A Weekend In The City
Encyclopedia
A Weekend in the City is the second studio album
by British indie rock
band Bloc Party
. It was recorded at Grouse Lodge
Studios in Westmeath, Ireland, in mid-2006 and was produced
by Jacknife Lee
. The record was refined and mixed
at several locations in London at the end of 2006. It was released on 24 January 2007 in Japan and in the first week of February in the rest of the world, with Wichita Recordings
as the primary label. The record peaked at number two on the UK Albums Chart
and on the Irish Albums Chart
. In the United States, it entered the Billboard 200
at number 12.
Bloc Party's goal was to craft an album that distanced them from the conventional guitar band set-up by incorporating more electronically processed beats and additional instrumentation. Computer programs were extensively used to enrich and amend recorded takes, while a string sextet
was hired to perform on some of the tracks. Frontman and chief lyricist Kele Okereke
created A Weekend in the City as an examination of life and leisure in modern cities by drawing ideas from issues such as drug abuse, sexuality, and terrorism. The album's three original singles, "The Prayer
", "I Still Remember", and "Hunting for Witches
", exemplify these themes respectively.
Bloc Party's new musical directions and more forthright lyrics either impressed or alienated critics. Reviewers generally treated A Weekend in the City as an important stepping stone for the band members in their quest for musical maturity, while The Guardian
included it in its list of the "1000 Albums To Hear Before You Die". In November 2007, the record was re-released globally—with the final single, "Flux
", as a bonus track—to coincide with Bloc Party's extensive touring schedule.
has noted, "The contrast we saw between being away on tour and being home ... we would see that London wasn’t changing really and that the people we’d grown up with were part of that." Okereke wrote many songs in 2005 and early 2006 and used a concept he called "Urbanite Relaxation" to expand upon the themes of life and leisure in the metropolis
. The band recorded around 30 sound checks for the initial lyrics using a MiniDisc
player. The rest of the tracks were written in April 2006 before they entered the studio recording process.
The band members drew up a shortlist of possible record producers in early 2006, which included dance music
-oriented staff such as Chemical Brothers sound engineer Steve Dub and high-profile producers like Garret "Jacknife" Lee. At the time, Moakes told Rolling Stone
that the album would hopefully include electronic, processed beats and a sound in the vein of alternative rock
band Radiohead
and post-rock
ensemble TV on the Radio
. Bloc Party wanted to expand their sonic palette without losing the musical "jerkiness" of Silent Alarm. They selected Lee—who had worked with world-renowned act U2
and indie rock band Snow Patrol
—based on the rapport that developed between the two parties while recording the demo song "I Still Remember", which later appeared in A Weekend in the City.
Moakes has explained the choice of producer by stating that the band members were looking to work with someone who could help them craft an accomplished record, "although as much as anything it's about finding someone who you'd want to spend six weeks in an enclosed space with". Before the studio sessions, Bloc Party listened to varied musical sources, from composers Philip Glass
, György Ligeti
, and Krzysztof Penderecki
to urban artists Amerie
and Missy Elliott
. The band members were largely disillusioned with the evolution of contemporary guitar music and aimed to re-create the highly stylised production values of R&B
and hip-hop records, while relying on an atmosphere similar to neo-classical music.
to reduce any sonic interference, while a roof was sometimes used over drummer Matt Tong to isolate a pure sound. Different types of microphones were used for each component of the drum kit. The miking
scheme was crucial to prepare the drum tracks for the looping and processing Lee planned using production program Logic
.
The band worked by setting up all the instruments with a P.A system and no headphones. McFall has pointed out that distorted and heavily compressed mics were used to capture some of the room's ambience "to add a bit of grit" to the instrumental tracks; the recordings were often processed further using distressors, special types of compressor noted for their distinctively aggressive sound. The production staff tried other unconventional effects once the basic tracks were recorded. The band sometimes performed while Tong's kit was re-amped and played sections live while a brick was placed on the sustain pedal
of a piano to capture the vibrations during the performances. During the six weeks at Grouse Lodge, Bloc Party tried multiple versions of songs and, at times, attempted playing live alongside recorded versions of the same track.
Lee recorded everything using Digital Audio Workstation
Pro Tools
and treated the parts as individual stereo files in Logic. The drum and guitar tracks were processed using computers. Much of the synthesiser-sounding parts of the album were generated by Russell Lissack
's lead guitar following his extensive use of pedal effects. Lee added the live string, synth, drum machine
, sample, and ambient noise tracks to create an expansive, hyper-stereophonic
final product. After finishing the instrumental record, Bloc Party left Ireland to continue touring. Okereke later returned to Lee's studio to add the vocal tracks to the album; he has noted that he tried to "convey range
and dynamics
" rather than simply yelp the lyrics. Several track names were changed following the voice sessions: "Merge on the Freeway" became "Song for Clay (Disappear Here)
", "A Prayer to the Lord" was renamed "The Prayer", "Wet" became "On", and "Perfect Teens" was renamed "Where Is Home?".
of A Weekend in the City was leaked
in November and showed a track list of 11 songs. Wichita Recordings did not comment, but the band members were quoted as being worried about a reduction in the potential impact of the record's content and sales. Bloc Party started a promotional tour of North America the same month with Panic! at the Disco
, but cut it short after three concerts when Tong suffered a collapsed lung
. The focus was changed to interviews throughout the world to explain the album's stylised lyrics and composition in the run-up to its release.
Final tweaks on the record were completed in December 2006 in London. A high-quality version was leaked in January 2007 and its contents were confirmed by Okereke. Journalists who obtained an official copy of the album's final mix suggested that it featured electronically
tampered rock soundscapes in the vein of Radiohead
, New Order
, and Björk
. Bloc Party previewed A Weekend in the City in its entirety on 24 January 2007 at the Bournemouth
Old Firestation, a performance which coincided with the Japanese release of the album. The first single, "The Prayer", was released on 29 January. The band performed at a special BBC Radio 1
showcase at Maida Vale Studios
on 30 January as a precursor to a February promotional tour of the UK.
The record was released in the rest of the world in the first week of February. The title comes as a tangent to the central theme of the album, "the living noise of a metropolis". The cover art
is part of A Modern Project by German photographer Rut Blees Luxemburg
, famous for her night cityscape
s of London and for the cover art of The Streets
' Original Pirate Material
. The photograph is an aerial image of London's Westway
, which shows the road and the adjacent sports pitches lit by the sodium glow of street lamps, and was chosen because the band believed "it was important we captured London breathing". Luxemburg has explained that "in this picture you can see how intricately and optimistically public space in the city is shared".
's Tom Young concluded, "Some will appreciate Kele's openness and revel in his philosophical focus on modern lives ... others will be too distracted by questionable content such as ... lines about sudoku
to take Okereke's grumbles into consideration." Okereke has conceded that he was disappointed with the abstraction in Silent Alarm; he used The Smiths
as inspiration to try and make a personal album with "a real centre". The lyricist has noted, "I wanted it to be a snapshot, a frozen moment in time. Like in a city, with thousands of stories going on at once, layered on top of each other ... Although I might be speaking through the voice of a character, I'm still expressing, perhaps, my sentiments."
The words to "Where Is Home?" begin at the funeral of Christopher Alaneme, a black teenager stabbed to death in Kent in April 2006 in a racially motivated attack. Okereke has described him as a "cousin" due to their Nigerian mothers' close friendship. The track castigates right-wing newspapers for perpetuating a hysterical fear of black youths in hoodies, an action which often leads to opportunities being denied to the Black British
community at large. Populist media is also the target of "Hunting for Witches", whose subject matter is terrorism, namely the 7 July 2005 London bombings
. Okereke has stated, "I guess the point about the song for me is post-September 11th, the media has really traded on fear and the use of fear in controlling people."
Two songs, "Kreuzberg" and "I Still Remember", explore sexuality and homosexuality; the former is an account of promiscuity in the Berlin area of the same name
, while the latter details an unrequited crush of a boy for his schoolmate.
The leading track, "Song for Clay (Disappear Here)", was inspired by Less Than Zero, a novel by Bret Easton Ellis
which depicts excessive hedonism and its effects on individuals. The song title references the protagonist Clay and a billboard in the book which displays the phrase "Disappear Here", while the action is relocated to Les Trois Garçons restaurant in Shoreditch
, East London. "Waiting for the 7.18" provides an escapist counterpoint by mentioning a trip to Brighton
following disillusionment with working life in the capital. The fifth song on A Weekend in the City, "Uniform", references London again and criticises the youth subculture in the area. It is directly inspired by Douglas Rushkoff
's Merchants of Cool documentary, which details the corporate exploitation of popular culture by advertisement companies.
Okereke read Guy Debord
's The Society of the Spectacle and Henri Lefebvre
's Critique of Everyday Life, works which analyse how people experience leisure in modern societies, and was inspired to pen several songs which detail the drug and drink culture present in a metropolis. "The Prayer" is based on drug use during nights out in clubs, while "On" specifies the effects and after-effects of cocaine
. Okereke tried to treat the tracks as explanations of people's actions, rather than moralising tales; he has stated, "In a time when so many people feel they can't communicate or feel hemmed in, I can see the appeal of cocaine." "Sunday" details the morning-after hangover following a drunken and promiscuous night out, while "SRXT" takes the form of a suicide note following the loneliness and despair of hedonism in the metropolis. The album closer is named after the antidepressant
Seroxat and was crafted following the suicide attempts of two of Okereke's friends after they left university in 2005.
, while "Hunting for Witches" starts with a John Cage
-like collage
of spliced voices from random radio broadcasts as its main rhythm. The rest of the second track makes extensive use of guitar pedal effects and includes a heavily distorted riff. Moakes has pointed out that the original sound check of "Waiting for the 7.18" was a ballad
with a simple rhythmic pattern on the glockenspiel
before the band members added a drum and bass
section to its second half. "Kreuzberg", "I Still Remember", and "Sunday" are the few songs to provide a counterpoint to the musical manipulation on the rest of the album by having more conventional indie rock arrangements; Moakes has called the compositions "lush, without being too syrupy".
In A Weekend in the City, layered vocals are often used to resemble choral sections, for example in the middle of "The Prayer" and throughout "Uniform", which has over 100 stacked vocal tracks. "SRXT" is a chiming ballad directly inspired by Brian Eno
's "By This River" and incorporates double-tracked lead and background vocals. Synthetic aspects—drum machines, synths, and computer glitches—were included as integral parts of compositions. "The Prayer" is built around a computer sample and includes MTV Base
-inspired urban contemporary
beats and a prominent guitar solo
towards the end. "On" is also a computer-reworked live take
. Half of the song was recorded as a series of loops of drum beats and bass guitar chords. The recorded take was split in two to make up the first and last quarters of the track, while the middle section was intentionally left blank for the band to improvise in. "On" is one of two songs, together with "Where Is Home?", to use a string sextet. The latter track includes erratic rhythms and clashing guitars.
. In the U.S., it sold 47,726 copies in its first week of release and entered the Billboard 200 at number twelve, a marked improvement on predecessor Silent Alarm which had only made number 114 when it was released in 2005. The record also topped the Billboard Top Independent Albums. According to Nielsen SoundScan
, it had sold 148,000 copies in the U.S. by August 2008. More than one million copies have been sold worldwide.
The first single, "The Prayer", became Bloc Party's highest charting song on the UK Singles Chart
and on the Irish Singles Chart
to date by peaking at number four and number 18 respectively. The song reached number 20 in Australia and is the band's only Australian Singles Chart career entry. The next single and the first U.S. release from the album, "I Still Remember", entered the Hot Modern Rock Tracks at number 24 and became the band's highest charting U.S. single to date. The third single, "Hunting for Witches", failed to chart in the U.S., but peaked at number 22 in the UK.
reports a normalised
rating of 65% based on 30 critical reviews. Louis Pattison of NME
described the album as "tender and reflective, edgy and embittered; a difficult and emotional beast that jolts with nervous electricity" and pointed out that its notable achievement is that it finds moments of genuine contentment amidst "a maelstrom of anger and confusion". Allmusic's Heather Phares did not find the record as immediate as Bloc Party's earlier work, but noted that "its gradual move from alienation
to connection and hope is just as bold as Silent Alarm, and possibly even more resonant". Drowned in Sound
's Mike Diver called it "dirty, dishevelled, unsure and paranoid; fearful, easily distracted, boisterous and ashamed; reckless, wild, nervous and terrified; graceful, thought-provoking, clumsy and contradictory ... and very nearly perfect." Jeff Miller of the Chicago Tribune
concluded, "For Bloc Party, Silent Alarm was a baby step and this is a giant leap."
Michael Endelman of Entertainment Weekly
was less receptive and stated, "Too often, the music on A Weekend in the City is less memorable than the ambitious subject matter." Robert Christgau
, reviewing for Rolling Stone, suggested that the record fails because it lacks "killer choruses", while Sia Michel of The New York Times
wrote that the multitracked vocals and baroque effects do not have "the wiry catchiness" of Bloc Party's previous work. Mike Schiller of PopMatters
commented that the sonic direction the band had moved to was unsuited to the members' musical strengths. The Guardian
included A Weekend in the City in its "1000 Albums To Hear Before You Die" list compiled in November 2007 and praised the band's "ambitious indie soundscapes packing a sizeable political punch". The record was named by Los Angeles Times
in its unnumbered shortlist of the best releases of 2007. It figured in several other end-of-year best album lists, notably, at number eight by Gigwise, at number nine by Hot Press
, and at number ten by The A.V. Club
.
, which covered most of mainland Europe. Bloc Party spent the end of May and the start of June 2007 on another headlining tour of the U.S. and were asked to play at Live Earth
upon their return to London. The band performed at the main stages of several European summer fests, including Glastonbury
, T in the Park
, the Reading and Leeds Festivals
, Oxegen
, and Summercase
.
Bloc Party embarked on their second major worldwide tour for the album in August 2007, playing across Australia, the U.S., Mexico, and Canada. Upon their return to Europe, the band performed at the BBC Electric Proms
with the Exmoor Singers as backing chamber choir
. The final single from A Weekend in the City, "Flux
", was released on 12 November 2007 after the European Flux Tour; a promotional CD of remixes of the song was given out free with the 14 November issue of NME. The track gave Bloc Party another top 10 hit in the UK Singles Chart by entering at number eight. A Weekend in the City was re-released with "Flux" in the track list on 16 and 19 November in mainland Europe and the UK respectively.
.
DVD
Additional musicians
on "Waiting for the 7.18", "Where Is Home?", "SRXT":
on "On", "Where Is Home?":
Production
Artwork
Singles
"—" denotes releases that did not chart.
"X" denotes song not released in a particular country.
Studio album
A studio album is an album made up of tracks recorded in the controlled environment of a recording studio. A studio album contains newly written and recorded or previously unreleased or remixed material, distinguishing itself from a compilation or reissue album of previously recorded material, or...
by British indie rock
Indie rock
Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with sub-genres that include lo-fi, post-rock, math rock, indie pop, dream pop, noise rock, space rock, sadcore, riot grrrl and emo, among others...
band Bloc Party
Bloc Party
Bloc Party are a British Indie rock band, composed of Kele Okereke , Russell Lissack , Gordon Moakes , and Matt Tong...
. It was recorded at Grouse Lodge
Grouse Lodge
Grouse Lodge is a recording studio in County Westmeath, Ireland. Designed by Andy Munro it has two studios and living quarters in nine stone outhouses, integrating the existing 275 year old stone structure...
Studios in Westmeath, Ireland, in mid-2006 and was produced
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
by Jacknife Lee
Jacknife Lee
Garret "Jacknife" Lee is an Irish music producer and mixer. He has worked with a variety of artists, including The Cars, U2, R.E.M., Snow Patrol, Bloc Party, AFI, The Hives, Weezer, Vega4 and Editors.-Biography:...
. The record was refined and mixed
Audio mixing (recorded music)
In audio recording, audio mixing is the process by which multiple recorded sounds are combined into one or more channels, most commonly two-channel stereo. In the process, the source signals' level, frequency content, dynamics, and panoramic position are manipulated and effects such as reverb may...
at several locations in London at the end of 2006. It was released on 24 January 2007 in Japan and in the first week of February in the rest of the world, with Wichita Recordings
Wichita Recordings
Wichita Recordings is an independent record label located in London, founded in 2000 by Mark Bowen and Dick Green. Its most notable signees are Bloc Party, The Cribs, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Bright Eyes, My Morning Jacket, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Her Space Holiday, Los Campesinos! and Peter Bjorn and John...
as the primary label. The record peaked at number two on the UK Albums Chart
UK Albums Chart
The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart...
and on the Irish Albums Chart
Irish Albums Chart
The Irish Albums Chart is the Irish music industry standard albums popularity chart issued weekly by the Irish Recorded Music Association and compiled on its behalf by Chart-Track. Chart rankings are based on sales, which are compiled through over-the-counter retail data captured electronically...
. In the United States, it entered the Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
at number 12.
Bloc Party's goal was to craft an album that distanced them from the conventional guitar band set-up by incorporating more electronically processed beats and additional instrumentation. Computer programs were extensively used to enrich and amend recorded takes, while a string sextet
String section
The string section is the largest body of the standard orchestra and consists of bowed string instruments of the violin family.It normally comprises five sections: the first violins, the second violins, the violas, the cellos, and the double basses...
was hired to perform on some of the tracks. Frontman and chief lyricist Kele Okereke
Kele Okereke
Kelechukwu "Kele" Rowland Okereke is a British musician, best known as the lead singer and rhythm guitarist of the indie rock band Bloc Party.-Early life:...
created A Weekend in the City as an examination of life and leisure in modern cities by drawing ideas from issues such as drug abuse, sexuality, and terrorism. The album's three original singles, "The Prayer
The Prayer (Bloc Party song)
"The Prayer" is the first single from Bloc Party's second album A Weekend in the City, except in the U.S. where it is the second single as "I Still Remember" was the first song to be released in North America. It was released by Wichita Recordings on 29 January 2007 and is the band's highest...
", "I Still Remember", and "Hunting for Witches
Hunting for Witches
"Hunting for Witches" is a song by Bloc Party, and it is the third single of their second studio album A Weekend in the City -Content:...
", exemplify these themes respectively.
Bloc Party's new musical directions and more forthright lyrics either impressed or alienated critics. Reviewers generally treated A Weekend in the City as an important stepping stone for the band members in their quest for musical maturity, while The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
included it in its list of the "1000 Albums To Hear Before You Die". In November 2007, the record was re-released globally—with the final single, "Flux
Flux (song)
"Flux" is a song by Bloc Party which was released as a single on 12 November 2007. It was produced by Jacknife Lee, along with several other new songs, during the band's week in the studio after their performances at the Carling Weekend: Reading and Leeds Festivals. The song uses mostly electronic...
", as a bonus track—to coincide with Bloc Party's extensive touring schedule.
Origins
All band members of Bloc Party conceived A Weekend in the City during 2005 while on tour in support of their critically acclaimed debut album Silent Alarm. Despite missing their home city of London, the quartet became increasingly disillusioned with the culture in the area each time they sporadically returned. Band member Gordon MoakesGordon Moakes
Gordon Peter Moakes is an English multi-instrumentalist and backing vocalist for English indie rock band Bloc Party.-Bloc Party:...
has noted, "The contrast we saw between being away on tour and being home ... we would see that London wasn’t changing really and that the people we’d grown up with were part of that." Okereke wrote many songs in 2005 and early 2006 and used a concept he called "Urbanite Relaxation" to expand upon the themes of life and leisure in the metropolis
Metropolis
A metropolis is a very large city or urban area which is a significant economic, political and cultural center for a country or region, and an important hub for regional or international connections and communications...
. The band recorded around 30 sound checks for the initial lyrics using a MiniDisc
MiniDisc
The disc is permanently housed in a cartridge with a sliding door, similar to the casing of a 3.5" floppy disk. This shutter is opened automatically by a mechanism upon insertion. The audio discs can either be recordable or premastered. Recordable MiniDiscs use a magneto-optical system to record...
player. The rest of the tracks were written in April 2006 before they entered the studio recording process.
The band members drew up a shortlist of possible record producers in early 2006, which included dance music
Dance music
Dance music is music composed specifically to facilitate or accompany dancing. It can be either a whole musical piece or part of a larger musical arrangement...
-oriented staff such as Chemical Brothers sound engineer Steve Dub and high-profile producers like Garret "Jacknife" Lee. At the time, Moakes told Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
that the album would hopefully include electronic, processed beats and a sound in the vein of alternative rock
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
band Radiohead
Radiohead
Radiohead are an English rock band from Abingdon, Oxfordshire, formed in 1985. The band consists of Thom Yorke , Jonny Greenwood , Ed O'Brien , Colin Greenwood and Phil Selway .Radiohead released their debut single "Creep" in 1992...
and post-rock
Post-rock
Post-rock is a subgenre of rock music characterized by the influence and use of instruments commonly associated with rock, but using rhythms and "guitars as facilitators of timbre and textures" not traditionally found in rock...
ensemble TV on the Radio
TV on the Radio
TV on the Radio is an American art rock band formed in 2001 in Brooklyn, New York, whose music spans numerous diverse genres, from post-punk to electro and free jazz to soul music....
. Bloc Party wanted to expand their sonic palette without losing the musical "jerkiness" of Silent Alarm. They selected Lee—who had worked with world-renowned act U2
U2
U2 are an Irish rock band from Dublin. Formed in 1976, the group consists of Bono , The Edge , Adam Clayton , and Larry Mullen, Jr. . U2's early sound was rooted in post-punk but eventually grew to incorporate influences from many genres of popular music...
and indie rock band Snow Patrol
Snow Patrol
Snow Patrol are an alternative rock band from Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland. Formed at the University of Dundee in 1994 as an indie rock band, the band is now based in Glasgow...
—based on the rapport that developed between the two parties while recording the demo song "I Still Remember", which later appeared in A Weekend in the City.
Moakes has explained the choice of producer by stating that the band members were looking to work with someone who could help them craft an accomplished record, "although as much as anything it's about finding someone who you'd want to spend six weeks in an enclosed space with". Before the studio sessions, Bloc Party listened to varied musical sources, from composers Philip Glass
Philip Glass
Philip Glass is an American composer. He is considered to be one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century and is widely acknowledged as a composer who has brought art music to the public .His music is often described as minimalist, along with...
, György Ligeti
György Ligeti
György Sándor Ligeti was a composer of contemporary classical music. Born in a Hungarian Jewish family in Transylvania, Romania, he briefly lived in Hungary before becoming an Austrian citizen.-Early life:...
, and Krzysztof Penderecki
Krzysztof Penderecki
Krzysztof Penderecki , born November 23, 1933 in Dębica) is a Polish composer and conductor. His 1960 avant-garde Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima for string orchestra brought him to international attention, and this success was followed by acclaim for his choral St. Luke Passion. Both these...
to urban artists Amerie
Amerie
Amerie Mi Marie Rogers , known professionally as Amerie or Ameriie, is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and actress. She debuted in 2002 with the album All I Have, primarily co-written and produced by Rich Harrison, and was well-received in the urban market...
and Missy Elliott
Missy Elliott
Melissa Arnette "Missy" Elliott , is an American rapper, singer-songwriter, record producer, and actressA five-time Grammy Award winner, Elliott, with record sales of over seven million in the United States, is the only female rapper to have five albums certified platinum by the RIAA, including one...
. The band members were largely disillusioned with the evolution of contemporary guitar music and aimed to re-create the highly stylised production values of R&B
Contemporary R&B
Contemporary R&B is a music genre that combines elements of hip hop, soul, R&B and funk.Although the abbreviation “R&B” originates from traditional rhythm and blues music, today the term R&B is most often used to describe a style of African American music originating after the demise of disco in...
and hip-hop records, while relying on an atmosphere similar to neo-classical music.
Studio sessions
In mid-2006, Bloc Party travelled to Lee's Grouse Lodge Studios in Westmeath, Ireland, to record A Weekend in the City. The band members initially worked by experimenting with their respective instruments and sound check arrangements. Moakes additionally focused on using different types of synthesiser. All parties soon moved to the main recording room, a large area with "a lot of natural ambience" according to sound engineer Tom McFall. A makeshift booth was built around the back of the drum kitDrum kit
A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
to reduce any sonic interference, while a roof was sometimes used over drummer Matt Tong to isolate a pure sound. Different types of microphones were used for each component of the drum kit. The miking
Microphone
A microphone is an acoustic-to-electric transducer or sensor that converts sound into an electrical signal. In 1877, Emile Berliner invented the first microphone used as a telephone voice transmitter...
scheme was crucial to prepare the drum tracks for the looping and processing Lee planned using production program Logic
Logic Pro
Logic Pro is a hybrid 32 / 64 bit digital audio workstation and MIDI sequencer software application for the Mac OS X platform. Originally created by German software developer Emagic, Logic Pro became an Apple product when Apple bought Emagic in 2002...
.
The band worked by setting up all the instruments with a P.A system and no headphones. McFall has pointed out that distorted and heavily compressed mics were used to capture some of the room's ambience "to add a bit of grit" to the instrumental tracks; the recordings were often processed further using distressors, special types of compressor noted for their distinctively aggressive sound. The production staff tried other unconventional effects once the basic tracks were recorded. The band sometimes performed while Tong's kit was re-amped and played sections live while a brick was placed on the sustain pedal
Sustain pedal
A sustain pedal or sustaining pedal is the most commonly used pedal in a modern piano. It is typically the rightmost of two or three pedals. When pressed, the sustain pedal "sustains" all the damped strings on the piano by moving all the dampers away from the strings and allowing them to vibrate...
of a piano to capture the vibrations during the performances. During the six weeks at Grouse Lodge, Bloc Party tried multiple versions of songs and, at times, attempted playing live alongside recorded versions of the same track.
Lee recorded everything using Digital Audio Workstation
Digital audio workstation
A digital audio workstation is an electronic system designed solely or primarily for recording, editing and playing back digital audio. DAWs were originally tape-less, microprocessor-based systems such as the Synclavier and Fairlight CMI...
Pro Tools
Pro Tools
Pro Tools is a digital audio workstation platform for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems, developed and manufactured by Avid Technology. It is widely used by professionals throughout the audio industries for recording and editing in music production, film scoring, film, and television...
and treated the parts as individual stereo files in Logic. The drum and guitar tracks were processed using computers. Much of the synthesiser-sounding parts of the album were generated by Russell Lissack
Russell Lissack
Russell Dean Lissack is an English musician best known as the lead guitarist of London based indie rock band, Bloc Party. Lissack is also in the electronica band Pin Me Down; a duo of himself and Milena Mepris...
's lead guitar following his extensive use of pedal effects. Lee added the live string, synth, drum machine
Drum machine
A drum machine is an electronic musical instrument designed to imitate the sound of drums or other percussion instruments. They are used in a variety of musical genres, not just purely electronic music...
, sample, and ambient noise tracks to create an expansive, hyper-stereophonic
Stereophonic sound
The term Stereophonic, commonly called stereo, sound refers to any method of sound reproduction in which an attempt is made to create an illusion of directionality and audible perspective...
final product. After finishing the instrumental record, Bloc Party left Ireland to continue touring. Okereke later returned to Lee's studio to add the vocal tracks to the album; he has noted that he tried to "convey range
Range (music)
In music, the range of a musical instrument is the distance from the lowest to the highest pitch it can play. For a singing voice, the equivalent is vocal range...
and dynamics
Dynamics (music)
In music, dynamics normally refers to the volume of a sound or note, but can also refer to every aspect of the execution of a given piece, either stylistic or functional . The term is also applied to the written or printed musical notation used to indicate dynamics...
" rather than simply yelp the lyrics. Several track names were changed following the voice sessions: "Merge on the Freeway" became "Song for Clay (Disappear Here)
Song for Clay (Disappear Here)
"Song for Clay " is the opening track from Bloc Party's second album A Weekend in the City and was set to be the fourth single released from the album. The band had even begun work on a music video for the song...
", "A Prayer to the Lord" was renamed "The Prayer", "Wet" became "On", and "Perfect Teens" was renamed "Where Is Home?".
Promotion and release
Bloc Party confirmed a preliminary track list of 13 songs in August 2006; this included future bonus tracks "England" and "We Were Lovers". A low-quality ripRipping
Ripping is the process of copying audio or video content to a hard disk, typically from removable media. The word is used to refer to all forms of media. Despite the name, neither the media nor the data is damaged after extraction....
of A Weekend in the City was leaked
Internet leak
An Internet leak occurs when a party's confidential information is released to the public on the Internet. Various types of information and data can be, and have been, "leaked" to the Internet, the most common being personal information, computer software and source code, and artistic works such...
in November and showed a track list of 11 songs. Wichita Recordings did not comment, but the band members were quoted as being worried about a reduction in the potential impact of the record's content and sales. Bloc Party started a promotional tour of North America the same month with Panic! at the Disco
Panic! at the Disco
Panic! at the Disco is an American alternative rock duo, formed in Las Vegas, Nevada in 2005. Since its split, the band's line-up includes Brendon Urie and Spencer Smith . Former members Ryan Ross and Jon Walker left the group in 2009...
, but cut it short after three concerts when Tong suffered a collapsed lung
Pneumothorax
Pneumothorax is a collection of air or gas in the pleural cavity of the chest between the lung and the chest wall. It may occur spontaneously in people without chronic lung conditions as well as in those with lung disease , and many pneumothoraces occur after physical trauma to the chest, blast...
. The focus was changed to interviews throughout the world to explain the album's stylised lyrics and composition in the run-up to its release.
Final tweaks on the record were completed in December 2006 in London. A high-quality version was leaked in January 2007 and its contents were confirmed by Okereke. Journalists who obtained an official copy of the album's final mix suggested that it featured electronically
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
tampered rock soundscapes in the vein of Radiohead
Radiohead
Radiohead are an English rock band from Abingdon, Oxfordshire, formed in 1985. The band consists of Thom Yorke , Jonny Greenwood , Ed O'Brien , Colin Greenwood and Phil Selway .Radiohead released their debut single "Creep" in 1992...
, New Order
New Order
New Order are an English rock band formed in 1980 by Bernard Sumner , Peter Hook and Stephen Morris...
, and Björk
Björk
Björk Guðmundsdóttir , known as Björk , is an Icelandic singer-songwriter. Her eclectic musical style has achieved popular acknowledgement and popularity within many musical genres, such as rock, jazz, electronic dance music, classical and folk...
. Bloc Party previewed A Weekend in the City in its entirety on 24 January 2007 at the Bournemouth
Bournemouth
Bournemouth is a large coastal resort town in the ceremonial county of Dorset, England. According to the 2001 Census the town has a population of 163,444, making it the largest settlement in Dorset. It is also the largest settlement between Southampton and Plymouth...
Old Firestation, a performance which coincided with the Japanese release of the album. The first single, "The Prayer", was released on 29 January. The band performed at a special BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation which also broadcasts internationally, specialising in current popular music and chart hits throughout the day. Radio 1 provides alternative genres after 7:00pm including electronic dance, hip hop, rock...
showcase at Maida Vale Studios
Maida Vale Studios
Maida Vale Studios is a complex of seven BBC studios on Delaware Road, Maida Vale, London.It has been used to record thousands of classical music, popular music and drama sessions for BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 3 and BBC Radio 4 from 1946 to the present...
on 30 January as a precursor to a February promotional tour of the UK.
The record was released in the rest of the world in the first week of February. The title comes as a tangent to the central theme of the album, "the living noise of a metropolis". The cover art
Cover art
Cover art is the illustration or photograph on the outside of a published product such as a book , magazine, comic book, video game , DVD, CD, videotape, or music album. The art has a primarily commercial function, i.e...
is part of A Modern Project by German photographer Rut Blees Luxemburg
Rut Blees Luxemburg
Rut Blees Luxemburg is a German photographer. Her technique is to take photographs at night, mostly exploring the urban landscape. She is a Tutor at the Royal College of Art.-Life and work:...
, famous for her night cityscape
Cityscape
A cityscape is the urban equivalent of a landscape. Townscape is roughly synonymous with cityscape, though it implies the same difference in urban size and density implicit in the difference between the words city and town. In urban design the terms refer to the configuration of built forms and...
s of London and for the cover art of The Streets
The Streets
The Streets were a British rap/garage project from Birmingham, United Kingdom, led by vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Mike Skinner and has included a myriad of other contributors most notably drummer Johnny Drum Machine, vocalist Kevin Mark Trail and the Italian-American beatmaker Leroy.The...
' Original Pirate Material
Original Pirate Material
Original Pirate Material is the debut album by the English rapper and producer Mike Skinner, under the name The Streets.The album is a unique take on UK garage and lyrics dealing with everyday circumstances and occurrences...
. The photograph is an aerial image of London's Westway
Westway (London)
The Westway is a long elevated dual carriageway section of the A40 route in west London running from Paddington to North Kensington. The road was constructed between 1964 and 1970 to relieve congestion at Shepherd's Bush caused by traffic from Western Avenue struggling to enter central London on...
, which shows the road and the adjacent sports pitches lit by the sodium glow of street lamps, and was chosen because the band believed "it was important we captured London breathing". Luxemburg has explained that "in this picture you can see how intricately and optimistically public space in the city is shared".
Lyrics
Okereke's lyrics attempt to juxtapose the monotonous events—nights out on club dancefloors and waiting for a train—with the seemingly epic experiences—terrorist attacks and racial angst—witnessed in a city environment. The direct narrative approach divided reviewers. BBCBBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
's Tom Young concluded, "Some will appreciate Kele's openness and revel in his philosophical focus on modern lives ... others will be too distracted by questionable content such as ... lines about sudoku
Sudoku
is a logic-based, combinatorial number-placement puzzle. The objective is to fill a 9×9 grid with digits so that each column, each row, and each of the nine 3×3 sub-grids that compose the grid contains all of the digits from 1 to 9...
to take Okereke's grumbles into consideration." Okereke has conceded that he was disappointed with the abstraction in Silent Alarm; he used The Smiths
The Smiths
The Smiths were an English alternative rock band, formed in Manchester in 1982. Based on the song writing partnership of Morrissey and Johnny Marr , the band also included Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce...
as inspiration to try and make a personal album with "a real centre". The lyricist has noted, "I wanted it to be a snapshot, a frozen moment in time. Like in a city, with thousands of stories going on at once, layered on top of each other ... Although I might be speaking through the voice of a character, I'm still expressing, perhaps, my sentiments."
The words to "Where Is Home?" begin at the funeral of Christopher Alaneme, a black teenager stabbed to death in Kent in April 2006 in a racially motivated attack. Okereke has described him as a "cousin" due to their Nigerian mothers' close friendship. The track castigates right-wing newspapers for perpetuating a hysterical fear of black youths in hoodies, an action which often leads to opportunities being denied to the Black British
Black British
Black British is a term used to describe British people of Black African descent, especially those of Afro-Caribbean background. The term has been used from the 1950s to refer to Black people from former British colonies in the West Indies and Africa, who are residents of the United Kingdom and...
community at large. Populist media is also the target of "Hunting for Witches", whose subject matter is terrorism, namely the 7 July 2005 London bombings
7 July 2005 London bombings
The 7 July 2005 London bombings were a series of co-ordinated suicide attacks in the United Kingdom, targeting civilians using London's public transport system during the morning rush hour....
. Okereke has stated, "I guess the point about the song for me is post-September 11th, the media has really traded on fear and the use of fear in controlling people."
Two songs, "Kreuzberg" and "I Still Remember", explore sexuality and homosexuality; the former is an account of promiscuity in the Berlin area of the same name
Kreuzberg
Kreuzberg, a part of the combined Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg borough located south of Mitte since 2001, is one of the best-known areas of Berlin...
, while the latter details an unrequited crush of a boy for his schoolmate.
The leading track, "Song for Clay (Disappear Here)", was inspired by Less Than Zero, a novel by Bret Easton Ellis
Bret Easton Ellis
Bret Easton Ellis is an American novelist and short story writer. His works have been translated into 27 different languages. He was regarded as one of the so-called literary Brat Pack, which also included Tama Janowitz and Jay McInerney...
which depicts excessive hedonism and its effects on individuals. The song title references the protagonist Clay and a billboard in the book which displays the phrase "Disappear Here", while the action is relocated to Les Trois Garçons restaurant in Shoreditch
Shoreditch
Shoreditch is an area of London within the London Borough of Hackney in England. It is a built-up part of the inner city immediately to the north of the City of London, located east-northeast of Charing Cross.-Etymology:...
, East London. "Waiting for the 7.18" provides an escapist counterpoint by mentioning a trip to Brighton
Brighton
Brighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...
following disillusionment with working life in the capital. The fifth song on A Weekend in the City, "Uniform", references London again and criticises the youth subculture in the area. It is directly inspired by Douglas Rushkoff
Douglas Rushkoff
Douglas Rushkoff is an American media theorist, writer, columnist, lecturer, graphic novelist and documentarian. He is best known for his association with the early cyberpunk culture, and his advocacy of open source solutions to social problems.Rushkoff is most frequently regarded as a media...
's Merchants of Cool documentary, which details the corporate exploitation of popular culture by advertisement companies.
Okereke read Guy Debord
Guy Debord
Guy Ernest Debord was a French Marxist theorist, writer, filmmaker, member of the Letterist International, founder of a Letterist faction, and founding member of the Situationist International . He was also briefly a member of Socialisme ou Barbarie.-Early Life:Guy Debord was born in Paris in 1931...
's The Society of the Spectacle and Henri Lefebvre
Henri Lefebvre
Henri Lefebvre was a French sociologist, Marxist intellectual, and philosopher, best known for his work on dialectics, Marxism, everyday life, cities, and space.-Biography:...
's Critique of Everyday Life, works which analyse how people experience leisure in modern societies, and was inspired to pen several songs which detail the drug and drink culture present in a metropolis. "The Prayer" is based on drug use during nights out in clubs, while "On" specifies the effects and after-effects of cocaine
Cocaine
Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system, an appetite suppressant, and a topical anesthetic...
. Okereke tried to treat the tracks as explanations of people's actions, rather than moralising tales; he has stated, "In a time when so many people feel they can't communicate or feel hemmed in, I can see the appeal of cocaine." "Sunday" details the morning-after hangover following a drunken and promiscuous night out, while "SRXT" takes the form of a suicide note following the loneliness and despair of hedonism in the metropolis. The album closer is named after the antidepressant
Antidepressant
An antidepressant is a psychiatric medication used to alleviate mood disorders, such as major depression and dysthymia and anxiety disorders such as social anxiety disorder. According to Gelder, Mayou &*Geddes people with a depressive illness will experience a therapeutic effect to their mood;...
Seroxat and was crafted following the suicide attempts of two of Okereke's friends after they left university in 2005.
Composition
A Weekend in the City is largely built around a mix of distorted and layered guitars, electronic elements, and multilayered vocals. The creation of compositions required a high level of technical proficiency and led to songs "tinged with discord". The opening section of "Song for Clay (Disappear Here)" includes a bare falsettoFalsetto
Falsetto is the vocal register occupying the frequency range just above the modal voice register and overlapping with it by approximately one octave. It is produced by the vibration of the ligamentous edges of the vocal folds, in whole or in part...
, while "Hunting for Witches" starts with a John Cage
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...
-like collage
Collage
A collage is a work of formal art, primarily in the visual arts, made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole....
of spliced voices from random radio broadcasts as its main rhythm. The rest of the second track makes extensive use of guitar pedal effects and includes a heavily distorted riff. Moakes has pointed out that the original sound check of "Waiting for the 7.18" was a ballad
Ballad
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...
with a simple rhythmic pattern on the glockenspiel
Glockenspiel
A glockenspiel is a percussion instrument composed of a set of tuned keys arranged in the fashion of the keyboard of a piano. In this way, it is similar to the xylophone; however, the xylophone's bars are made of wood, while the glockenspiel's are metal plates or tubes, and making it a metallophone...
before the band members added a drum and bass
Drum and bass
Drum and bass is a type of electronic music which emerged in the late 1980s. The genre is characterized by fast breakbeats , with heavy bass and sub-bass lines...
section to its second half. "Kreuzberg", "I Still Remember", and "Sunday" are the few songs to provide a counterpoint to the musical manipulation on the rest of the album by having more conventional indie rock arrangements; Moakes has called the compositions "lush, without being too syrupy".
In A Weekend in the City, layered vocals are often used to resemble choral sections, for example in the middle of "The Prayer" and throughout "Uniform", which has over 100 stacked vocal tracks. "SRXT" is a chiming ballad directly inspired by Brian Eno
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...
's "By This River" and incorporates double-tracked lead and background vocals. Synthetic aspects—drum machines, synths, and computer glitches—were included as integral parts of compositions. "The Prayer" is built around a computer sample and includes MTV Base
MTV Base
MTV Base is a 24-hour music and general entertainment channel from MTV Networks International. The channel focuses primarily on music from the world of R'n'B, hiphop, reggae, soul and urban. The MTV Base brand first launched in the United Kingdom and in the Republic of Ireland on July 1, 1999,...
-inspired urban contemporary
Urban contemporary
Urban contemporary is a music radio format. The term was coined by the late New York DJ Frankie Crocker in the mid 1970s. Urban contemporary radio stations feature a playlist made up entirely of hip hop/rap, contemporary R&B, pop, electronica such as dubstep and drum and bass and Caribbean music...
beats and a prominent guitar solo
Guitar solo
In popular music, a guitar solo is a melodic passage, section, or entire piece of music written for an electric guitar or an acoustic guitar. Guitar solos, which often contain varying degrees of improvisation, are used in many styles of popular music such as blues, jazz, rock and metal styles such...
towards the end. "On" is also a computer-reworked live take
Take
A take is a single continuous recorded performance. The term is used in film and music to denote and track the stages of production.-Film:In cinematography, a take refers to each filmed "version" of a particular shot or "setup"...
. Half of the song was recorded as a series of loops of drum beats and bass guitar chords. The recorded take was split in two to make up the first and last quarters of the track, while the middle section was intentionally left blank for the band to improvise in. "On" is one of two songs, together with "Where Is Home?", to use a string sextet. The latter track includes erratic rhythms and clashing guitars.
Commercial
A Weekend in the City was a commercial success and entered the UK Albums Chart, the Irish Albums Chart, and the Australian Albums Chart at number two. The album was listed at number 56 on the end-of-year UK Albums Chart for 2007 and was certified Gold by the British Phonographic IndustryBritish Phonographic Industry
The British Phonographic Industry is the British record industry's trade association.-Structure:Its membership comprises hundreds of music companies including all four "major" record companies , associate members such as manufacturers and distributors, and hundreds of independent music companies...
. In the U.S., it sold 47,726 copies in its first week of release and entered the Billboard 200 at number twelve, a marked improvement on predecessor Silent Alarm which had only made number 114 when it was released in 2005. The record also topped the Billboard Top Independent Albums. According to Nielsen SoundScan
Nielsen SoundScan
Nielsen SoundScan is an information and sales tracking system created by Mike Fine and Mike Shalett. Soundscan is the official method of tracking sales of music and music video products throughout the United States and Canada...
, it had sold 148,000 copies in the U.S. by August 2008. More than one million copies have been sold worldwide.
The first single, "The Prayer", became Bloc Party's highest charting song on the UK Singles Chart
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
and on the Irish Singles Chart
Irish Singles Chart
The Irish Singles Chart is Ireland's music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by the Irish Recorded Music Association and compiled on behalf of the IRMA by Chart-Track. Chart rankings are based on sales, which are compiled through over-the-counter retail data captured...
to date by peaking at number four and number 18 respectively. The song reached number 20 in Australia and is the band's only Australian Singles Chart career entry. The next single and the first U.S. release from the album, "I Still Remember", entered the Hot Modern Rock Tracks at number 24 and became the band's highest charting U.S. single to date. The third single, "Hunting for Witches", failed to chart in the U.S., but peaked at number 22 in the UK.
Critical
Media response to A Weekend in the City was mixed, but generally positive; aggregating website MetacriticMetacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
reports a normalised
Standard score
In statistics, a standard score indicates how many standard deviations an observation or datum is above or below the mean. It is a dimensionless quantity derived by subtracting the population mean from an individual raw score and then dividing the difference by the population standard deviation...
rating of 65% based on 30 critical reviews. Louis Pattison of NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
described the album as "tender and reflective, edgy and embittered; a difficult and emotional beast that jolts with nervous electricity" and pointed out that its notable achievement is that it finds moments of genuine contentment amidst "a maelstrom of anger and confusion". Allmusic's Heather Phares did not find the record as immediate as Bloc Party's earlier work, but noted that "its gradual move from alienation
Social alienation
The term social alienation has many discipline-specific uses; Roberts notes how even within the social sciences, it “is used to refer both to a personal psychological state and to a type of social relationship”...
to connection and hope is just as bold as Silent Alarm, and possibly even more resonant". Drowned in Sound
Drowned in Sound
DrownedinSound.com or DiS is a UK based music webzine financed by artist management company Silentway . The site is an editorially independent music website.-History:...
's Mike Diver called it "dirty, dishevelled, unsure and paranoid; fearful, easily distracted, boisterous and ashamed; reckless, wild, nervous and terrified; graceful, thought-provoking, clumsy and contradictory ... and very nearly perfect." Jeff Miller of the Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
concluded, "For Bloc Party, Silent Alarm was a baby step and this is a giant leap."
Michael Endelman of Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
was less receptive and stated, "Too often, the music on A Weekend in the City is less memorable than the ambitious subject matter." Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau is an American essayist, music journalist, and self-proclaimed "Dean of American Rock Critics".One of the earliest professional rock critics, Christgau is known for his terse capsule reviews, published since 1969 in his Consumer Guide columns...
, reviewing for Rolling Stone, suggested that the record fails because it lacks "killer choruses", while Sia Michel of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
wrote that the multitracked vocals and baroque effects do not have "the wiry catchiness" of Bloc Party's previous work. Mike Schiller of PopMatters
PopMatters
PopMatters is an international webzine of cultural criticism that covers many aspects of popular culture. PopMatters publishes reviews, interviews, and detailed essays on most cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, films, books, video games, comics, sports, theater,...
commented that the sonic direction the band had moved to was unsuited to the members' musical strengths. The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
included A Weekend in the City in its "1000 Albums To Hear Before You Die" list compiled in November 2007 and praised the band's "ambitious indie soundscapes packing a sizeable political punch". The record was named by Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
in its unnumbered shortlist of the best releases of 2007. It figured in several other end-of-year best album lists, notably, at number eight by Gigwise, at number nine by Hot Press
Hot Press
Hot Press is a fortnightly music and political magazine based in Dublin, Ireland founded in 1977. The magazine has been edited since its inception by Niall Stokes. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, it had a circulation of 19,215 during 2007...
, and at number ten by The A.V. Club
The A.V. Club
The A.V. Club is an entertainment newspaper and website published by The Onion. Its features include reviews of new films, music, television, books, games and DVDs, as well as interviews and other regular offerings examining both new and classic media and other elements of pop culture. Unlike its...
.
Tours and re-release
Bloc Party started a lengthy promotional world tour for A Weekend in the City in March 2007, which included concerts in Japan, the U.S.—where they also headlined at the SXSW Festival in Austin, Texas—Canada, and Italy. A few UK performances in mid-April were followed by a month-long headlining tour with Biffy ClyroBiffy Clyro
Biffy Clyro are a Scottish rock band from Kilmarnock, comprising Simon Neil , James Johnston and Ben Johnston...
, which covered most of mainland Europe. Bloc Party spent the end of May and the start of June 2007 on another headlining tour of the U.S. and were asked to play at Live Earth
Live Earth
-Background:Founded by Emmy-winning producer Kevin Wall, in partnership with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, Live Earth was built upon the belief that entertainment has the power to transcend social and cultural barriers to move the world community to action...
upon their return to London. The band performed at the main stages of several European summer fests, including Glastonbury
Glastonbury Festival
The Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts, commonly abbreviated to Glastonbury or even Glasto, is a performing arts festival that takes place near Pilton, Somerset, England, best known for its contemporary music, but also for dance, comedy, theatre, circus, cabaret and other arts.The...
, T in the Park
T in the Park
T in the Park is a major British music festival that has been held annually since 1994. It is named after its main sponsor, the brewing company Tennents. It was originally held at Strathclyde Park, Lanarkshire but since 1997 has been held at a disused airfield in Balado, Kinross-shire...
, the Reading and Leeds Festivals
Reading and Leeds Festivals
The Reading and Leeds Festivals are a pair of annual music festivals that take place in Reading and Leeds in England. The events take place simultaneously on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday of the August bank holiday weekend, sharing the same bill. The Reading Festival is held at Little John's Farm...
, Oxegen
Oxegen
Oxegen is an annual music festival in Ireland held since 2004, sponsored by Heineken. As of 2007, 2008, 2009, the festival has been cited as Ireland's biggest music festival. And by 2009, the festival is cited as the greenest festival, being a 100% carbon neutral event in Ireland. It was previously...
, and Summercase
Summercase
Summercase was a two-day music festival held simultaneously in Barcelona and Madrid. The schedules were the same but reverted. The line up mainly consists of indie rock, electronic music and indie pop. Hence, the festival tries to blend indie pop, rock music and dance music into one...
.
Bloc Party embarked on their second major worldwide tour for the album in August 2007, playing across Australia, the U.S., Mexico, and Canada. Upon their return to Europe, the band performed at the BBC Electric Proms
BBC Electric Proms
The BBC Radio 2 Electric Proms was an October music festival in London run by the BBC for five years, 2006-2010...
with the Exmoor Singers as backing chamber choir
Chamber choir
A chamber choir or group of chamber singers is the choral equivalent of a chamber ensemble, using voices instead of instruments. This prestigious choir will usually consist of 20-40 elite and dedicated singers. Several chamber choir formats exist, ranging from barbershop groups to exclusively...
. The final single from A Weekend in the City, "Flux
Flux (song)
"Flux" is a song by Bloc Party which was released as a single on 12 November 2007. It was produced by Jacknife Lee, along with several other new songs, during the band's week in the studio after their performances at the Carling Weekend: Reading and Leeds Festivals. The song uses mostly electronic...
", was released on 12 November 2007 after the European Flux Tour; a promotional CD of remixes of the song was given out free with the 14 November issue of NME. The track gave Bloc Party another top 10 hit in the UK Singles Chart by entering at number eight. A Weekend in the City was re-released with "Flux" in the track list on 16 and 19 November in mainland Europe and the UK respectively.
Track listing
Bonus tracks
When present, all songs follow "SRXT" on the January/February 2007 release after a silent three minute pregapPregap
The pregap on a Red Book audio CD is the portion of the audio track that precedes "index 01" for a given track in the table of contents . The pregap is typically two seconds long and usually, but not always, contains silence...
.
- "Secrets" (Canadian edition and TargetTarget CorporationTarget Corporation, doing business as Target, is an American retailing company headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the second-largest discount retailer in the United States, behind Walmart. The company is ranked at number 33 on the Fortune 500 and is a component of the Standard & Poor's...
version) – 4:06 - "The Once and Future King" (Canadian edition and Target version) – 3:20
- "England" (Japanese edition) – 4:15
- "We Were Lovers" (Japanese edition) – 4:12
- "Emma Kate's Accident" (Best BuyBest BuyBest Buy Co., Inc. is an American specialty retailer of consumer electronics in the United States, accounting for 19% of the market. It also operates in Mexico, Canada & China. The company's subsidiaries include Geek Squad, CinemaNow, Magnolia Audio Video, Pacific Sales, and, in Canada operates...
version) – 5:38 - "Version 2.0" (Best Buy version) – 3:19
- "Rhododendrons" (U.S. eMusicEMusiceMusic is an online music and audiobook store that operates by subscription. It is headquartered in New York City with an office in London and owned by Dimensional Associates. As of September 2008 eMusic has over 400,000 subscribers....
download version) – 4:49 - "Atonement" (U.S. iTunesITunesiTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....
download pre-order version) – 3:46 - "Cain Said to Abel" (U.S. iTunes download version) – 3:24
- "Selfish Son" (NapsterNapster (pay service)Napster is an online music store and a Best Buy company. It was originally founded as a file sharing service. For more information about its founding mission as a free file sharing service, see Napster.-History:...
and RhapsodyRhapsody (online music service)Rhapsody is an online music store subscription service, launched in December 2001, and available in the United States only. On April 6, 2010, Rhapsody officially declared its independence from RealNetworks. Downloaded files come with restrictions on their use, enforced by Helix, Rhapsody's version...
download versions) – 4:59
Additional formats
Vinyl- Two LP versions of A Weekend in the City were released: a standard black vinyl copy in a gatefoldGatefoldA gatefold is a type of fold used for advertising around a magazine or section, and for packaging of media such as vinyl records.- LP covers :...
sleeve and a limited edition picture disc version that has the album cover printed on Side A and the track listing printed on side B.
DVD
- In February 2007, a CD+DVD set contained in a red case was released in the UK and Europe simultaneously with the regular CD version of the album. The DVD contains footage of Bloc Party at Grouse Lodge and music videos for "The Prayer" and "I Still Remember".
- An Australian edition of the CD with an extra DVD was released in July 2007. The DVD contains remixRemixA remix is an alternative version of a recorded song, made from an original version. This term is also used for any alterations of media other than song ....
es of "Hunting for Witches", "Uniform", and "I Still Remember", and live footage of the band at a special Channel 4Channel 4Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
showcase. - A new version of the CD+DVD was released in the UK and Europe in November 2007. This DVD contains live footage of the band at the 2007 Reading Festival and music videos for the album's four singles.
Personnel
Band- Kele Okereke – lead vocalsSingingSinging is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
, rhythm guitarRhythm guitarRhythm guitar is a technique and rôle that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with singers or other instruments; and to provide all or part of the harmony, ie. the chords, where a chord is a group of notes played together... - Russell Lissack – lead guitarLead guitarLead guitar is a guitar part which plays melody lines, instrumental fill passages, guitar solos, and occasionally, some riffs within a song structure...
- Gordon Moakes – bass guitarBass guitarThe bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
, backing vocalsSingingSinging is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
, synthesiser, glockenspielGlockenspielA glockenspiel is a percussion instrument composed of a set of tuned keys arranged in the fashion of the keyboard of a piano. In this way, it is similar to the xylophone; however, the xylophone's bars are made of wood, while the glockenspiel's are metal plates or tubes, and making it a metallophone...
, electronic drums - Matt Tong – drumDrum kitA drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
s, drum machineDrum machineA drum machine is an electronic musical instrument designed to imitate the sound of drums or other percussion instruments. They are used in a variety of musical genres, not just purely electronic music...
, backing vocals
Additional musicians
- Jacknife Lee – keysKey (instrument)A key is a specific part of a musical instrument. The purpose and function of the part in question depends on the instrument.On instruments equipped with tuning machines, violins and guitars, for example, a key is part of a tuning machine. It is a worm gear with a key shaped end used to turn a cog,...
on "Waiting for the 7.18", "Where Is Home?", "SRXT":
- Liz Neumayer – backing vocals
on "On", "Where Is Home?":
- James Banbury – string arrangements, celloCelloThe cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
- Alison Dodds – violinViolinThe violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
- Jeremy Morris – violin
- Everton Nelson – violin
- Lucy Wilkins – violin
- Vincent Greene – violaViolaThe viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...
Production
- Jacknife Lee – producer; programmingProgramming (music)Programming is a form of music production and performance using electronic devices, often sequencers or computer programs, to generate music. Programming is used in nearly all forms of electronic music and in most hip hop music since the 1990s. It is also frequently used in modern pop and rock...
; additional engineering - Tom McFall – engineering
- Sam Bell – additional engineering; additional programming
- Rowen Rossiter – engineering assistant
- Andrew Rigg – engineering assistant
- Cenzo TownsendCenzo TownsendCenzo Townshend is an English music producer, mixer, and audio engineer. Townshend has collaborated with both mainstream and underground artists, including The Stranglers, Hothouse Flowers, New Order, Sleeper, Kaiser Chiefs, Northside, The Cranberries, Snow Patrol, as well as U2 and Echo & the...
– mixingAudio mixing (recorded music)In audio recording, audio mixing is the process by which multiple recorded sounds are combined into one or more channels, most commonly two-channel stereo. In the process, the source signals' level, frequency content, dynamics, and panoramic position are manipulated and effects such as reverb may... - Neil Comber – mixing assistant
Artwork
- Rut Blees Luxemburg – photographyPhotographyPhotography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
- Rob Crane – designDesignDesign as a noun informally refers to a plan or convention for the construction of an object or a system while “to design” refers to making this plan...
Release history
| Region | Date | Label | Format(s) | Catalog |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Japan | 24 January 2007 | V2 Records | CD | V2CP-320 |
| Europe | 2 February 2007 | Wichita Recordings | CD, CD+DVD | WEBB120 |
| Australia | CD | |||
| United Kingdom and Ireland | 5 February 2007 | CD, digital download Music download A music download is the transferral of music from an Internet-facing computer or website to a user's local computer. This term encompasses both legal downloads and downloads of copyright material without permission or payment... , CD+DVD, LP |
||
| United States | 6 February 2007 | Vice Records | CD, digital download, LP | VICE 94598 |
| CD (Best Buy version) | VICE 94700 | |||
| CD (Target version) | VICE 94677 | |||
| Canada | CD | |||
| Australia | 16 July 2007 | Universal Records Universal Records Universal Records was a record label owned by Universal Music Group, and it is now owned by Manny Patino and Michael Jackson, and operated as part of the Universal Motown Republic Group.-History:... |
CD+DVD | 3628120 |
| Europe | 16 November 2007 | CD+DVD (new edition) | ||
| United Kingdom and Ireland | 19 November 2007 | Wichita Recordings | WEBB120X | |
| Australia | 3 December 2007 | CD (new edition) |
Chart positions
Album| Chart (2007) | Peak |
|---|---|
| UK Albums Chart UK Albums Chart The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart... |
2 |
| Irish Albums Chart Irish Albums Chart The Irish Albums Chart is the Irish music industry standard albums popularity chart issued weekly by the Irish Recorded Music Association and compiled on its behalf by Chart-Track. Chart rankings are based on sales, which are compiled through over-the-counter retail data captured electronically... |
2 |
| U.S. Billboard 200 Billboard 200 The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists... |
12 |
| U.S. Billboard Top Rock Albums | 3 |
| U.S. Billboard Top Independent Albums | 1 |
| Australian Albums Chart ARIA Charts The ARIA charts are the main Australian music sales charts, issued weekly by the Australian Recording Industry Association. The charts are a record of the highest selling singles and albums in various genres in Australia. ARIA commenced compiling its own charts in-house from the week ending 26 June... |
2 |
| Canadian Albums Chart | 7 |
| French Albums Chart Syndicat National de l'Edition Phonographique The Syndicat national de l'édition phonographique is the inter-professional organization which protects the interests of the French record industry... |
10 |
| German Albums Chart Media Control Charts The official music charts in Germany are gathered and published by the company Media Control GfK International on behalf of Bundesverband Musikindustrie... |
5 |
| Japanese Albums Chart Oricon , established in 1999, is the holding company at the head of a Japanese corporate group that supplies statistics and information on music and the music industry in Japan. It started as , which was founded by Sōkō Koike in November 1967 and became known for its music charts. Oricon Inc... |
13 |
| Netherlands Albums Chart MegaCharts MegaCharts is responsible for the composition and exploitation of a broad collection of official charts in the Netherlands, of which the Mega Top 50 and the Mega Album Top 100 are the most known ones. Mega Charts also provides information to the Stichting Nederlandse Top 40, of which the Dutch Top... |
19 |
| New Zealand Albums Chart Recording Industry Association of New Zealand The Recording Industry Association of New Zealand is a non-profit trade association of record producers, distributors and recording artists who sell music in New Zealand... |
5 |
Singles
| Song | Peak | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UK UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ... |
IRE Irish Singles Chart The Irish Singles Chart is Ireland's music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by the Irish Recorded Music Association and compiled on behalf of the IRMA by Chart-Track. Chart rankings are based on sales, which are compiled through over-the-counter retail data captured... |
U.S. Mod. Rock |
AUS ARIA Charts The ARIA charts are the main Australian music sales charts, issued weekly by the Australian Recording Industry Association. The charts are a record of the highest selling singles and albums in various genres in Australia. ARIA commenced compiling its own charts in-house from the week ending 26 June... |
|||
| "The Prayer The Prayer (Bloc Party song) "The Prayer" is the first single from Bloc Party's second album A Weekend in the City, except in the U.S. where it is the second single as "I Still Remember" was the first song to be released in North America. It was released by Wichita Recordings on 29 January 2007 and is the band's highest... " |
4 | 18 | X | 20 | ||
| "I Still Remember" | 20 | — | 24 | — | ||
| "Hunting for Witches Hunting for Witches "Hunting for Witches" is a song by Bloc Party, and it is the third single of their second studio album A Weekend in the City -Content:... " |
22 | — | — | — | ||
| "Flux" | 8 | 41 | — | — | ||
"—" denotes releases that did not chart.
"X" denotes song not released in a particular country.
External links
- A Weekend in the City lyrics at Bloc Party official site
- A Weekend in the City critical reviews at MetacriticMetacriticMetacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...