Fucked Up – Couple Tracks

Fucked Up are a hardcore band from Toronto. This may seem like an entirely boring way to start a review. I agree. But I think it’s important to get out there right away because if you read any of the band’s other press you might think otherwise. Currently Fucked Up are on Matador, a great label sure, but not the label that you think of when you think of modern day Hardcore. (Oddly and unintentionally this is also the third Matador album I’ve reviewed in a row…Ted Leo and Pavement prior to this… hopefully the label takes note and sends me a free sticker or something.) The other thing about Fucked Up that is moderately confusing is how many hipster rags like (cough) Pitchfork (cough) adore them. They say things like “Fucked Up build upon the foundations of Hardcore and paradoxically shift it in new and expansive territories” or some shit like that. I’m paraphrasing. But at the end of the day Fucked Up are a hardcore band from Toronto.

I hesitantly bought their new singles collection “Couple Tracks” because the hype that preceded them worried me. There are a lot of bands that have taken Hardcore as a genre in new and interesting directions. The majority of which are not reviewed by the hipster nation. For example you won’t see a review of the new Blacklisted album on Pitchfork, and that shit takes Hardcore into all kinds of interesting territory. So why then do these Williamsburgites love Fucked Up and ignore modern day Hardcore otherwise? I think part of it is that they buy everything Matador puts out. And this isn’t a slight against Matador either. I’ve been a fan of much of their roster since “Orange” by the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion came out circa ’94 (In fact I listened to it just this morning as that thought came to me and it’s still fucking great.) and being from New Jersey I’m also a big Yo La Tengo fan. I think the other reason Fucked Up walks the line between Hardcore and Hipster is that they carry themselves as arrogant artists. I’m not making an assumption here either. I read the liner notes to “Couple Tracks” from start to finish and there’s definitely an air of snooty artist to be found. For example in the notes for Generation you’ll find this: “Fucked Up is too self aware to ever write a song with any specific politic or intention – this song would serve as our allusion to such a song, or even a parody.” I read something like this and think “yawn”; hipsters however stir it in their chai soy lattes and drink that shit up for breakfast. Nevertheless and more to the point, I repeat, Fucked Up are a hardcore band from Toronto.

“Couple Tracks” is a great Hardcore singles collection. Forget the band’s intentions or lack thereof when they wrote Generation, that song is fucking killer. And of the 25 tracks on this collection 23 or so of them are equally killer. There’s a little experimentation towards the end that you can forgive them for and even those couple songs are pretty good. Opening track No Pasaran (also pseudo-dissed by the band in the liner notes) is another great Hardcore track. I Hate Summer is as Hardcore as you can get. Give me any song with the words I Hate _____ in them and I’ll probably like it though. Teenage Problems, Toronto FC, Fixed Race, Crooked Head… all great… all decidedly hardcore. Another thing I found out about this band that endeared me to them when writing this article is that a couple of the members are in another great Hardcore band that I love called Career Suicide (check out either “Attempted Suicide” or either of their “Anthology of Releases” for more on them, you won’t be disappointed).  I come away feeling about Fucked Up the same way I feel about Fugazi.  Great band as long as you can separate the music from everything else.

So yeah, pick up “Couple Tracks” if you haven’t already. Pitchfork gave it a 6.8. I give it a solid 8.2959905.

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