M83 Saturdays=Youth by: Tom Bradbury Fri:13-Jun-08 Label: Mute Year: 2008 WB rating 85 out of 100

It doesn’t seem to matter how old I get, something in me never tires of the innocence of John Hughes teen movies, whether it be the lighthearted Ferris Bueller’s Day Off or the melodramatic Pretty in Pink. Hughes’ movies have always had a tone of optimism and sense of celebration to them, and while the best time to watch them is undoubtedly when you are a teenager yourself, the effect doesn’t dim as you grow older. It seems that Anthony Gonzalez of M83 would share my nostalgia, for he identifies John Hughes films as a major influence on the creation of his new album Saturdays=Youth, which itself is a celebration of teenagehood.

There is a through-the-looking-glass effect to this album. It’s Gonzalez’ beautifully idealized image of a time on a different continent that he was not old enough to be a participant in, much to his regret. This is a case of what Douglass Coupland refers to in his classic, Generation X, as ‘legislated nostalgia’, where we feel a fondness for an era in which we weren’t even alive or were too young to actually remember.

This is why there is such a complete sound to the album – it’s a representation of Gonzalez mind’s eye. It encapsulates his adoration of a time that wasn’t necessarily worthy of such reverence, like how you can build up an image of perfection of a girl that is quite removed from reality. It is the superior fantasy. Hughes’ films presented teenage life not as uncomplicated but as full of meaning and profound emotion, which is the way all people experience those times in their lives. Yet the brilliance of his films was always that he greeted the everyday events of high school with such a contagious sense of wonder. Gonzalez has been able to transfer this effect on to Saturdays=Youth. This is an album of innocent melodrama, devoid of any grittiness, and instead saturated with the plastic sheen of 80s production and popcorn emotion.

‘Graveyard Girl’ would fit seamlessly onto the soundtrack from Pretty in Pink (indeed, the video for this track is a homage to the movie, including the famous ‘getting ready for prom’ montage scene). Opening with chiming, reverb-straddled guitars, it is an ode to a girl whose ‘heart is made of bubble gum’, but is so depressed that she wants to read poetry to graveyard stones. She is a thing of wonder to the narrator though, and ‘Graveyard Girl’ is unapologetically blissful. It’s definitely the most guitar heavy track on a very keyboard-based album, but it’s the synth that really provides the soul. The pounding drums serve as misdirection from the fact that this is a ballad where the keys produce the drama for the emotional center of the song – ‘I’m 15 years old and I feel it’s already to late to live. Don’t you?’

Similarly structured ‘Kim and Jessie’, while bringing to mind the ubiquitous M83/My Bloody Valentine comparisons, is also a perfect composite of all Hughes’ favorite bands. Hughes always had great taste in music, and his films always featured tracks from what he labeled ‘obscure British groups’, such as the Jesus And Mary Chain, the Smiths, New Order and Orchestral Moves In The Dark. It is bands such as these that most obviously inform Saturdays=Youth, particularly OMD and New Order (eg the atmospheric ‘Skin of The Night’, which is very Bernard Sumner meets The Simple Minds). Instrumental ‘Couleurs’ again echoes The Simple Minds, with its drawn out sustain of synth notes and straight fours beat.

Its no easy feat to so completely replicate the feeling of another time, or rather the imagined world of another time, but this is what M83 have done on Saturdays=Youth. This is not just a collection of songs, it is an attempt to recreate a world, to recapture the feelings of youth, not just the experiences Gonzalez had but also the ones he wishes he had. He is rebuilding his own dream-life, which is what dream pop is all about.