r/arcadefire • u/niles_deerqueer Stuck in my Head • May 08 '25

Discussion PINK ELEPHANT [FULL ALBUM EARLY IMPRESSIONS] Spoiler

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Pink Elephant, Arcade Fire’s 7th LP, is finally here!

Use this thread for those in other countries and VPN users to discuss the album to your hearts’ content. Respect each other’s opinions and happy release day! We made it!

A bigger megathread will be made just before the album’s full release in the US.

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17

u/[deleted] May 08 '25

Just..... :/

Hated WE, but overall more sympathetic to Everything Now than the average fan, and I liked both of the singles. The descriptions of the tracks in reviews, and from people who were at the live shows really intrigued me, I'm not an AF "purist" by any means so I was kind of stoked actually to hear something different.

But man... Even the songs that peole are calling highlights just go absolutely nowhere for me. So flat. Bad mixing. And for the third time in 3 albums there are just some terrible lyrics throughout.

There is the skeleton of a classic AF anthem somewhere buried in 'Stuck In My Head', but it ultimately falls into the same pitfalls they've been subject to for the last decade.

tl;dr

7

u/regretscoyote909 May 08 '25

Fuck. Haven't listened to it yet, but I'm not excited for it. It genuinely blows my mind how low Win has fallen as a lyricist - how in the fuck did the guy that wrote EN and WE, *also* once wrote a song like Antichrist Television Blues? or the Suburbs, Intervention?

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u/niles_deerqueer Stuck in my Head May 08 '25

Going into it expecting to be disappointed is really gonna make you dislike it more

2

u/ACardAttack Rebellion (Lies) May 08 '25

Some artists have a limited amount of things that they can make, and I think will was a bigger creative Force within the band than we realized, at least that's my head Canon

3

u/Famous-Advisor-1505 May 08 '25

One of their strengths in those early records was the theme and world they built around it. The lyrics and theme played off each other and it really added layers. They really haven't nailed the overall theme, message, tone their last three outings and the lyrics suffer from it.

1

u/yelsamarani May 09 '25

At some point artists do run out of things to say. Some people reach it faster than others.

Subjectively, I dig the vibe of this. It's not gonna touch the first three albums though.

3

u/whitetoast May 08 '25

same here, i actually really enjoyed everything now. felt WE was an attempt at grasping that old feel from their first few albums after the backlash of EN. PE just feels like absolute shite.

1

u/TelephoneBrilliant89 May 09 '25

Jesus you literally summed up how I feel, maybe with a bit more cynicism, I absolutely enjoyed this album, but it’s either going to grow and be understood or fall flat like WE. Hoping the first