The standout tracks here are definitely fan-favorites “Anthems For A Seventeen Year-Old Girl” and “Lover’s Spit.” “Anthems” is a stunning piece, consisting of soft banjo plucks and strings drifting around Emily Haines of Metric’s looping, warped vocals. This brilliant album is disjointed enough not to be repetitive, but cohesive enough to not lose the listener’s attention, even throughout the several instrumentals that are scattered through the track listing. The band manages to put each individual’s talent to good use. Members of Metric, Feist, and Stars are all present on You Forgot It In People, and it shows. Maybe the most amazing thing about Broken Social Scene is how many incredible bands the supergroup contains. There is so much more to this album than I initially thought. Now, nearly a year after first listening to it, I decided to give it another chance, and another, and another. Upon not finding any immediate hits on what was billed as a pop album, I decided to give it a more thorough listen on a later date. The first time I downloaded it, I skimmed through the songs.
It definitely lives up to the hype.It took me a few listens to get into You Forgot It In People. It certainly takes time to grow, but once the album clicks, it is an absolutely incredible piece of work. At its best, “You Forgot It In People” condenses orchestra sized instrumentation into pop song structure seamlessly, creating a fantastically complex and wonderfully catchy mash up of styles.įortunately this happens more often than not, and the end result is an absolutely fantastic album. There were 15 musicians involved in the recording of this album, many playing multiple instruments, and it shows. The sheer number of instruments used here is astounding, even more so when you look through the liner notes and find out exactly what’s happening in each track. They constantly keep things interesting, layering on the orchestration without ever getting too busy.
Even when the songs threaten to get boring, something interesting happens in the mix to keep them afloat.Īnd that is, in the end, probably the bands greatest strength. There are certainly lesser tracks, such as “Late Nineties Bedroom Rock For The Missionaries” and “Pitter Patter Goes My Heart”, but nothing really bad.
I could go on about each of the albums great tracks, but to be honest there are no really bad songs here. Called “Looks Just Like The Sun”, it’s a relaxing, airy pop ballad with fantastic production aiding the songs melancholy atmosphere. Feist’s vocals bring a fantastic edge to the proceedings, harmonizing perfectly with Kevin Drew and standing out as one of the best performances on the album.Īnother highlight is the track directly following it. The highlight of the disk is the Feist featuring “Almost Crimes”, a distorted slice of guitar-pop with melody to spare. Hooks and melody abound over the course of “You Forgot It In People”s 13 tracks, with different styles being applied to each to keep things interesting. This tactic works wonderfully, stopping things from getting stale and bringing an individuality to each track.Įven without the guest stars, though, the songs themselves easily stand on their own. There are constants in the band, such as founders Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning, but the line-up changes frequently to accommodate for each song. A Toronto act of fluctuating number, Broken Social Scene brings together several fairly well known indie musicians under one roof in the pursuit of great pop music. So, what exactly is Broken Social Scene? It’s hard to pin down. At some point I realized that this is a fantastic album. Somewhere within the constant, slightly frustrating, listens, I got the hype. And somewhere along the line, it clicked. I wanted to dig in to the disc, unravel it’s layers, learn the melodies. Something brought me back, time and time again.
I gave it a few more spins, and eventually decided that this album just was not for me.Īnd yet, I kept coming back. When the final notes of “Pitter Patter Goes My Heart” faded out I was left wondering what all the hype was about, what so many reviews had gone on about, what I was missing. After hearing endless praise of the Toronto band’s second album, I was prepared for a fantastic disc. I went into Broken Social Scene’s “You Forgot It in People”. Review Summary: A fantastically complex little pop album.
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