from: Paris, France
website: www.wearephoenix.com
myspace: www.myspace.com/wearephoenix
I'm not afraid to tell you that Phoenix is only a few steps from Maroon 5. In fact, I've used the band as a musical segue on many an occasion - nudging the dancing pop fan toward Alphabetical, urging the cautious Top 40 devotee onto more dangerous ground. Not that French indie pop is necessarily dangerous, or even more credible or respectable than what you hear on Songs About Jane. I kinda like Maroon 5, and I definitely don't judge their fans. Maybe I cry for them a little each night, but only because of what they're missing - the wide and wonderful world of music that can't be heard outside of the lower depths of the FM radio band. My world. And Phoenix is a shiny, sexy, deliciously poppy door to that world.
The French four-piece debuted in 2000 with the released of United, a smooth, almost lounge-y collection of songs, including the track "Too Young," which was featured in Lost in Translation (director Sofia Coppola is now dating the band's vocalist, Thomas Mars). 2004 saw the release of Alphabetical, which generated enough mainstream success for me to pick it up off a "best of 2004" rack in Tower Records that year, and this May the slightly more rocking It's Never Been Like That hit stores and rapidly earned a permanent spot on my iPod mini.
Despite the perfection of Phoenix's glossy, studio-generated pop grooves, the band actually sounds best on stage. I discovered that last year at Vanderbilt's Rites of Spring Festival, where I managed to catch about half of the band's surprisingly excellent performance. As I said in that review, in the live setting, Phoenix takes their crisp little pop songs and infuses them with real rock - turning their shimmery Maroon 5 kind of sexy into a grittier, rock 'n roll kind of sexy. The formula worked so well that they had the whole Rites crowd last year - college prepsters, hippies, and the older set alike - dancing to their set. Live! Thirty Days Ago, the live album Phoenix released in 2004 after their world-wide tour, captures that sound, and provides a great taste of what we can look forward to in Austin.
"If I Ever Feel Better" (from Live! Thirty Days Ago)
"Long Distance Call" (from It's Never Been Like That)
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