Product Description

Nothing less than an indie-rock milestone, this is what happens when a number of musicians from the Canadian post-rock scene (including members of Godspeed You Black Emperor, A Silver Mt. Zion, and Do Make Say Think) abandon their extended-jam conceptualising in favour of short, optimistic, pop-oriented songs. Things start out in a jazzy, bass-heavy space before morphing into "KC Accidental", a guitar-layered track that sounds like the Allman Brothers covering Sonic Youth's "Teenage Riot". Catchy hooks triplicate alongside hand clapping, fuzz guitar, and Brendan Canning's whispered vocals on "Stars and Sons", while the mellow, acoustic "Looks Just Like the Sun" gives way to the twangy neo-Tropicalia and cockeyed (but uplifting and cohesive) experimentalism of "Pacific Theme".
Emily Haines (of the Metrics) lends a vocal to "Anthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Girl", which ends in a roundelay of swirling violins and banjo. "Cause = Time" is an even more tuneful brother to "Stars and Sons" that's so good, by the time the mournful, gorgeous "Lover's Spit" comes up one might be too satisfied to appreciate its obscene levels ofcraftsmanship. For a band with so many members, Broken Social Scene creates a remarkably spacious and well-orchestratedatmosphere on YOU FORGOT IT IN PEOPLE.

Track Listing

1. Capture The Flag
2. KC Accidental
3. Stars And Sons
4. Almost Crimes
5. Looks Just Like The Sun
6. Pacific Theme
7. Anthems For a Seventeen Year-Old Girl
8. Cause = Time
9. Late Nineties Bedroom Rock For The Missionaries
10. Shampoo Suicide
11. Lover's Spit
12. I'm Still Your Fag
13. Pitter Patter Goes My Heart

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8862 in Music
• Released on: 2003-09-08
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 56 minutes

Customer Reviews

all-time classic
I guess it's only fitting that, having already essentially kept post-rock alive in difficult times, the eastern Canadian scene would break out of that ghetto and into the larger indie-rock, er, ghetto. And it's not much of a surprise either that the result is simply epoch-making. It's no exaggeration to say that, in another 12 years, people will talk about this in the same hushed tones as they do about MBV's Loveless today - provided that they don't already, which they should.

For this second album, BSS extended from a duo to a ten-piece "official ensemble", with a further 15 or so 'guests' on various tracks. While that debut was a largely ambient affair, this covers everything. There's Tortoisey undertones on 'Pacific Theme', brushed-snare folkiness on 'I'm Still Your Fag' and string-swells on...well...everything.

The first part of the album is the more energetic - opener proper 'KC Accidental' repeats the same 8 bars with ever crazier climaxes until a brief vocal section leads into a few more goes at it. 'Stars and Sons' lopes on a motorik drum groove with barely-there vocals and FZ giving way to a feedback freakout, one of the album highlights. The first real release comes with 'Anthems to a Seventeen Year-Old Girl', whose sparse banjo-pluckings and ultra-treated vocals carry a beautiful theme into indie legend. Then it's time for standout track 'Cause = Time', which draws together all the elements for a searing, oblique social satire.

After that, the pace slows - a couple of weaker tracks meander too much for their own good. "I'm Still Your Fag" rescues things nicely, with subdued horns and guitars carrying the tragic ballad through to "Pitter Patter..." a refrain of Anthems which closes the record.

Apart from the saggy slow-mo cuts towards the end, this is an unblemished masterpiece - and frankly, I've forgiven greater sins to other bands. Buy. Right. Freakin'. Now.

An utterly okay album
Broken Social Scene's album "You Forgot it in People" has been the source of a tremendous amount of hype, and most people who like BSS's style of indie music genuinely seem to love it. Unfortunately, I found very little in this album I found remarkable or particularly interesting.

The music comes across as non-standard while at the same time managing to be conventional enough as to be completely ignorable. As a result, many instrumental tracks on the album sound like the backing music for a vocal track rather than the focus itself.

On the other hand, many of the lyrical tracks are poorly balanced, making some lines unintelligible, and in some cases (like "Shampoo Suicide") making the lyrics so difficult to hear you might wonder if you are just imagining them.

As to the actual content of the lyrics, much of it comes across as incomplete, insignificant, or pointless. Case in point, "Looks Just Like The Sun", where I could never concretely be sure what looked just like the sun, nor what the significance of looking like the sun was.

The only song that came close to eliciting an emotional response in me was "Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl", and even that song came across as undeveloped, having just three sets of lyrics repeated several times.

That said, there's nothing on this album actually bad, and no song is annoying enough to skip, but no song (aside from maybe "Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl") was interesting enough to remain in my memory very long after each listening. I just didn't "get" this album.

Also beware that the album is on a copy-protection disc and may not play on certain CD players (particularly, older CD players, some Car Stereos, and many CD-ROM drives).

hits the bullseye
I bought this when it came out, for once a music magazine recommendation came up trumps and I´m writing to tell you all how BRILLIANT this is.
All the tracks are amazing and subletely different. The many musicians in this band allow them to have a go at pretty much anything they want and it´s difficult to believe that this isn´t a perfectly put together compilation album.
Basically it goes through a serious purple patch in the middle.
"Looks just like the sun," is a beautiful acoustic number, the singer´s voice is beautifully insipid. "Pacific theme," is a fine instrumental number that pulls nicely into,"Anthems for a seven year old girl," a really catchy, inventive tune. I love the woman´s lyric,"park that car, sleep on the floor, dream about me." "Course=time," is one hundred miles an hour rock and this contrasts nicely with the excellently transcendral,"lover´s spit." A cool dreary lament.
Buy this and their new album which is equally as good.