My Thoughts About Phoenix
As promised, here are my thoughts about Phoenix…
Phoenix is a rock band from Versailles, France, consisting of Thomas Mars (lead vocals/ drums/ percussion), Deck d’Arcy (bass/ keyboards/ backing vocals), Christian Mazzalai (guitar/ keyboards/ backing vocals) and Laurent Brancowitz (guitar/ backing vocals). They are best known for their singles “Too Young,” “If I Ever Feel Better,” and “1901.”
Phoenix was conceived in the 1990s when vocalist Thomas Mars, bassist Deck d’Arcy, and guitarist Chris Mazzalai, who were all friends in school, started playing together as a “garage band” based out of Mars’s house in the suburbs of Paris. In 1995, Laurent Brancowitz, Mazzalai’s older brother, permanently joined the band on guitar after the end of Darlin’, a short-lived band that Brancowitz had formed with Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo (Bangalter and de Homem-Christo later formed Daft Punk). Two years later the band took on the name Phoenix and pressed 500 copies of a single on their own label, Ghettoblaster. Shortly after, they were signed to the Paris-based Source Records. Phoenix quickly became well acquainted with labelmates Air when they acted as their backing band on several UK TV appearances.
Phoenix began releasing singles in 1999, the first of these being “Heatwave” and “Party Time,” the latter of which would eventually appear on their debut album, United. The single “Too Young” was released on May 22, 2000, along with remixes of the track by Zoot Woman and Le Knight Club. “Too Young” was the band’s first single to chart, reaching No. 97 in France and No. 148 in the UK. The band’s debut album, United, was released on June 12, 2000. It featured the singles “Party Time” and “Too Young,” with “If I Ever Feel Better” being announced as the third single from the album on January 22, 2001, and charting in several countries, reaching No. 12 in France and No. 4 in Italy. United received positive reviews, although the band did not reach mainstream success. “Too Young” was included on the soundtrack for the movie Lost in Translation (which was directed by Mars’ future wife, Sofia Coppola), as well as in the movie Shallow Hal.*
Shortly after the release of United, Phoenix begun work on a second album, and…and you know what, you guys, I can’t pretend like I saw President Racist Grandpa’s speech last night. Instead, my wife and I re-watched Do the Right Thing on HBO. The preachiness of the film can be a bit much, but it holds up fairly well after all these years. The Radio Raheem death scene is especially prescient: even though we’d both seen it several times before, we both got choked up as if we’d seen it for the first time.
For those of you who came to this piece hoping for some piercing insights into last night’s rally, here’s Don Lemon — of all people — to give them to you.
*Information provided in the three previous paragraphs about the band Phoenix is courtesy of Wikipedia.com.
