How does it feel to keep company with Prince, Bob Dylan, and Paul Westerberg? Ask Chan Poling. Readers of Rake Magazine counted The Suburbs frontman and principal songwriter among their list of “Favorite Minnesota Rockers,” right alongside those famous names. The Minnesota Music Awards concurred and bestowed upon Poling the POP Award (Perpetually Outstanding Performer). The Minneapolis Star-Tribune included Poling and The Suburbs in their round-up of the “100 Most Influential Minnesota Musical Entities of the Twentieth Century.” That’s a stunning amount of critical consensus in a place known for artistic excellence — the North Star State, home to musical visionaries.
And insofar as a “Minneapolis sound” exists, The Suburbs had as much to do with its invention and codification as anybody. Like the other greats of Minnesota music, The Suburbs pushed toward a world freed from the restrictions of genre. They demonstrated that it was possible to be rock and pop and R&B and off-the-wall experimental at the same time. They’ve always made music that’s simultaneously danceable and ferocious, thoughtful and hedonistic, humorous and trenchant. Poets Party, the seventh studio album by The Suburbs, comes on the heels of the stinging Hey Muse!, which re-established Poling and his long-running collective (established in 1977!) as one of the most tuneful, exciting, and risk-taking groups in the Twin Cities.
“Buckle My Head,” the group’s latest single, is three minutes of everything that makes The Suburbs so beloved — and so influential. Poling and the band manage to make the track sound modern, yet completely continuous with Suburbs classics like “Love Is the Law” and “Credit In Heaven”. It’s funky and tuneful, sleek yet approachable, decorated with blasts of horns, and spiked with asides, observations, and witty turns of phrase.
A song so nicely written deserves a lyric video that reinforces its themes and tone, and The Suburbs have delivered a clip that feels like a distillation of the group’s aesthetic. The Suburbs give viewers the words to the song — but also crossed drumsticks hammering on a red disc that spins like a 45, and four black parallel lines that throb as if they’ve been plucked. Then there’s the narrator: a besuited businessman with a tie, starched collar, and a pocket square, and a roaring flame in the place where his head should be. Everything is spinning and twirling, resolving to a blur, all words and symbols in motion, a dizzying, kinetic animation to match a band that never stands still.
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