News broke on Thursday AM that Metric’s releasing a greatest hits record. It blew me away, really: Metric? Aren’t they a little young for one?
But I looked it up and no, they’ve been around for a while. They recorded an EP in 2001, and a long-delayed record not long after. But I guess in my mind, 2007 was only like five years ago and Grow Up and Blow Away is still fresh.
And gosh, I love that song. Over a slow chord progression and droning keyboard, Emily Haines croons “If this is the life, why does it feel so good to die today.” There’s a drum machine, a slow little keyboard solo and lines about being knee-deep in blood. It’s moody, it’s depressed and it was the soundtrack to my life for about five years during and after college. Of course, it’s not on the Greatest Hits.
Neither is their breakout single, “Dead Disco.” A sonic blast of a single, it opens with Haines screetching keyboard, a pounding drum beat and a steady guitar lick from James Shaw that builds up the tension. Haines delivers her lines in a dead monotone and the guitar kicks in on the chorus, slashing jagged lines. It set the tone for Metric’s career: soaring guitars, keyboard textures and driving beats. They’d build off this on their second LP, Live It Out and it’s lead single “Monster Hospital” and it’s crashing rhythms (and killer video where Shaw plays like zombie).
Meanwhile, on “Poster of a Girl” they create a slick, synth-heavy groove while Haines all but breathes into the mix, reciting the lyrics in French, a song that’s unstuck in time: could’ve been released in 1982 or 2007, or any time i between. It cemented them as a band with one foot in the 1980s, but also looking ahead - they’d increasingly move in this direction.
Instead, the greatest hits package picks up with Fantasies, their third (or fourth, depending on how you count) LP. The ten songs paint a decent picture of the band from this point on, and I’m glad “Stadium Love,” the theme song to an ill-fated Blue Jays season, isn’t on here.
I’m of mixed feelings when it comes to live records and best-it’s. They usually come when a band’s taking a break and needs to recharge the creative energies. Other times, they come as a cash-grab (Ie: the CSNY one So Far which came out in time for their 1974 tour, and after the band had released just two LPs).
So I’m not sure how to feel about Metric going the greatest hits route. It’s short, only ten songs. It’s skimpy on their early stuff, the records that spoke most clearly to me, in light of later, more mature sounds. And the lone “extra” track, an acoustic version of “Gimmie Sympathy” doesn’t especially entice me as a buyer. It doesn’t feel like anything special, except maybe the end of a phase or a sign I’m getting old.
Which, I suppose, I am. I first heard Metric something like 18 years ago, an experience now old enough to drink here in Quebec. This is a band that’s been around in one form or another for over two decades. That’s longer than The Killers, about as long as The Strokes and slightly younger than Broken Social Scene. All of these are bands that, in my head, I think of as relatively new. Even though someone at my day job once told me “You like the Killers? But they’re an old band, like the Rolling Stones.”
I guess this happens to every music fan by the time they hit their mid 30s. The acts you loved as a teenager, early 20s, the soundtrack to formative years… well, they age too, and often it turns out, they’re older than you think.
“I know you tried to change things,” sang Haines. “I know you tried to change.” And indeed, they did, from a brash young dance/punk band to a New Wavey hip group to their more mature, current status as Indie Rock Elders. I’ll give them their greatest hits, even if it’s a record I’m not interested in. They’ve earned this. And besides, maybe it’ll turn on some 19 year old the way their music did for me at that age.