M83?

this is a bit, how you say, 'dodge': "the sounds that have constituted some of the most vapid, hedonistic, and forgettable music of our time have come back to make us cry.". of course them coming back to make us HAPPY again and remind us why we danced to them in our discos/clubs/spiderman costumes in the mid 80s (for that seems to be the brand of 'disposability' matt lemay's referencing) would somehow be not what we were looking for at all.

yes blah blah boring pitchfork complaint move on nothing to see here

Nevertheless, I like it.

the cyann and ben version of "in church" is utterly lush with that acoustic guitar in there.

Wild guess: Seefeel? (Note: I've hardly ever heard Seefeel.)

Is it a book about farming?

In a similar way, the drum machines on S3's "Playing With Fire" bug me a lot, particularly on tracks like Suicide. So I try letting them recede into the listening background.

I love the first few m83 albums, and Midnight City seemed like an excellent pop fluke. i wouldn't call this guy a hack; I think he got more lucky than expected recently though.

And when you get lucky, you end up producing an album full of French wedding music.

Or a Loverboy album.

There is a certain type of Breakfast Club-inspired melodrama that M83 excels at; the further they move away from that, the less I like them.

caveat: I only started paying attention circa Saturdays = Youth and that's very clearly my favorite out of what I've heard

i used to like their videos. in that smiths/belle & sebastian kinda way. like they had a pretty well thought-out aesthetic.

the stuff i've heard from this sounds like 80's retro from like 5 or 10 years ago. from france.

I kept thinking of Sebastien Tellier when I was listening to Junk. He did this kind of thing a whole lot better on Sexuality and My God Is Blue. I do like some of M83's previous albums, especially Saturdays = Youth but Gonzalez is nowhere near the songwriter that Tellier is.

I love the Tatu vibe emanating from "Go!". What a beautiful plastic euphoric vibe. If this is the sound of a hack then i can't wait to hear what else he comes up with.

Also - i grew up watching TV in the 80s and I really am not hearing these sit-com music signifiers all the critics are going on about.

Most of the sitcom signifiers come from Moon Crystal, which to me sounds more like a cross between Bill Withers' Lovely Day and the Hill Street Blues theme.

my initial reaction is that I do not listen to M83 for this

pretty much my first thought.

I like "Moon Crystal"

Tellier comparison is OTM, and weirdly the songs sung in French are among the better ones. "Moon Crystal" is also VG. I have a feeling if I caned this album, I'd grow to love it. Not sure yet if I want to give it the necessary time though.

critics are mentioning "sitcom signifiers" bc anthony gonzalez explicitly referenced "80s sitcoms" as an inspiration

I like this album a lot more than his previous stuff. Just checked to see if anyone had made comparisons between this album and that disappointing Aeroplane album from a few years ago, and they had, and it was me in 2012. This is a better proposition but you can tell both bands had listened to a lot of shitty French marriage songs.

For the Kids > Solitude > The Wizard is such a great run of songs.

So ... mission successful and no one really gives a shit about this album? Or is this on heavy rotation in the world's last remaining record stores?

This, Radiohead and latest Autechre my fave new album listens at the moment

lately I've been wondering if the Diplo dolphin sound was actually invented by M83 on Midnight City

i kind of gave up on m83 after dead cities but there is a local college radio DJ who plays a lot of m83 during her sets and every time i listen it sounds so good

saturdays will always be classic, "Coleurs" is a huge stand-out

yes i will always look back upon that album fondly

this track from junk is tops

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hs3Wki_uYzQ

Coleurs takes a simple idea (every four cycles, add in an extra element, repeat for a long time), and does it to perfection. Wish the rest of the album was even half as good.

Their big single sucks, you know.

it was a weird single choice, both Claudia Lewis and Steve McQueen are so much better!

come on now, that is a great single, lyrics are innocuous and since when is there anything wrong with a sax solo? I remember when it came out, it was exhilerating!

sundfor track is classic and i'll always have time for Saturdays which clearly influenced Chvrches and IAM

also the rockets song is pure kate bush pastiche done right

Worst song ever? This is nonsense and I’ll go listen to midnight city instead.

IAM?

iamamiwhoami now known as ionnalee, purveyor of synth pop excellence.

midnight city rules

correct!

Searched, but didn't find mention of Team Ghost, Nicolas Fromageau's band after leaving M83 in 2004. Only own the two 2010 EPs, but they're great. Team Ghost did a remix of "Midnight City" back in 2011.

So this guy really (intentionally?) shot himself in the foot with that "Junk" album, didn't he? Big breakthrough in 2011, five years for that follow-up in 2016, which seemed to hurt the band's popularity. Three years later and I didn't even know he released something new a couple of months ago, a synthy instrumental album inspired by synth movie scores. Which, if I searched correctly, literally comes up only once in an ILX search. Mission accomplished, Anthony Gonzalez?

Answering my own question: yes, he seems to be going for a hard restore and reset.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qvgvx5/m83-anthony-gonzales-interview-new-album-dsvii-midnight-city

I like this new record a lot more than most of the stuff he's done over the past decade+

Yeah that new one is actually pretty great and so much better than Junk. I wouldn't mind if he kept going on in this direction.

Listening to my two Team Ghost eps again, and really think anyone not enjoying current M83 would dig this side of the old split. Am going to hunt up the full albums, since these EPs are hitting the same buttons as Before the Dawn Heals Us.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P47STNaFVuc

at any time when ILM was talking about M83, I, had not heard the song Midnight City. Yet in the past oh I don't know 3 years I heard it, heralded by that hectoring synth line…and that shit stayed with me! It appears to have become a standard since…

it;s like Billie Eilish was in the video or some shit…

forgot how rad Junk is, felt as open and haunted as ever tonight. hoping to get to Fantasy tomorrow.

"Oceans Niagara" played loud is quite a thing. up there with "Kim & Jessie" and "Teen Angst" for me.

"Kool Nuit" also very cool

I like this album. It's kind of crazy he's been releasing stuff for so long.

okay if there's a song that is reminiscent of Kim & Jessie (probably my all time fav M83 tune), I'm interested. I hated Junk so much I practically stopped listening to this dude's music entirely

yeah, I really disliked Junk but I also feel like one of the few people that really loved DSVII so who knows. haven't had a chance to get to Fantasy yet.

it's pretty good!

Finally getting around to Fantasy and it's kind of boring? I mean, sonically it's a massive improvement on Junk and it hits the right mood, but it also kind of feels like just going through the M83 motions. I don't know, it just made me want to go back to the earlier albums instead.

disappointing, and yes wanted to make me go to the catalog instead