Week 22: Interpol - Turn On The Bright Lights (2002)

“I'm sick of spending these lonely nights/Training myself not to care”

-       Interpol, “NYC”, Turn On The Bright Lights

Few bands were as hated for their quality as Interpol was in 2002. Low-level music snobs were united in celebration; finally, there was a good, popular band that wore their influences so obviously and openly that their quality could be dismissed out of hand by even the least well-listened hipster. It was like a connect-the-dots puzzle for dummies, with a straight line between Joy Division and this band of charlatan mimics. People waved off the band, laughing while wearing a Closer t-shirt from Hot Topic: “You only think they’re good because you think they’re original.”

You may have guessed that I was one of those sneering snobs, for a while at least. I enjoyed the bigger singles from the album (“PDA” and “Obstacle 1”) when they were originally released, but the more I read about the band, the more irritated I became. I was outraged that they had allegedly ripped off Joy Division (despite never having heard one of their albums all the way through at that point) and The Chameleons (who I started listening to due to their claimed similarities to Interpol), and I quickly dropped the album out of my rotation.

It was at that point that I attempted to enter the off-putting world of post-punk, one of those cheerful genres that actively works at being alien and intimidating. The effort was short-lived; I enjoyed The Chameleons and have a firm, unyielding love for the Bowie albums that contributed a basic foundation for the genre (the Berlin trilogy and Station To Station, namely), but found the rest of the genre rather masturbatory.

I realize that’s a bit of an odd term to apply to a genre that was apparently focused on reducing music to elements even rawer than punks, but even a cursory glance at the genre reveals that the idea faded rather quickly. Post-punk and punk have in common two things: intent to rip up popular music and start over again (devolution, in other words) and a complete and utter failure to do so. Post-punk had been scooped on the idea of radical minimalism and primitivism in music decades ago; Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” did everything post-punk sought for in 1913, and incited a riot in doing so. By the time Public Image LTD rolled around, John Cage had already mastered the idea with “4’ 33””, a ‘song’ devoted to exploring the natural aesthetics of a quiet room.

There’s also the simple fact that the post-punk music that is today well-known and respected is still pop music. Like the best punk music, post-punk lacks the reckless courage of John Cage and other avant-garde artists in the way it clings to basic pop structures. A more accurate mission statement for punk would have been that they were seeking the devolution of Western pop, a mission in which they arguably succeeded.

Post-punk was a reaction to punk music quickly building upon its foundation to create ska, New Wave, and a second wave of rock and roll, and resorted to trying to rip out its own heart by turning to synthesizers, mechanized monotones, and other tools of artificialization. A glance at the modern day, artificially-flavored pop music can tell you how that experiment panned out; synthesizers, vocalizers, and other robot paraphernalia stopped being cutting edge and became pop standbys within a scant 5 years.

The easiest way to trace that transformation is with Joy Division themselves. Like The Cure and Siouxsie & The Banshees (who were the first band to actually be called ‘post-punk’, interestingly enough), Joy Division found their niche in the genre with music that was, at best, unbearably bleak. Though tragic, the suicide of the band’s principal songwriter and singer, Ian Curtis, surprised precisely no one. What was surprising was what followed, as the remainder of the band became one of the foremost pop groups of the 80s, New Order, with the best-selling 12” single of all time to their name.

That the bleak 3AM feeling Joy Division and other post-punk artists pioneers could become chart-topping material is obvious now, with artists in the same vein (The XX and Jamie Woon, for example) repeating the feat in both critical and commercial success. I’d go so far as to argue that much of the past decade owes a significant debt to the broadcast-from-the-moon feel of those classic post-punk and Krautrock tracks, from the electronica and trip-hop boom of the late 90s through to the similarly artificial diet pop movement of the present day.

The most obvious connection, though, is to the bands that reductive critics were quick to label as post-punk revival. Like garage-rock revival, which I discussed before, the post-punk revival of the early 00s was more of a development on an old, relatively unpopular genre. You may as well label The Rolling Stones as Delta-blues revival if you follow that trend; it’s little more than a ridiculous way for rock critics to feel even smugger. Nothing is more satisfying to the ego than dismissively labeling something. I would know.

Interpol certainly has similarities with their English musical relatives, but most of those lie solely in the overall mood. Both Interpol and Joy Division use atmospheric elements in their songs, achieved through repetition in the main melodic instruments and a vocal monotone that occasionally gets drenched in echo. They also share an extraordinarily strong rhythm section which are often given a natural focus in many of their songs, a carryover from punk music (on a side note, this is one of the few elements U2 maintains from their own roots as a post-punk band). Lyrical themes of isolation are also common to both.

The main differences lie in the musical textures both bands use. In music analysis, ‘texture’ refers to the sound of specific instruments; trumpets have a smooth texture, while distorted guitars have a rough texture. Terms affiliated with it have entered the popular culture to some extent, ala smooth jazz, and it’s an important tool for discussing music.

Based on Joy Division’s music, texture was also the thing Ian Curtis was most concerned with as a songwriter. Virtually every element of any given Joy Division song (aside from “Love Will Tear Us Apart”, the only song they did that’s readily identifiable as pop) is designed to enhance and complement the flat monotone of Ian Curtis’ standard singing voice. This results in the typical characteristics of the band:  atonality and punchy, distorted bass lines. The emphasis on rhythm is likely part of this, as an emphasis on melody would be a bit tricky with all the distortion and atonal guitar licks.

This anti-melody stance is in stark contrast to Interpol who share the well-earned rhythm section spotlight, but also feature far more melodic basslines, such as on “The New”. This resembles a Joy Division song only in broad strokes; only the album’s most aesthetically challenging track, “Roland”, comes close to fitting that mold.

Though the mood’s the same, the emotions and textures are different. Both artists operate in the wee small hours of the morning, but Interpol generally does so in the comfort of the city life. If Joy Division sometimes feels like being imprisoned in the modern world, Interpol often feels like a comforting stroll through one’s favorite city. “NYC” puts it best: “I know you've supported me for a long time/Somehow I'm not impressed/but New York cares”.

That theme of escape crops up frequently on the album, from “Say Hello To The Angels” (“We should take a trip now to see new places//I'm sick of this town”) to the entirety of “Stella Was A Diver And She Was Always Down”, but I don’t think there is a single, coherent theme to the album. Solace is a possible candidate, as is escape or even city life, but when roughly half the songs are comprised of more-or-less impressionistic lyrics focused (probably) on simple relationships, I don’t really want to take a leap of logic.

That being said, I do want to highlight the melodic and altogether lovely song “The New” for providing the album’s clearest break from its post-punk roots. Even after listening to Doug Paisley’s debut in-depth, this song’s opening lyrics (“I wish I could live free/I hope it's not beyond me/Settling down, it takes time/One day we'll live together/And life will be better”) stand out as some of the most conservative in recent memory. I’m not saying that in a derogatory way; even if I wasn’t something of an old fuddy-duddy myself, I still adore hearing uncommon sentiments in music, and the idea of finding freedom through a committed relationship is separate from nearly every form of popular music I know of. It’s certainly a far cry from the hedonism and basic emotions typical of rock and pop.

I’d argue that Turn On The Bright Lights should be understood as a consistent piece not due to any coherent theme but simply by virtue of style and mood. Like Joy Division, Interpol chose to make an album that invites easy comparisons to the 3AM haze of city life. Unlike their predecessors, however, Interpol focus more on the city lights than the black, starless sky.