okay, i'm finally ready to give it the thumbs up. (i have no fucking idea if it was album of the year or whatever or not, but i think it's absolutely fucking hilarious that the fucking grammy's would give an award to a record on merge records. what's next, epitaph?)
anywho, it's a good record regardless. not perfect, but the complexities and art-fag pretensions often work well, and the ones that don't are noble attempts. i liken the album to the book the corrections by jonathan franzen: a good work, probably the best the artist will ever do, but far short of transformative brilliance. like that book, i also find that the overarching theme doesn't work that well. the corrections in the book and the suburbs on the album are forced instead of supportive or expansive. that's one of the shortcomings of the artist that shows clearly; it is only a shortcoming when compared to the very greatest and definitely not in comparison to much more pedestrian artists and works.
regardless, the suburbs rewards well on repeated listening. there's a nice balance to the whole album and a palpable movement through the progression. it is a major work; i like it.
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