Day After Day #322: Helicopter

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

Helicopter (2004)

Writing about Arcade Fire yesterday got me thinking about the some of the other breakout indie rock acts of the same time period, what I like to call the MP3 Blog Era of 2003-2007 or so. Another great band that caught my attention at the time was Bloc Party, a post-punk band that emerged in 2004.

Formed in London in 1999 by lead singer/guitarist Kele Okereke and lead guitarist Russell Lissack, the group added bassist Gordon Moakes and drummer Matt Tong. They went through multiple names including Union, The Angel Range and Diet before landing on Bloc Party in the fall of 2003. The band's sound was danceable post-punk, inspired by acts like the Pixies and the Cure as well as contemporaries Franz Ferdinand.

Bloc Party released a few singles on indie labels before signing with Dim Mak, which then teamed with Vice Records, a subsidiary of Atlantic Records. The band released two EPs in 2004, Bloc Party EP and Little Thoughts EP (released in Japan). 

"Helicopter" was released as a single in October 2004 and included on the Little Thoughts EP and later on the band's 2005 debut album Silent Alarm. The song is an absolute ripper, driven as much by the fills of powerhouse drummer Tong as the jagged guitar lines of Lissack and Okereke. The riff was inspired by the Jam's "Set the House Ablaze" from their Sound Affects album.

"North to South, empty/Running on bravado/As if to say, as if to say/As if to say he doesn't like chocolate/He's born a liar, he'll die a liar/Some things will never be different/Stop being/So American/There's a time and there's a place/So James Dean/So blue jeans/He's gonna save the world, he's gonna/Are you hoping for a miracle?"

The band races through the song at 171 bpm. Although Okereke denied the song was making any political commentary, it's easy to surmise it was taking a jab at U.S. President George W. Bush and the Iraq War, which the U.S. had jumped into a year earlier.

"Three out of five, three out of five (it's not enough)/Six out of ten, better luck next time/Just like his dad, just like his dad, just like his dad (same mistakes)/Some things will never be different/Hungry and dumb, hungry and dumb (so wait in line)/Queuing up for some more junk food/It's not my fault, it's not my fault (just this once)/They're getting so much younger/Why can't you be/More European?/Bastard child of guilt and shame/Bury your head/In the sand/I'm thinking six, six, six/I'm thinking six/Are you hoping for a miracle?"

The song was a hit in the U.K., getting to #26 on the Singles Chart; it didn't chart in the U.S. When Silent Alarm was released in '05, it was an immediate hit in Europe, but in the U.S., Vice pushed it more at the blog nerds instead of radio and was rewarded with the best-selling album in their history. It only hit #114 on the Billboard 200 (as opposed to #3 on the U.K. Albums Chart), but it sold 123,000 copies in the U.S. after just four months. Silent Alarm sold more than 350,000 copies in North American and over 1 million worldwide.

The band toured heavily behind the album and released their second album, A Weekend in the City, in 2007. It was another strong release, with "The Prayer," "I Still Remember" and "Hunting for Witches" all performing well. I saw them play in the summer of 2006 at the then-Bank of America Pavilion in Boston (no idea what the corporate name is now) and the show was great, mainly focused on the first album because the second hadn't been released yet.

Bloc Party's third album, 2008's Intimacy, went in more of an electronic dance direction and I don't remember hearing a lot from it. It still sold well (#18 in the U.S., #8 in the U.K.). The band released a single in 2009 and then went on a hiatus. They released Four in 2012, which again did well in the U.K. (#3) and less so in the U.S. (#36). I didn't pay any attention to it for whatever reason; much like with Arcade Fire, I had just moved on. Tong left the band in 2013 and Moakes in 2015, leaving Okereke and Lissack to soldier on. The band has released two albums since then, the most recent one in 2022. 

Bloc Party is still a going concern, but I prefer to go back to those first two albums.