headlessparrot's Full Review: You Forgot It in People by Broken Social Scene
There are different classes of what one might consider “great albums.” There are the good ones; consistently quality with few valleys or peaks. There are the great ones; relatively consistent with several, lengthy peaks interspersed with very rare lows. And then there are those albums that are so good that it becomes literally impossible to categorize them - so breathtaking, so utterly beautiful and soaringly majestic that it’s (and I say this for a total lack of any better phrase to use) a total mindf*ck. Broken Social Scene’s sophomore outing, You Forgot It In People, as you might imagine from the verbosity of my explanation, is one of those records that fits into the latter class.
Alternating between loud and soft, ornate and minimal, and boisterously confident and engagingly brooding, You Forgot It In People may very well be to indie pop/art-rock what Nirvana’s Nevermind (or In Utero) was to grunge or Led Zeppelin IV was to hard rock, a supremely crafted masterpiece that defies musical traditions and deftly blends elements of the past to form something that isn’t just special, it's downright beautiful. “It’s so good,” a leather-jacketed hipster at school told me, “that when you hear it, you’ll shave your head and join a religious cult!” I never did shave my head or run off to join the Heaven’s Gate, but that may only be because You Forgot It In People should very nearly qualify as a religious experience. Normally, of course, I’m the first to mock the musical critiques of the hipster elite (ahh, who am I kidding?), but it’s a pursuit that becomes far more difficult when presented with a masterpiece such as this. You Forgot It In People is so amazing, in fact, that it ultimately creates problems: one being that it will be a difficult record to follow up on, and two, there’s such a glut of great songs that by album’s end, the whole thing nearly collapses under the weight of its own genius.
The product of an increasingly adventurous and musically gifted Canadian indie scene, Broken Social Scene are not a band, but a collective, a rotating assemblage of anywhere between two and eleven musicians at any given time - many of whom have already whet their whistles in the Canadian music scene as part of groups as varied as By Divine Right, K.C. Accidental, Metric and even Treble Charger. Of course, I could list the band (err… “collective”) members, but deciphering who exactly is playing or singing what on what is an entirely different story in and of itself. It is, however, safe to mention Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning as the driving force behind the project. Which essentially makes Broken Social Scene a super group of sorts, a who’s who of independent rock artists - most of whom you (and I, for that matter) have never heard of. Perhaps surprisingly, that’s actually advantageous because the listener will have very little to compare this work with. Which is not to suggest that You Forgot It In People bears much resemblance at all to the past works of any of the artists involved, because in many ways Broken Social Scene is not even a group of members; rather, it’s a notion or a concept, a vision of creating pure, beautifully captured, unabashedly catchy, pop music. Like the off-kilter pop of the Flaming Lips or Grandaddy, though, it is not conventional pop in the “popular” context of the word. It’s brilliantly unorthodox yet startlingly simple - finding the combination of melody, rhythm and vocals that (and, I must assume, this is all a very scientific process) produces the perfect sense of aural bliss within its listener. Subtle and saccharine or loud and brash, it seems that there’s always a deeper undercurrent of focus and purpose running through the sonic texturing.
All of that said, the group’s debut was a bust - both marginal musically speaking and heavily underpublicized by an overwhelmed Arts & Crafts label, it appeared as thought BSS were destined for the garbage pile before they even got started. You Forgot It In People was released in Canada only in October of 2002 to a deafening silence. As the year came to a close, however, glowing reviews started to come in from Canadian newspapers and the band’s fan base slowly grew until the album won a Juno (Canadian Grammy) and in March of 2003 the album was re-issued in Canada and finally found release in the United States.
You Forgot It In People’s album cover alone bears all of the hallmarks of pretentious emo - a black and white photo of a band playing in hazy lights, vocalist with a brooding look about his face and both the bassist and guitarists’ faces turned down, away from the audience. The back cover does nothing to dispel the notion, with the record label’s cursory “break all codes” slogan overtop of the album’s barcode (har, har, har), not to mention a total absence of any liner notes (no jacket, even) save for a listing of band members, song titles (all in lowercase lettering, of course) contributions, producers, management and a dedication to “friends, families and loves” that doesn’t inspire any confidence in the music - although perhaps there’s some fundamental insight behind the terribly clichéd cover and colour scheme; judge the music on its own merit (which seems like a totally cogent idea regardless, but based on my initial reaction, and the similar reaction at Pitchfork Media, something that is often overlooked). In a way, the record itself is pretentious, although not in the overtly dramatic manner that I was expecting. The album is pretentious because, well, it just can be, and each of the ten band members and three (four? five?) guests are so supremely confident in their own abilities that they can afford a touch of pretension to invade their work.
The music itself, thirteen tracks spanning roughly fifty-five minutes is, in a word, wonderful, a beautiful journey through influences and experimental song craft that should leave the listener in awe of its magnitude. As worn as it sounds, I can safely urge you to find this album now, because it’s simply that brilliant. You Forgot It In People is intelligent, passionate, heart-warming, and powerfully unique in its song structure and execution. Never content to stick with one successful approach, the band moves freely from musical form to musical form with seemingly no regard for how well they were executing on the previous, leading to a diverse record but not a disruptive one; instead of thirteen songs, You Forgot It In People is very much a musical movement on its own, composed of several unique but ultimately unifying (and tremendously satisfying) elements that range from experimental jazz to straight-out hard rock and vocal pop. Instead of flailing wildly, far out of their respective elements, the group only seem to improve as they move further off the trail into experimental art-rock territory. It is hard to make generalizations - aside from glowing adjectives, of which I’ve already showered dozens upon the band - about an album such as this, one that utterly defies conventional “jack of all trades, master of none" logic, but it’s nonetheless true.
Broken Social Scene’s ten members are no doubt responsible for the sheer complexity of the musical accompaniment, a blend of guitars - acoustic, electric, bass - and other traditional instruments, overdubbed ad nauseam; thickly reverberated licks awash in sonic texturing and intertwining acoustic and electric melodies and accompanied by additional flourishes: piano, violins, saxophone, flute, digital manipulation and even a totally dry banjo that weaves its way through one song. Sounds unnecessary and violently loud, perhaps, but most of the time, this overdubbing is so subtle that you’ll hardly even notice the gauzy strings or touches of horn that gently drive the melody home; all of these dabs are part of the brilliant compositional quality of the album.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the album opener, Capture The Flag, a two minute instrumental that comes off as a Pink Floyd style introduction, a hazily and gently rolling tone that rises and falls as instruments appear and fade, finally drifting lazily into a mild horn that barely reaches above the droning hum beneath it. K.C. Accidental drives home its thick wall of bass drum and stop-start distorted guitar riffing (with a searing lead barely audible in the mix) before changing pace for a brief vocal interlude, anaemic vocals and intermittent bursts of song that jump right back into the previous stop-start melody. Stars and Sons is a bit more subdued, capturing a touch of background dialogue that leads into a two-note guitar part and mid-tempo rhythm and raspy yet forceful vocals. Requisite handclaps just seem add the final touch as they join the track during the second verse.
Almost Crimes is no doubt People’s heaviest cut, its dissonant piano notes quickly lost in a wall of feedback guitar and a schizophrenic saxophone, degenerating into a metal-speed rhythm with a punk-rock sense of urgency and jarring wall of instruments, built from nothing, over which a male and female voice seem to be duelling for control in a boy vs. girl battle; Elton John and Kiki Dee’s Don’t Go Breaking My Heart on meth. Possibly the best illustration of the band’s genius in adaptation lies in the juxtaposition of Almost Crimes with the uber-subdued, breezy acoustic instrumentation that follows on Looks Just Like The Sun. The transition between numbers is nearly seamless, as is the next one that drifts into Pacific Theme, a very jazzy instrumental that perfectly captures the clichéd image of driving down a tropical road by the ocean as the sun beats down on your face - an image described perfectly without words, through only the beautiful interplay of guitars and the powerfully catchy horn roll that builds near the song’s climax.
Anthems For A Seventeen Year-Old Girl is very possibly the single most beautiful, utterly pleasing number ever set to tape, a super-addictive aural equivalent to crack and possibly the best pure pop song since the Beach Boys recorded God Only Knows. Driven by nothing more than an unobtrusive banjo and totally subdued violins, Emily Haines thickly phased and flanged vocals drive home a simple number of cyclical repetitions, building to a gradual crescendo that simply drops right off. The rest of the album goes off nearly perfectly, from the surprisingly pop-rock flavour of Cause = Time to the static and beat heavy instrumental Late Nineties Bedroom Rock For The Missionaries and the seemingly slow-motion, lo-fi Radiohead-ish, lethargic quality of Lover’s Split.
You Forgot It In People has only one stumbling point; one that, in retrospect, isn’t that bad of a song. Unfortunately, due to the nearly perfect quality of everything else on the disc, I’m Still Your F*g nearly undermines the whole experience ("a chain is only as strong as its weakest link") with it’s difficult melody and intentionally inflammatory lyrics. Only in the last minute does the track finds its voice, narrowly preventing the record from crumbling under it’s own greatness - a greatness reaffirmed by Pitter Patter Goes My Heart, an ethereal collection of soothing violins and subtle drums that seems like the perfect cap on one of the greatest musical statements of the past ten years. Of course, with album's end, it's hard not to wonder how BSS can possibly top (or even just equal) what they've already created.
Some recordings are referred to specifically as headphone albums; others were seemingly made with the intention of being cranked in your car as you drive to and from work, and others are great for just relaxing at home. Broken Social Scene’s sophomore outing You Forgot It In People is perfect for any of those situations. Headphones reveal even another layer to the thick, baroque instrumentation. The songs just scream to be played loud with the windows rolled down and the low-key mood is perfect for listening at home. Great albums - not just great albums, but nearly universally recognized masterpieces - come along only once and awhile. Nevermind was one, OK Computer was another, and with You Forgot It In People, Broken Social Scene has left their indelible mark on a burgeoning indie scene that shouldn’t soon be forgotten. The only tragedy of it is that so few people will actually be exposed to what may prove to be one of these best albums of this decade.
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