Who would you rather be, The Beatles or The Rolling Stones?

I meant to write this post a couple days ago, but between a massive snow storm and our internet cutting in and out the whole time, I didn't get around to it until now.

I was listening to my iTunes on shuffle when Gimme Sympathy by Metric came on a couple days ago. Wow. I hadn't heard the song in a long time, and I had managed to forget how catchy it is and how much I love it. I immediately switched from shuffle and listened to the entire album. Looking back, I rated the album Fantasies #8 on my year end list for 2009, right in between excellent albums by The Antlers and Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band. I never posted a list of my favorite songs from 2009 online, but I found one in my iTunes that had Gimme Sympathy rated as my 4th favorite song of the year.

Enough about where I ranked the song/album though. As seems to be a trend for some of these artists I have talked about, I hadn't listened to Metric's previous releases too much until Fantasies. I was aware of Metric due to them being a part of the indie rock scene from Canada that had produced artists like Stars, Tegan and Sara, and The New Pornographers. What I had heard from Metric never really interested me too much though. When I first heard the album Fantasies, it didn't seem like my style and I ignored it too. I can't remember for certain what made me reconsider back then, but I think it was likely hearing the song on The Current and realizing I was enjoying it even if it wasn't something I might normally listen to. The new album is a little more poppy and radio friendly than their old albums, but it is a heck of an end product, so who cares.

Here's the music video for Gimme Sympathy, which was the third single released from Fantasies. It shows the band performing in what looks like an empty basement of a club or something. Throughout the video, the musicians trade places despite everything still sounding the same. Kinda weird seeing a male as the vocalist while lead singer Emily Haines' voice comes out.



You can currently pick up Gimme Sympathy for free from Amazon here.

Also, the band is giving away an acoustic version of the song if you sign up for their mailing list at www.ilovemetric.com.

I highly recommend picking up the whole album somewhere (or at the very least the song "Help, I'm Alive").