Metric fans, where are you now?

Music
Written By Maddie Duda

Happy New Year! While Panic at the Disco managed to be my top artist on Spotify Wrapped in 2024 (click here to read more about that), my top song was actually “Succexy” by Metric. According to Spotify’s stats, I streamed the song 124 times over the year, putting me in the top 0.001% of listeners worldwide. Metric holds the second spot for my top artists of 2024. 

I'll start off by saying Emily Haines, singer from Metric, is the coolest, but I don’t know much about the other members quite yet. Besides their most popular hit, “Black Sheep” from the soundtrack for Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010), I didn’t know anything else from Metric until January when I heard “Succexy” for the first time. That became a repeat listen for me immediately. I remember, a while after that, delving into Spotify’s “This is Metric” playlist to try to find more I liked. According to my liked songs, I found “Help I’m Alive”, “Gold Guns Girls”, and “Combat Baby” next. A few months later I listened to Old World Underground, Where Are You Now? for the first time, which has now become one of my favorite go-to albums ever. The intro to the opening track, “IOU”, is perfect; there’s a little sound at the very start, like maybe she clears her throat, followed by guitar as she starts to sing. It came out in 2003, the year I was born. Like many other albums I would consider my favorites, it took a few listens before all of it really soaked in for me. I always admire how Kevin from Turning the Tables on Youtube can listen to a song through and find something he loves about it on his first try; I honestly think I should start listening to new albums this way, pausing after each song to be able to process what I just heard. Otherwise it all just blends together. Anyways, I found some live performances from Metric on Youtube after a couple listens of the album which is when I became obsessed with “Hustle Rose”. The super long intro and repetition of lyrics seems like it would be too much, but something about it becomes sorta hypnotic. This album became a daily listen for me at work over the summer, so it wasn’t long before I knew the whole thing by heart and had an utter obsession with “Dead Disco” (I’ve included the music video link for this one because it’s great. So indie sleaze). The bassline gets stuck in my head all the time. It was number three on my top Spotify songs for this year. This live performance of it is so crazy, and they somehow managed to extend the song out to 14 minutes. My latest favorite from the album is “Calculation Theme”, which has a really simple, but beautiful synth instrumental, and some of the most poetic lyrics from any song of theirs I’ve heard.

The rest of their earlier albums took a little longer for me. I’ve only really gotten into their first four so far, because some of the individual songs I’ve heard from the more recent albums aren’t totally my favorites. Grow Up And Blow Away is a very close second to Old World Underground. It was made in 2001 and is technically their first album, but there was some shifting around with their record label at the time so it wasn’t released until 2006, making it their third release. Live It Out comes between those two, which I haven’t given much time yet. Not as many of the songs really stuck with me, but I LOVE “Glass Ceiling” and “Monster Hospital”. And it must’ve been popular at the time, because it went twice platinum in Canada. But back to Grow Up And Blow Away - once I found out this was actually their first album it made a lot more sense, because you can tell it's a bit of a different sound for them. The songs feel more chilled out, and there's even a spoken word track, “Rock Me Now”. The lyrics in Metric’s songs make me feel like I need to find out what they mean. They tend to be really descriptive, so I always feel like I have a certain visual in mind when listening to them, or like I can picture made up music videos. As someone who tends to focus more on the instrumental details of the song rather than the lyrics, I really love that I’m drawn to both with Metric. 

Another song from the album that I love is “Soft Rock Star”. There is also another version of this song at the end of the album, called the [Jimmy vs. Joe Mix], which I love equally as much. Maybe it’s a demo version. They’re both good in their own ways. The lyrics, according to what people have hypothesized online, are about the ways that the music industry bullies and exploits female artists. Before reading the meaning online, the “schoolyard, junior high style, bullies have always tried to buy the better girls but failed to now”, lyrics brought up the feeling of being the quiet girl in middle school; picked on by other girls, and sometimes boys, but not necessarily disliked. Used for homework answers, teased for having a unique sense of style, and then years later being considered interesting and “cool” by those same people. “On the Sly” is another one of my favorites from the album, though I honestly have no idea what the lyrics mean. 

Fantasies is amazing too. The lyrics to “Front Row” are so visceral to me, and I adore how immediately the intro of the song starts. “Help I’m Alive” always reminds me of one of my favorite video games, Detroit: Become Human. The intro sounds so cool. “Satellite Mind” is also excellent. There’s a couple on this album that I tend to skip, though. 

I’ve shared Metric songs with friends and have just been wondering to myself why people my age don’t know more about them, especially considering the popularity of “Black Sheep”. They have 3 million monthly listeners on Spotify currently, which I assume is due to “Black Sheep”, but it’s the Brie Larson version that holds the number one spot in their top five. Which also has more total streams than the original. And 3 million listeners is really not much compared to other similar bands that don’t even have a song from a cult-classic movie. AND they made a song for Twilight. It’s called “Eclipse (All Yours)” but I don’t think I’ve listened to it. I’m not a Twilight person (yet?).

Like many other bands I’ve come to love, it is so incredibly hard to find good interviews, photos, or live performances, which I think is partially because their name is a broad search term. But, what I’ve learned is that Metric were very much part of the rebirth of the rock scene in the early 2000s in New York City, along with bands like the Strokes, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Interpol, and LCD Soundsystem. Emily Haines and James Shaw, another member of Metric, lived with members of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs early in their career, in fact. Before Metric formed, Haines and Shaw were also members of Broken Social Scene, which seems to have been more of a collective than a band, from Toronto. Feist was also a part of that - does anyone else always associate “1234” with this clip in Sesame Street? Emily Haines sings on “Anthems For A Seventeen Year-Old Girl” which is also featured in the Scott Pilgrim soundtrack. Apparently Haines’s performances were partial inspiration for the look of Envy Adams in the movie. Metric even opened for the Rolling Stones, Bloc Party, Muse, Paramore, and Arcade Fire. Arcade Fire makes so much sense. I love Arcade Fire!!!! I was going to write about them and Metric in one post and then realized I had way too much to say about them both. 

Okay, so my point to the Gen-Zers who were babies when Metric was popular is: you will love Metric. Their top 5 songs on Spotify don’t even scratch the surface. They’re rock, but sometimes synth-pop. Fast, but sometimes slow. And in writing this I barely even got into their lyrics. Or how awesome Emily Haines’s outfits were on stage. Listen to the early stuff, because they’re just so good and I truly don’t get why I don’t see more about them online. It’s killing me!! Make it one of your resolutions for the New Year. One time I was looking for pictures of them on Pinterest and found this, which encapsulates how I feel about the situation. 

Maddie Duda
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