler, I speculate that this song concerns how some people use religion instead of property to enrich themselves. Or that some religions can become in themselves materialistic and greedy. I would also like to note that the song features a guitar riff that was also used in the band's previous album "Reflector".
"Put Your Money On Me" is about essentially gambling with your love life. It is about treating the expression of love as some sort of property that can be gained or lost.
"We Don't Deserve Love" is the realization of the theme put forth in the song "Put Your Money On Me." It is a look at the more thorny parts of love, the parts that hurt.
The album closes out with a reprisal of the title track "Everything Now" titled "Everything Now (Continued)" and is mostly an orchestral rendition of the melody from "Everything Now" which is mostly a electronic disco hit.
