Earlier entries of this series can be found here: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3065&p=45337&hilit=archive#p45337
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“Watch them build up a material tower/ Think it's not gonna stay anyway/ Think it's overrated”
61. Phoenix - 1901
The facts:
Year: 2009.
Genre: Indie-rock.
Country: France.
Album: Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Acclaimed Music ranking: #526.
Song ranking on Acclaimed Music in the artist’s discography: 1st.
Ranks higher than Perfect Day by Lou Reed, but lower than Runaround Sue by Dion.
Place in the Acclaimed Music Song Poll 2015: #595.
The people:
Produced by Phoenix & Philippe Zdar.
Written by Thomas Pablo Croquet, Christian Mazzalai, Laurent Mazzalai & Frederic Moulin.
Vocals by Thomas Mars.
Guitar by Laurent Brancowitz & Christian Mazzalai.
Bass by Deck d’Arcy.
The opinion:
According to Phoenix singer Thomas Mars the number 1901 refers to a year that according to him was a better time for Paris than 2009. Perhaps it was, I’m not sure. In the lyrics the year is only mentioned once: “Past and present/ eighteen-fifty-five to nineteen-and-one”, after which a reference is made to the building of a “material tower”, certainly the Eiffel Tower. Then the singer claims that the tower is not likely to stay and that he thinks it’s overrated. That’s the last we hear of the year 1901, but not with the song. Based on these lines it doesn’t sound to me like they were very impressed with the year.
Then again, these lyrics are very elliptical. The world “elliptical” even makes an appearance in the first verse. I can make heads nor tails of it all, but aside from being a rather odd ode to the year 1901 and a rebuke to the Eiffel Tower, it mostly seems to be about a failing love affair. Oh and about folding (“Fold it! Fold it. Fold it! Fold it!”, Mars sings). Really, the only thing the band has ever said this has been about is a nostalgic look back at Paris, 1901 and as such I find it a bit of a failure. Then again, this is a band with usually vague lyrics, mixed with historical references that come out of the blue.
In contrast, the music is as clear as the lines are opaque. The main attraction of this song are the loud guitars, that more or less replicate the sound of a big, electronic beat. Here’s an indie song you can easily dance to, which might be the reason it became their first really big hit. It strictly isn’t the first time they mixed dance music with guitar rock while still maintaining an indie feel. There was for example the track Funky Squaredance from their debut album United. This is just the one where they perfected the formula.
That process of perfecting the song apparently took a while. The band claimed to have written every element of the song in 10 minutes, but it took them a full year to make everything fit. That’s a bit of a surprise to hear. I know it apparently took Pink Floyd a whole year to make Shine On You Crazy Diamond, but that song lasts 26 minutes and consists out of various movements. It also took The Beach Boys a year to complete Good Vibrations, but that song too contains a lot of elements and Brian Wilson reinvented the whole process of studio recording while doing so. 1901 is a 3 minute song of simple pleasures. Where that whole year went is anyone’s guess, though it might explain the longing back for the year 1901, when I suspect nobody spend such a long time on a pop song.
If I seem to be mocking the song and the band, than that is because I am a bit. I do like Phoenix up to a point, but I’m not too impressed with 1901 and certainly can’t for the life of me understand why this should have taken them so long to make. I mean, this is one of the simplest songs I have written about in this series up until now.
It is also perhaps the one I have the least feelings about. Not positive, nor negative. It’s one of those songs I can take or leave. A frequently used expression about music is “I don’t mind if it’s playing, but I wouldn’t put it on myself”. That’s me and 1901. It does work as a danceable indie rock song, but it’s no standout in the genre. Give me the other two singles of the same album, Lisztomania or Lasso any time; to say nothing of non-single Fences, or their earlier If I Ever Feel Better (probably still my favourite of theirs). I guess those big riffs make 1901 their most memorable song for most people. I can understand, but this song misses something for me.
6/10
Other versions:
There are quite a few covers of 1901, but there are also a lot of songs with that title that have nothing to with the Phoenix. Apparently nostalgia for that year has run more rampant than I thought.
Anyway, the approach to this song by various artists is unusually varied. The most prominent cover comes from Birdy, who isn’t all that famous on a global scale as far as I know, but she has had several hits in the Netherlands, all covers of acclaimed indie songs that weren’t a hit for the original artists here. She scored big around these parts with Skinny Love and White Winter Hymnal. Her approach is always the same: a watered-down, vocal-focussed, easy listening reworking of more original songs. I didn’t know she had already done 1901, though I can see why it wasn’t selected as a single, because the lyrics aren’t interesting enough for an artist that sells based on vocals.
In a strange twist of fate the cover by Ameritz appears on a Birdy Tribute Album instead of one for Phoenix. Of course, Ameritz performs it in her style, at least musically (it hardly contains vocals, although the “Fold it” part was apparently too good to abandon). Phat Tunes also deliver a Birdy tribute (it seems nobody cares about the existence of Phoenix anymore?) and is really dull. More mellow than even Birdy is the slow ballad approach by Voice Express. Really, a band named Voice (!) Express turns toward Phoenix for inspiration? What’s next, a Jimi Hendrix tributes that focusses on the drums? Whatever the case, remember how I remarked in my review that the big guitar riffs where the main selling point for the original? Apparently every artist in this and the preceding paragraph thought otherwise. The big sound of Phoenix has been swept away.
Luckily, the MIT Logarythms put it back in the indie-sphere where it fares better and they make the song their own. Also very indie is the take by Richmond Octaves, who seem to go a-Capella while still having instrumental backing. They don’t make this paradox work and instead come with the most annoying version of the song. The saxophone version by The Rubber Band is one of those obligatory instrumental covers that litter Spotify and that get ignored by most people I suspect.
The playlist:
This playlist contains a song named Paris, 1901 by Franco Ferrara, just because. It is part of a soundtrack for a movie about Picasso, which is more of an argument for the greatness of Paris in that year than Phoenix gave us.