Metronomy // Love Letters

I thought this was a joke. I listened once and I thought Holy Hell so THIS is what Metronomy sound like. Is this all one big social experiment designed to prove that popular music is made for people who don’t actually like music? If you listen to the record backwards you can clearly hear some old bloke with a scouse accent prophesying the return of real music marked by the sacrifice of ten faux-bohos to the god of Insipid Popular Culture.  Just after being set on fire and pissed on by five blokes who “make their own beats”. *

BUT THEN, I got down off my high horse and gave myself a slap around the face for trying to be clever. Just because something is popular doesn’t mean it’s shit. And anyway, this band clearly aren’t like, Rihanna or Bieber or Queen B in their popularity.

True this music is not for me. Some of it sends shivers up my spine in fact, but it’s pretty good and folks seem to like it. It revels in space, not planets and stars but empty space. The compositions aren’t packed with layers, I don’t think this record is about creating an atmosphere, I think it’s about having a bit of a laugh, ensuring you get commissioned for a shit tonne of remixes by bigger artists and locking in those festival dates whereby people like me can swig on rum and dance to songs we don’t know because they’ve got a nice “groove”. Ain’t nothing wrong with that either sister.

I’ve listened to it several times now and it’s definitely grown on me to the point where I nearly like it. Few more catchy vocal lines would have been swell but there’s plenty to toe tap to and I don’t think it’s music for idiots any longer.