(Single from album, "Hurry Up, We're Dreaming")
Around this time last year, during the earliest weeks of the new year in school, a friend and I sat on the back seat of our bus, at about 8:00 in the morning. I pulled my iPod out of my pocket and a headphone splitter cable. What I was about to show him was so momentous that I had prepared myself, offering him a spare pair of ear-buds I had brought with me just in case. He nodded to confirm that he was plugged in, and I pressed play. Between us, ever since that occasion, we have cited M83's "Midnight City" as one of the best electronic songs we'd ever heard at the time, and, in fact, ever since. It's an extraordinary eruption of epic electronic enunciation. And I love it...
Discounting brief spells with a song at #199 in 2003, and #86 with two singles in 2005, January 2012 was the first moderately successful appearance in the UK charts for French electro legends M83, whose new single from their 6th album had been chosen for the recently launched "Made In Chelsea" television programme, and only justcharted despite an initial release almost 6 months prior. In a time when Gotye's addictive "Somebody That I Used To Know" was rocketing toward UK #1 and the radio played little else, "Midnight City" marked not only the undeserving commercial failure of indie music, but, outside of chart placings, also heralded the glorious resurrection of synth-pop amidst the fields of generic fascist gibberish that composed the remainder of the top 100 in January of last year...
Opening with a fairly standard atmospheric keyboard in the background, but with an exquisite, oscillating treble synth in the lead, altered to sound like the battle cry of a high pitched elephant, by 0:18, the electric drums are in, and the fat, synthetic sound of the 1980s has taken over completely, fading out briefly for a reverb-heavy vocal during the verses as accompanying, thick, electric, brassy bass line enters, glorious, loud, polished and glimmering. It's immediately a finger to the establishment that brands electronic music soulless or inhuman, stirring up all the warmth, atmosphere and valiant aggression of classic dance music, whilst retaining a wonderful, modern cleanliness to the production and a similarly futuristic twist on the indie genre; this is, from the outset, obviously no pop song, as it's other worldly sounds go on to show...
By 2:45, the final chorus (instrumentally) has begun ringing out, and, at 3:02, just to add to the truly awesome cacophony of musical beauty, a clean, synthesised saxophone line rings out, tying up the eclectic combination of dance, synth-pop, indie, rock/pop with a big jazzy bow. It's all the glitzy sonic style of the Pet Shop Boys, with the nouse of synth pioneers like Kraftwerk and Vince Clarke on the side, with the massively superb production values of Madonna or Green Day completing the package of total pop perfection. It's synth-pop as it should be, for the first time in well over 25 years.
The song peaked at #34, which, given the [then] current climate of commercial music, was impressive, but still, sadly maintaining of the indie curse of unprecedented chart failure. Europe has always been big on synthesised music, and rarely does it export something so fine tuned, so brilliant that is accepted over here to this degree. Though it's a sad reason for doing so, many will have heard this as the theme tune to "Made In Chelsea", and, whilst this would normally make me weep tears of indie loyalty unborken, it makes me happy here, as I would do anything, absolutely anything I could, to make sure that everyone gets to hear this piece of contemporary electronic musical genius. It truly is beautiful.
★★★★★
Versions of “Midnight City”
Album/Single Version - 4:03
Instrumental Version - 4:03
Man Without Country Remix - 4:13
Team Ghost Remix - 3:58
Trentmøller Remix - 7:29
Big Black Delta Remix - 3:41