For a moment, try to allow yourself to forget Donald Trump has been leading the free world for the past six months now…
The promotional cycle that accompanies a band or artist for a new album is the very definition of “fake news” Trump purports to rail against. The banalities that end up being spewed and interpreted into digestible content for attention-deficits, variations of the same questions asked over and over and over again; it’s enough to drive even the most composed person to the brink.
It’s no wonder some – like Justin Bieber for example – decide to throw in the towel before a tour is even through, no matter how much it may cost them in cancellations. Not that the Biebs’ pocketbook is likely to take any hit. Just please don’t come back a year or two from now saying you’ve found Jesus and your life and music now have *Ahem!* purpose again. Far be it for me to slam him over this decision; I’d much rather he take a breather (hopefully) for the good of his health than burn out and end up like other singers recently who shall remain nameless, but you know very well who they are.
What the $#@% does this have to do with Arcade Fire you might ask?
Canada’s indie darlings have nearly always done everything with their collective tongues firmly planted in cheek. In a climate where stunts hold far more value than art, they seem to be ramping things up to the nth degree in anticipation of Record #5 Everything Now. To go over the numerous marketing pranks, they’ve pulled would be quite the long and winding rabbit hole. I especially got a kick out of the Arcade Fire T-shirts with the Jenner sisters’ faces on them and the mock reviews made to look as if they ran on Stereogum, Billboard, and even InfoWars.
This overabundance of good-natured fun to get ahead of and control the narrative leads me to believe Everything Now as a whole may not be all it’s cracked up to be. But when you have one of the robots from Daft Punk as a producer…chances are it’ll have a good beat and be easy to dance to.
The tipping point for fly-by-night fans has been the latest announcement concerning the dress code they are looking to impose for a live stream transmitting from the Bohemian HQ of Brooklyn. Dean for one isn’t too happy with them. The thing is, Arcade Fire already did this back during the Reflektor tour of 2014. So is this now a case of history (not to mention fake news) repeating itself? C’mon, life’s too short to get worked up over such silliness!
