The Rapture was one of the first modern post-punk disco bands to have commercial success with their jumble of sounds. Though last year’s release Pieces Of The People We Love is excellent, the truly rousing anthems come from their first full-length album Echoes. It was voted album of 2003 by Pitchfork and a day didn’t pass that you didn’t hear one of the songs on the album in some way. Especially “House Of Jealous Lovers” was everywhere, so I haven’t felt the need to listen to it for a while. I’ve heard the first few beats the other day on a BBC show and it brought back the rush of knowing that I was listening to a song of my generation.
There are some bands that make you claim a certain ownership, like no other time could have produced such a sound. I imagine it’s akin to what it must have been like to hear The Stooges’ furious noise or Grandmaster Flash’s mindblowing tricks on his turntables for the first time. It was something for the new generations to call their own, because there was nothing like it at the time. That’s what “House Of Jealous Lovers” means to me. I had never heard such a danceable frenzy of angst, beats and melody. And these guys rock the frick out of a cowbell. Maybe I wasn’t running in the right circles and people had been playing music like that for years, but my ears were aflutter. Even if you think this song is totally played out, I can’t imagine you’re not boogie-stricken from the first screams of this instant classic:
The Rapture – House Of Jealous Lovers
