Saturdays = Youth
Encyclopedia
Saturdays = Youth is the fifth studio album
by French electronic
band M83
, first released on 11 April 2008. The album was produced by Ken Thomas, known for his work with Sigur Rós
, The Sugarcubes
, Cocteau Twins
, and Suede
, with co-production by Ewan Pearson
(who has also produced for Tracey Thorn
, The Rapture
, and Ladytron
) and M83 leader Anthony Gonzalez.
The album yielded four singles: "Couleurs" in February 2008, "Graveyard Girl
" in April, "Kim & Jessie
" in July and "We Own the Sky" in December. "Kim & Jessie" was placed at number 256 on Pitchfork Media
's list of The Top 500 Tracks of the 2000s in August 2009.
, which assigns a normalised
rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average
score of 76, based on 34 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Andy Battaglia wrote for The A.V. Club
that Saturdays=Youth "boasts a more expansive sense of space" than the band's previous albums, and that it "serves in terms of songs as much as sound design: For all the awe kindled by the effectively perfect sound in a transcendent highlight like 'Kim & Jessie,' the real triumph is that M83 uses such a setting for more simple melody and emotion than ever before." Dave Hughes of Slant Magazine
gave the album four out of five stars, stating that "[a]lthough many songs still build toward walls of synth that flirt with white noise, the trademark crescendos are both leavened and deepened by being recast as textural objects and woven into lyrical pop songs." He also opined that "though analog synthesizer remains definitional of the M83's sound, they open the arrangements to include more naturalistic instrumentation as well. The approach allows this band named for a galaxy to seem more grounded, and yet more universal, than ever before." Brian Howe of Pitchfork Media
noted that Saturdays=Youths songs "disperse in all directions: Producers Ewan Pearson and Ken Thomas spread the melodies and beats into a sound world of uncommon vibrancy and pristine clarity, mounted on a massive yet now more proportionate scale", adding that the album "meaningfully diversifies M83's catalog while retaining Gonzalez's indelible fingerprint." Drowned in Sound
's Alex Denney commented that "Gonzales has taken a dive head-first into the lexicon of '80s pop culture and emerged with a clutch of winning tracks that borrow openly from any number of pin-ups of the era and glaze them in his breathy, expansive shoegaze sound his to generally winning effect." He continued, "Predictably there's a slide towards more abstracted material toward the latter half, and parts of Saturdays=Youth are all hairspray and no body, but the whole thing sweeps along with such an irrepressible mix of youthful invincibility [...] and flouncing fatalism [...] it sucks the wind right out of your cheeks before you've had chance to huff." Allmusic reviewer Heather Phares gave the album four out of five stars and concluded, "As super-stylized as its sounds and emotions are, Saturdays=Youth always seems genuine, even when it feels like its songs are made from the memories of other songs. For all of its nostalgic haze, it's some of M83's most focused music."
The album also received some mixed reviews. Dorian Lynskey, writing for The Guardian
, gave the album three out of five stars and expressed that "[t]o call Saturdays=Youth derivative is to pay it a compliment, because every retro synth sounds calibrated to provide the maximum nostalgic rush—if not for your own adolescence, then at least for that of a poetic outcast in a John Hughes
film", but noted that "[i]t's a shame the songwriting evaporates in a haze of rote shoe-gazing and ambient murmurs halfway through." Dan Raper of PopMatters
felt that "it is a little disappointing that the point of Saturdays=Youth kind of misses the point. The more conventional 'song'-like material does have something of M83's stately grandeur but feels somewhat hollow, probably because the slow-burn's integral to the act's power." He nevertheless commented that "there are [still] plenty of moments on the disc that remind you why this pulsing, layered music is so powerful." Benjamin Boles of Canadian magazine Now
believed that album is "more derivative and familiar than Anthony Gonzalez's past work as M83, which means it's more accessible but also less innovative and original. All the dreamy, ethereal glitter drowns the songs; the album overall is mostly about texture and nostalgia", while stating that "[s]urprisingly, the least pop-based tracks stand out most." Spin
s Mosi Reeves was unimpressed, writing that "[o]nly a few compelling songs, particularly the lush darkwave instrumental 'Couleurs' and the breezy shoegaze rock of 'Graveyard Girl,' emerge from the bathos
. M83 needs to step out of the '80s and back into the future." Ben Hogwood of musicOMH
rated the album three stars out of five and found that "M83 still show plenty of guile and in their best moments present music of hidden power and grace. But in this record they seem to become too preoccupied with their 80s tribute for that to continually shine through."
Pitchfork Media ranked Saturdays = Youth at number eight on its list of The 50 Best Albums of 2008 and at number 111 on its list of The Top 200 Albums of the 2000s. The album was also named the best album of 2008 by Drowned in Sound and Urban Outfitters
.
Studio album
A studio album is an album made up of tracks recorded in the controlled environment of a recording studio. A studio album contains newly written and recorded or previously unreleased or remixed material, distinguishing itself from a compilation or reissue album of previously recorded material, or...
by French electronic
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
band M83
M83 (band)
M83 is a musical act by French musician Anthony Gonzalez. It is named after a spiral galaxy, Messier 83. The band was founded in 2001 by Gonzalez and former member Nicolas Fromageau in Antibes, France...
, first released on 11 April 2008. The album was produced by Ken Thomas, known for his work with Sigur Rós
Sigur Rós
Sigur Rós is an Icelandic post-rock band with classicaland minimalist elements. The band is known for its ethereal sound, and frontman Jónsi Birgisson's falsetto vocals and use of bowed guitar. In January 2010, the band announced that they will be on hiatus. Since then, it has since been announced...
, The Sugarcubes
The Sugarcubes
The Sugarcubes were an Icelandic alternative rock band formed in 1986 and disbanded in 1992. They received critical and popular acclaim internationally.-History:...
, Cocteau Twins
Cocteau Twins
Cocteau Twins were a Scottish alternative rock band active from 1979 to 1997, known for innovative instrumentation and atmospheric, non-lyrical vocals...
, and Suede
Suede (band)
Suede are an English alternative rock band from London, formed in 1989. The group's most prominent early line-up featured singer Brett Anderson, guitarist Bernard Butler, bass player Mat Osman and drummer Simon Gilbert. By 1992, Suede were hailed as "The Best New Band in Britain", and attracted...
, with co-production by Ewan Pearson
Ewan Pearson
Ewan Pearson is an English electronic music producer/remixer who works under various aliases including Maas, Sulky Pup, Villa America, World of Apples, and Dirtbox. He is also in Partial Arts with Al Usher. He has remixed for artists such as Cortney Tidwell, Seelenluft, Ladytron, Depeche Mode,...
(who has also produced for Tracey Thorn
Tracey Thorn
Tracey Anne Thorn is an English pop singer and songwriter. She is best known as being one half of the duo Everything but the Girl, which is currently on extended hiatus.-Personal life:...
, The Rapture
The Rapture (band)
The Rapture is an Indie rock band based in New York City. The band mixes influences from many genres including post-punk, acid house, disco, electronica and rock, pioneering the post-punk revival genre...
, and Ladytron
Ladytron
Ladytron are an English electronic band formed in 1999 in Liverpool, Merseyside. The group consists of Helen Marnie , Mira Aroyo , Daniel Hunt and Reuben Wu .Their sound blends electropop with New Wave and shoegazing elements. Ladytron described their sound as "electronic pop"...
) and M83 leader Anthony Gonzalez.
The album yielded four singles: "Couleurs" in February 2008, "Graveyard Girl
Graveyard Girl
"Graveyard Girl" is a song by French electronic/dream pop act M83. Written by Anthony Gonzalez with his brother Yann, it was released in April 2008 as the second single from M83's fifth studio album, Saturdays = Youth.-Background and composition:...
" in April, "Kim & Jessie
Kim & Jessie
"Kim & Jessie" is a song by French electronic/dream pop act M83. Written by Anthony and Yann Gonzalez with Morgan Kibby, it was released in July 2008 as the third single from M83's fifth studio album, Saturdays = Youth.-Critical reception:...
" in July and "We Own the Sky" in December. "Kim & Jessie" was placed at number 256 on Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media, usually known simply as Pitchfork or P4k, is a Chicago-based daily Internet publication established in 1995 that is devoted to music criticism and commentary, music news, and artist interviews. Its focus is on underground and independent music, especially indie rock...
's list of The Top 500 Tracks of the 2000s in August 2009.
Critical reception
Saturdays = Youth was met with positive reviews from most music critics. At MetacriticMetacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
, which assigns a normalised
Standard score
In statistics, a standard score indicates how many standard deviations an observation or datum is above or below the mean. It is a dimensionless quantity derived by subtracting the population mean from an individual raw score and then dividing the difference by the population standard deviation...
rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average
Weighted mean
The weighted mean is similar to an arithmetic mean , where instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others...
score of 76, based on 34 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Andy Battaglia wrote for The A.V. Club
The A.V. Club
The A.V. Club is an entertainment newspaper and website published by The Onion. Its features include reviews of new films, music, television, books, games and DVDs, as well as interviews and other regular offerings examining both new and classic media and other elements of pop culture. Unlike its...
that Saturdays=Youth "boasts a more expansive sense of space" than the band's previous albums, and that it "serves in terms of songs as much as sound design: For all the awe kindled by the effectively perfect sound in a transcendent highlight like 'Kim & Jessie,' the real triumph is that M83 uses such a setting for more simple melody and emotion than ever before." Dave Hughes of Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine is an online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New York Film Festival.- History :...
gave the album four out of five stars, stating that "[a]lthough many songs still build toward walls of synth that flirt with white noise, the trademark crescendos are both leavened and deepened by being recast as textural objects and woven into lyrical pop songs." He also opined that "though analog synthesizer remains definitional of the M83's sound, they open the arrangements to include more naturalistic instrumentation as well. The approach allows this band named for a galaxy to seem more grounded, and yet more universal, than ever before." Brian Howe of Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media, usually known simply as Pitchfork or P4k, is a Chicago-based daily Internet publication established in 1995 that is devoted to music criticism and commentary, music news, and artist interviews. Its focus is on underground and independent music, especially indie rock...
noted that Saturdays=Youths songs "disperse in all directions: Producers Ewan Pearson and Ken Thomas spread the melodies and beats into a sound world of uncommon vibrancy and pristine clarity, mounted on a massive yet now more proportionate scale", adding that the album "meaningfully diversifies M83's catalog while retaining Gonzalez's indelible fingerprint." Drowned in Sound
Drowned in Sound
DrownedinSound.com or DiS is a UK based music webzine financed by artist management company Silentway . The site is an editorially independent music website.-History:...
's Alex Denney commented that "Gonzales has taken a dive head-first into the lexicon of '80s pop culture and emerged with a clutch of winning tracks that borrow openly from any number of pin-ups of the era and glaze them in his breathy, expansive shoegaze sound his to generally winning effect." He continued, "Predictably there's a slide towards more abstracted material toward the latter half, and parts of Saturdays=Youth are all hairspray and no body, but the whole thing sweeps along with such an irrepressible mix of youthful invincibility [...] and flouncing fatalism [...] it sucks the wind right out of your cheeks before you've had chance to huff." Allmusic reviewer Heather Phares gave the album four out of five stars and concluded, "As super-stylized as its sounds and emotions are, Saturdays=Youth always seems genuine, even when it feels like its songs are made from the memories of other songs. For all of its nostalgic haze, it's some of M83's most focused music."
The album also received some mixed reviews. Dorian Lynskey, writing for The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, gave the album three out of five stars and expressed that "[t]o call Saturdays=Youth derivative is to pay it a compliment, because every retro synth sounds calibrated to provide the maximum nostalgic rush—if not for your own adolescence, then at least for that of a poetic outcast in a John Hughes
John Hughes
-Artists:*John Hughes , American film director, writer, and producer*John Hughes , American art director*John Hughes , Irish musician and manager of The Corrs-Clergy:...
film", but noted that "[i]t's a shame the songwriting evaporates in a haze of rote shoe-gazing and ambient murmurs halfway through." Dan Raper of PopMatters
PopMatters
PopMatters is an international webzine of cultural criticism that covers many aspects of popular culture. PopMatters publishes reviews, interviews, and detailed essays on most cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, films, books, video games, comics, sports, theater,...
felt that "it is a little disappointing that the point of Saturdays=Youth kind of misses the point. The more conventional 'song'-like material does have something of M83's stately grandeur but feels somewhat hollow, probably because the slow-burn's integral to the act's power." He nevertheless commented that "there are [still] plenty of moments on the disc that remind you why this pulsing, layered music is so powerful." Benjamin Boles of Canadian magazine Now
NOW (magazine)
Now is a free weekly newspaper in Toronto, Canada. It was first printed on September 10, 1981 by Michael Hollett and Alice Klein. Now is an alternative weekly mixing arts and entertainment news with political coverage....
believed that album is "more derivative and familiar than Anthony Gonzalez's past work as M83, which means it's more accessible but also less innovative and original. All the dreamy, ethereal glitter drowns the songs; the album overall is mostly about texture and nostalgia", while stating that "[s]urprisingly, the least pop-based tracks stand out most." Spin
Spin (magazine)
Spin is a music magazine founded in 1985 by publisher Bob Guccione Jr.-History:In its early years, the magazine was noted for its broad music coverage with an emphasis on college-oriented rock music and on the ongoing emergence of hip-hop. The magazine was eclectic and bold, if sometimes haphazard...
s Mosi Reeves was unimpressed, writing that "[o]nly a few compelling songs, particularly the lush darkwave instrumental 'Couleurs' and the breezy shoegaze rock of 'Graveyard Girl,' emerge from the bathos
Bathos
Bathos is an abrupt transition in style from the exalted to the commonplace, producing a ludicrous effect. While often unintended, bathos may be used deliberately to produce a humorous effect. If bathos is overt, it may be described as Burlesque or mock-heroic...
. M83 needs to step out of the '80s and back into the future." Ben Hogwood of musicOMH
MusicOMH
musicOMH is a United Kingdom-based website which publishes independent reviews, featues and interviews from across all musical genres including classical, metal, rock and R&B.-History:...
rated the album three stars out of five and found that "M83 still show plenty of guile and in their best moments present music of hidden power and grace. But in this record they seem to become too preoccupied with their 80s tribute for that to continually shine through."
Pitchfork Media ranked Saturdays = Youth at number eight on its list of The 50 Best Albums of 2008 and at number 111 on its list of The Top 200 Albums of the 2000s. The album was also named the best album of 2008 by Drowned in Sound and Urban Outfitters
Urban Outfitters
Urban Outfitters, Inc. is a publicly traded American company that owns and operates five retail brands: Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, Free People, Terrain, and BHLDN....
.
Track listing
Personnel
- Anthony Gonzalez – vocals, keyboards, bass, guitar, piano, co-producer, mixing, pre-production, art direction
- Tom Bailey – mixing assistant
- Anouck Bertin – sleeve photography
- Roland Brown – management
- Louise Downer – design
- Morgan KibbyMorgan KibbyMorgan Kibby is an American singer-songwriter who is based in Los Angeles. She has had various musical projects throughout the years including fronting the LA based indie band The Romanovs, collaborating and touring with the French electronic/ambient group M83, to her most current solo project...
– vocals, piano, keyboards - Richard Matthews – assistant engineer
- Loïc Maurin – drums, percussion, guitar, bass, keyboards
- Ewan PearsonEwan PearsonEwan Pearson is an English electronic music producer/remixer who works under various aliases including Maas, Sulky Pup, Villa America, World of Apples, and Dirtbox. He is also in Partial Arts with Al Usher. He has remixed for artists such as Cortney Tidwell, Seelenluft, Ladytron, Depeche Mode,...
– co-producer, additional keyboards, pre-production - Paul A. Taylor – art direction assistant
- Jolyon Thomas – guitar technician
- Ken Thomas – producer, mixing
Charts
| Chart (2008) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| French Albums Chart Syndicat National de l'Edition Phonographique The Syndicat national de l'édition phonographique is the inter-professional organization which protects the interests of the French record industry... |
173 |
| US Billboard 200 Billboard 200 The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists... |
107 |
| US Top Electronic Albums | 4 |
| US Top Heatseekers Top Heatseekers Top Heatseekers refers to either of two separate "Breaking and Entering" music charts issued weekly by Billboard Magazine: the Heatseekers Albums chart or the Heatseekers Songs chart. They were introduced by Billboard in 1993 with the purpose of highlighting the sales by new and developing musical... |
1 |
Release history
| Country | Date | Label | Format |
|---|---|---|---|
| Australia | 11 April 2008 | EMI EMI The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major... |
CD Compact Disc The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,... , digital download Music download A music download is the transferral of music from an Internet-facing computer or website to a user's local computer. This term encompasses both legal downloads and downloads of copyright material without permission or payment... |
| France | 14 April 2008 | Virgin Records Virgin Records Virgin Records is a British record label founded by English entrepreneur Richard Branson, Simon Draper, and Nik Powell in 1972. The company grew to be a worldwide music phenomenon, with platinum performers such as Roy Orbison, Devo, Genesis, Keith Richards, Janet Jackson, Culture Club, Lenny... |
|
| United Kingdom | Mute Records Mute Records Mute is an independent record label based in the UK. It was founded in 1978 by Daniel Miller and featured several prominent musical acts on its roster such as Goldfrapp, Depeche Mode, Yazoo, Erasure and Fad Gadget.-Beginnings:... |
||
| United States | 15 April 2008 | ||
| Germany | 9 May 2008 | EMI | |
| United States | 9 December 2008 | Mute Records | 2×LP LP record The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry... + CD |
| Japan | 1 July 2009 | EMI Music Japan | CD, digital download |