Salı 21 Ağu 2007, 0:06

So Pitchfork stamps the album with a 6.0 and kicks dirt on top of my $30 preorder (plus poster!), and other The New Pornographers fans seem unapologetic in agreement. I don't get these people. Challengers is the only album of the band's that I can listen to all the way through. Heck, Electric Version's songs all sounded exactly the same until about five more listens. Now it's only about four of the songs that bear any repeating for me.

Don't get me wrong - I love the energetic stuff. I've played Twin Cinema, The Laws Have Changed, and others at least 50 times, but the rest of the album is filled with what seems to be either filler or just… boring songs, like Three or Four.

Challengers just seems to have slowed down the band just so that they can really dig in with more poignant hooks than an engulfing rush of ecstasy. Look at the title track. Challengers is calm, quiet, and absolutely beautiful. Sure, Dan sounds goofy on The Spirit of Giving, but it's one of their best songs, ever.

Now to Pitchfork:

The Pornographers have dallied with this sound– "The Bones of an Idol," for instance– but only as contrast betwixt the power-pop sugar-highs. Now those up-beat moments are themselves the contrast, rather than the focus, and Challengers sags because of it.

In layman's terms, "because it's not their energetic pop music, it's bad." Oh boo hoo, their music is different. Look at XTC or Talking Heads or the Beatles. Their music changed radically over their careers and yet More Songs About Buildings And Food gets high marks along with Remain in Light. Fans find the goodness in both albums. Just because you love The Beatles' pop songs about love and girlfriends and love and love doesn't mean that epics like I Am the Walrus are far too different, and thus, bad. So what if you don't like it? It doesn't make it bad music.

Challengers isn't perfect, but it's damn good. Four-and-a-half stars.