Nina
EMMA
Filed under: Nina | Tags: arcade fire, beach fossils, japandroids, morning benders, new york times, twentysomethings, youth, zeitgeist
photo by tim barber
As a self-professed restless young person (can’t deny it now, it’s in the URL…) I thought I’d share this nifty NYTimes article. Apparently, some venerable psychologists are seeing this period of indecision, seemingly limitless possibility (and ensuing dizzy-eyed paralysis), self indulgence, commitment-phobia, and ambiguous confusion (their words, not mine) not as a throwback to 90s slackerdom, not as a too-cool-for-my-day-job delusion of the urban hipster, maybe not even as a side effect of graduating into a recession (gulp) but maybe as a real Life Stage, akin to when psychologists discovered Adolescence nearly a century ago. Whoa.
This is hardly breaking news – almost every coming-of-age tale worth reading is set in the protagonist’s twenties (why hello there Kerouac), and people forced to settle down too early tend to show symptoms of profound dissatisfaction (like alcoholism, Office Space, and Raymond Carver stories). But psychological studies and societal concensus tend to lag behind common sense, so let’s just be glad they’re getting there.
Whether this means that the government will start setting aside funds for a grandiose road trip/foray into self-discovery for every newborn American to be disseminated when they turn 21 (actually proposed in the article but not bloody likely) or just that our parents generation will consider chilling out and letting us take time to settle into important decisions instead of following in their footsteps of resentful marriages, unfulfilling jobs, and explosive midlife crises (angstangstangst) is just not clear.
If that’s just too many words to plow through in the foreboding silence of The Rest of Your Life Awaiting, here’s a soundtrack to give it some context. The aforementioned psychologists can file these away as “primary sources.”
Beach Fossils – Youth
(i know i’m feeling brave / but that’s because my heart’s untied)
(also source of lyrics in title)
Morning Benders – Promises
(they say it’s only natural / they say we’re coming along just fine / but i can’t help thinking we grew up too fast)
Japandroids – Young Hearts Spark Fire
(we used to dream / now we’re worried about dying / i don’t wanna worry about dying / i just wanna worry about those sunshine girls)
(See also: Arcade Fire’s classic Funeral which from the bombastic hits Neighborhood #1 and Wake Up to the underrated In the Backseat is a baroque bildungsroman powerhouse not to be ignored. It’s an Arcade Fire kind of August, deal with it.)
Filed under: New Music, Nina | Tags: beck, broken social scene, james murphy, michael cera, scott pilgrim, soundtracks, summer of the midlife crisis, the national, the suburbs, video games, win butler, youth
At times, this feels like the summer of the midlife crisis. LCD Soundsystem, The National, and The Arcade Fire have put out excellent albums that I’ve been listening and relistening to, and like all good albums they’ve made their way under my skin. This means several times a day I find myself pining for suburbs I didn’t grow up in, wondering if I can raise a family that I don’t have, or deal with the fame I haven’t yet achieved…something is clearly wrong with this picture. Sometime after Union Pool reminded me that I’m still somewhat shy of the American drinking age, I realized that despite my fondness for melancholy white guys in their 40s, I’m still one of those “kids” Win Butler keeps singing about on The Suburbs…so what are these “kids” up to these days (besides getting off James Murphy’s lawn)?
The answer, with a resounding BOOM BANG POW, comes in the gloriously carefree Scott Pilgrim franchise – Bruce Lee O’Malley’s giddy graphic novel series about twentysomethings in Toronto. Besides being a really fun read, the series puts a brilliant spin on the usual tales of navel-gazing postgrads (working menial coffeeshop jobs, having relationships, playing in mediocre bands) by throwing in a barrage of video game tropes that haunt our ADHD-addled, raised-by-SNES minds. The result is something like Slackers set in a world where you can see your cash bar depleting above your head, find a save point before a perilous situation, and get experience points for getting hired. Awesome.
Of course this is being turned into a movie, starring the omnipresent and probably miscast Michael Cera, featuring the underrated Kieran Culkin and Mark Webber (anyone remember Designated Dave?) and being accompanied by a sweet soundtrack.
Standouts include the restless need-a-change-of-scenery song “It’s Getting Boring by the Sea” by Blood Red Shoes, the deliciously un-PC jump-around jam “O Katrina!” by the Black Lips, and the sleeper “Sleazy Bed Track” by the Bluetones. Metric adds a solid youth-in-revolt type track that wins points with lyrics like “our common goal was waiting for the world to end,” and the soundtrack curators win major points by adding Broken Social Scene’s hauntingly beautiful “Anthem for a 17-Year Old Girl,” which more than lives up to its title. Not stopping there, Broken Social Scene adds their two cents (or two loonies, in Canadian) by writing the film’s score and the music for fictional band Crash and the Boys (though you’d be hard-pressed to recognize them since Crash songs rarely make it to the one-minute mark). Scott Pilgrim’s own band, Sex Bob-omb, is done by Beck, who sounds like he’s having a great time garage-rocking out as a fictional twentysomething, and also adds two songs under his own name. The video game theme makes it to the soundtrack in the form of a chiptunes song. But even though this soundtrack is fittingly young and alive, no one can accuse it of ignoring its elders. Tracks by the Rolling Stones, T Rex, and Frank Black all make well-placed appearances.
The full album is available for streaming courtesy of the good folks at Spinner.
Pay close attention! If you listen carefully and press Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A at the right moment, you just might unlock a bonus level where you get to fight Michael Cera for a chance to win the key to unlimited nachos anywhere in Toronto! (No promises.)
