BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE  ::  YOU FORGOT IT IN PEOPLE

Jukebox J-Bone


What the hell?

Pretty much my reaction upon hearing these names - one for the 10-15 member band hailing from Toronto made of alt-rock alums and also their album, respectively. My reaction: who wants to hear anything from someone with the name "Broken Social Scene?" It sounds Smashing Pumpkins 10 years and 15 million copycat albums too late.

Still, it was strongly recommended by someone I trust, so I dutifully bit. And I must say, I have not been this pleasantly surprised with an album since Spoon's "Kill the Moonlight", which blew my socks off last year.

YFIIP, didn't hit me over the head the way Spoon's did, but it intrigued me and I couldn't listen to anything else. Though purchased the same day, my "Hail to the Thief" sat unheard for a week.

I suppose there is no real reason to go into nauseating detail on how the album grew on me, how many listenings it took for me to realize that this was not simply an album with a couple good tunes, but a real complete musical statement that is rare in these days. But it did.

Now I listen to it and it is what it is: a damn-near perfect album that ranges in styles, emotional scope and instrumentation. Like the White Album, it goes all over the place, but it is never disconcerting and it always sounds like the same band.

The first song, a quiet, two-minute instrumental turns quickly into a fast-paced garage punk guitar frenzy that, after nearly two minutes, releases - and this is the moment that I think both sets up the listener and defines the album - into a sweet, jangly bridge in which the first words of the album are sung:

"All your kind they...."

Interesting. Your kind? Who? The kind who went out and bought this album?

It goes on, warbling, accusatory, desperate, tired - drawing the line in the sand between the band, the listener, and the world that seemingly has forced this group of earnest people to express themselves in music.

It could have been pathetic, but instead it is somehow sweet, and you sympathize immediately.

But it is not all bleak and disenchanted. Just mostly, and in a good and strangely uplifting way. You Forgot it in People has a backbone while not abstaining from the pleasures of the flesh. The album bobs and weaves, becomes frenetic, then blissful - "Looks just like the Sun" is relaxed, cool, and content in a kind of beatific Sunday afternoon sort of way. "Anthems For A Seventeen-Year Old Girl" is a sweet lament of a pure girl gone shallow woman, so sentimental yet so honest and so utterly relatable one is drawn into its primitive, quiet chant.

And the rockers rock. "Almost Crimes" can stand next to any Strokes or White Stripes tune in terms of grit and gripes. And the grooves groove: "Cause=Time" could easily be an MTV hit that doesn't insult the listener (should they choose to make it one).

This is an album for both the hardcore music buffs, and I'd argue just as appreciable by less pretentious, less obsessive music fans. Will this band take off? Maybe and I kind of hope not - that is at least for another album or two so we can see where they go from here. Regardless, it is somehow reaffirming to hear an album that just gets it right. It makes it worth it rifling through so much crap to hear that no, everything has not been done; there's still room to go out there.