I remember back in 2005 when Bloc Party’s Silent Alarm was, without question, the best record of the year. Even my very own Emmanuel College Radio voted it as the greatest record of 2005 after a sizeable poll of the student body. As far as college radio goes, it was the end all be all. We were blown away; everyone was.
And then a bunch of DJ’s and bands did remixes and covers of every song, and they released Silent Alarm Remixed and even that was still incredible.
And then they released A Weekend In The City in 2007. Around the same time their singer, Kele Okereke, came out. And that was fine. You know, no big deal. Didn’t come as much of a surprise. Although, i was a little disappointed when i realized that all my favorite love songs on Silent Alarm which i thought were about girls, were in fact about other men. Kind of changes all those mix CD’s i made for girls to try to get them in bed to a small degree. But, you know, Weekend wasn’t a terrible record.
But just last month i found that their new record Intimacy leaked on the web. I listened to it. Four times. It was okay. Wasn’t anything special. At least half the songs on the record i could do without. It was far from the record that i heard back in 2005 that made me cry, laugh, dance, and truly enjoy music all over again.
Just now i saw a music video on Fuse for their song “Mercury” from the new record. I don’t think there is a worse song they could have chosen. Nothing about it makes sense. The song and the fucking absurd video for it are just so rediculous.
What happened? Where did everything go so terribly wrong? I shed a tear for you, Bloc Party.. for you and for the ghost of a great band that i used to know…
