Look At What You Look Like

Phoenix “Napoleon Says” – The other night, I was coming home a bit drunk (this is pretty rare!) from a Christmas party, and I made a note to myself that I should write about this song because, I don’t know, it just sounded really awesome at that moment. Maybe something similar happened to roughly half of the staff at Pitchfork too, because the album from which it is taken has somewhat inexplicably placed in the top 15 of their year-end albums list for 2006. Inexplicable because I know a lot of those people and didn’t realize they were fans; inexplicable because I don’t recall the publication giving Phoenix much flattering coverage in 2006; inexplicable because, let’s face it, it’s not their best album and it’s placing seventeen slots ahead of Belle & Sebastian‘s The Life Pursuit, and that actually IS their best album, and by a considerable margin.

I’ve spent most of this year stuck in my own weird, withholding relationship with It’s Never Been Like That. I’ve never disliked the music though I can’t get over the way it totally hits a wall in its final third, which is sort of ironic given that the last three songs on Alphabetical represent the peak of their career to date. It would be difficult for me to overstate how much I love Alphabetical — I really do think it’s one of the best albums from this decade, and it kinda sucks that it never actually found the sizeable audience of grown-up pop fans that it deserves. I’m not sure what I wanted them to do next, but at least initially, everything aside from the somewhat Alphabetical-ish lead single “Long Distance Call” wasn’t it, though it all sorta fits together in hindsight. They couldn’t keep going in that Timberlake-meets-Steely Dan mode without seeming repetitive, and applying their pristine aesthetic and carefully calculated arrangements to post-Strokes rock was a sensible creative choice, not to mention a more commercial avenue for them given that no matter how deeply un-indie their music got, they were invariably marketed to indie rock people.

Ultimately, the staying power and general appeal of It’s Never Been Like That is the same as its predecessors, i.e. Phoenix approach pop music with a highly developed sense of both craft and style analogous to a haute couture fashion designer. To the untrained eye, a suit is a suit is a suit, but with impeccable design, fine fabric, meticulous construction, and deliberate fitting, a suit can be quite profound and beautiful. As David Raposa says in his blurb accompanying the album in the Pitchfork list feature, the songs seem inconsequential at first but eventually display remarkable endurance and timelessness. Everything is just so, and their skill is such that they can imply a certain raggedness and looseness of spirit in spite of every moment being planned so thoroughly and executed with super-professional precision. It’s a delightful illusion of throwaway rock music, and now I’m glad to say that they had me fooled for so long. (Click here to buy it from Amp Camp.)

Elsewhere: Maura Johnston ponders the class allegiances of today’s journalists, Ken Freedman presents the “The Alternative Jesus Christ Superstar,” Frank Kogan dissects CSS’ “Let’s Make Love and Listen To Death From Above,” and the Face Knife examines the learnings of Borat.