Broadcast – The Noise Made By People

A meta review of the review section itself:
It’s extremely funny how early 2000’s reviews are of the music itself and recent reviews are nearly exclusively only reviewing the vinyl quality rather than the musical content. It’s almost as though most people in the 2020s fetishize the media over the music. Escapism, I think. People are responding to an increasingly insane and chaotic world by focusing on the minutiae of what they can control.

Stereolab, shoegaze, easy listening: a classy album bringing those references to the new millennium

Still satisfies with the morphing pop sensibilities of Portishead, Bel Canto, and such contemporaries as Massive Attack, Baxter, and Air. 'Twas a fine time for new music melting into that hazy millenium shift.

Was surprised to discover the song called "Until Then" is largely based on a sample from a track called "Grasshopper" from the soundtrack of the 1970s TV series called Kung Fu.

There are elements of pop music I love. There are elements of pop music I despise. Broadcast take away all the extraneous frivolities of the shite you hear on the radio, mix in thrilling experimental interludes and provide stunning melodies that you can't get out of your brain for days. I don't usually like saying things like 'this is what pop music should sound like' but..... this is what pop music should sound like!

<I>The Noise Made By People</I>, Broadcast’s first proper album comes on like gangbusters, smoothing out the rough edges of <I>Work and Non Work</I> while still retaining the skewed melodies and instrumentation. The songs verge a little more on the melancholy, from the slow, meditative “Unchanging Window” to the siren call of “You Can Fall.” There’s also the extraordinary “Come On Let’s Go,” which manages to be both poppy and experimental. “Papercuts” is similarly catchy -- it’s a tune that’ll be stuck in your head like a malignant tumor. Again, the lyrics rise above the clichés and triteness that plague pop music. A wonderful album.