Ryan's Broken Social Scene Review

I studied psychology as a university student, and one of the concepts that most fascinated me while doing that was that of the gestalt – that in combining things you ended up with something that was more than the sum of the individual parts. It interested me especially because growing up as a fan of rock and roll music, I was already familiar with the concept of the supergroup, and knew that it was often seen as an anti-gestalt; ask anyone, after all, and they'd tell you that supergroups, from Humble Pie to the Traveling Wilburys, always ended up being a disappointment compared to what one would expect from the lineups assembled therein.

Broken Social Scene seems to have bucked that trend in the history of supergroups (and yes, BSS fans, I know they don't like that term, but if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, they're a supergroup). Not only does the collective make music that gets acclaimed just as much as those of the individual members, but they've managed to hold on to their indie cred and kept the hipsters loyal despite becoming incredibly popular, both internationally and at home. We'll have to see how long that last point lasts, though, because with Forgiveness Rock Record, Broken Social Scene have made a mainstream rock album.

Don't take “mainstream” in the pejorative sense – they're not Nickelback, or anything, but compared to the other BSS stuff that I'm familiar with, it's a lot hookier, a lot more accessible, and filled with summer radio singles like Chase Scene and Texaco Bitches, while seeming to be deviod of a lot of what would appeal to that hipster crowd. This wasn't the Broken Social Scene that I was familiar with, but honestly for me that's a good thing, as I've never been a fan of the group, despite liking a lot of the individuals in it. Part of that is because, paradoxically, I've always been kind of fond of supergroups, because from the perspective of a fan they always seemed like fun projects – people who just happened to be amazingly popular musicians getting together and just jamming out. I know that they weren't often actually like that, but that's the myth of them I've always had, and myths are important in rock and roll.

Part of why I've never been able to really appreciate Broken Social Scene is because they defied that myth; because, despite actually being friends who got together and jammed, they never seemed like that, either in the image they chose to present publicly or in the music that they were creating. With Forgiveness, though, BSS finally seems ready to take their pretensions and “art is serious business” attitudes and leave them in the coat check, choosing to become the mainstream rock supergroup that they were always destined to become.