M83 - Saturdays = Youth
May 23, 2008 by Alun Williams
Shaun Greenhalg is, to his acquaintances, a quiet, borderline reclusive man. To the art world he is a master counterfeiter, pulling the wool over it’s eyes for 17 years with an incredibly diverse range of forgeries, ranging from paintings to sculptures, amassing almost a million pounds from the sale of his spurious art. M83’s (aka Anthony Gonzalez) last release, discounting 2007’s stop gap Digital Shades record, Before The Dawn Heals Us, took the listener on a journey regurgitating the best moments of early 90’s shoegaze fused with Gonzalez’ own synthetic touch. Though wearing it’s influences on it’s sleeve, Before The Dawn Heals Us contained a magnificent 60 minutes of exhilarating pop, featuring moments of beauty that could bring even the hardest hearted to their knees. His latest offering Saturdays=Youth sees Gonzalez looking slightly further into the past and deciding to ape the 80’s synth-pop sound.
Initially on offer here are M83’s most accessible pop songs to date. Maybe the ambient wash of last year’s Digital Shades record allowed Gonzalez to fully focus this record on pop music - specifically uplifting, euphoric pop of the kind that could render stimulant narcotics obsolete. Catchy synth motifs are in abundance here, initially obvious on the record’s second track Kim and Jessie, destined to embed themselves and repeat endlessly in the mind of the listener. Graveyard Girl’s ecstatic pop builds upon the blueprints laid on Before The Dawn Heals Us.
Female vocals are utilised extensively, giving the record a slightly different flavour to its predecessor. Coleurs gives us an eight and a half minute, strangely danceable floor number, whilst in Too Late there is a beautiful, subtly building epic. On paper here is everything a great pop record requires. Unfortunately, documents, graphs and pie charts do not make a great record. Most of the songs are needlessly long, over indulgent even, with over-repetition of the aforementioned desirable attributes rendering the value they initially possessed worn thin.
Returning to the case of Shaun Greenhalg; overconfident after almost two decades of buffooning the art world with his counterfeit art, the potential financial lucracy of selling his works seemingly became too much to resist. He eventually slipped up by attempting to offload three of his forgeries at once. He was caught out, exposed as a fraud and subsequently sent to prison for half a decade.
Unfortunately, Gonzalez falls into a similar trap upon the release of Saturdays=Youth. Whilst he may have gotten away with sonic pilferage on Before The Dawn Heals Us, here Gonzalez is caught pants down, one hand in the communion box, cock in the other. The overblown 80’s nostalgiafest that is Saturdays=Youth feels hollow and ultimately unconvincing. There seems to be almost a desperation here to appeal to the angular haired, tight jeaned electro-pop (via Mighty Boosh) loving teen crowd. The record’s title, the cover art adorned by kids that could be from the 80’s or merely the aforementioned 80’s revivalists, even the lyrics allude to teen angst in a fashion that inspires cringing; ‘…I’m 15 years old, and I feel it’s already too late to live…’. Graceful, coming from a man ten years the wrong side of his teens.
Moreover, Gonzalez would have been but a wee bern in the decade he seemingly laments, which make the sentiments on offer here feel contrived and essentially fabricated. Simply, he seems to have forgone the sincerity that made his previous releases so special in a plea for the ringing of till drawers. Unfortunate, as there are moments that indicate that something very special could have existed here.
In a word; disappointing.
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Oooh, controversial. I actually really like this, however it is not the sort of album that will make M83 become a big name outside of the indie circuit. Too much of it relies on a specific like of M83’s style and its hard to appreciate the actual songs they’ve made when they’re buried under like them or loath them synth walls.