Modest Mouse: "Dashboard"

If the concept of the ‘blogosphere’ is one we can talk about without covering our faces with embarrassment, much consensus seems to have been reached out in it with regards to Modest Mouse’s “Dashboard,” the first single from their forthcoming We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank: we all love 1997’s The Lonesome Crowded West. Yeah, 1997’s. Ten years ago, people.

And as if it’s going to take “Dashboard” to divide the fan base. Good News For People Who Love Bad News (2004) was certified platinum, a verifiable Top Forty Hit, with the majority of those listeners new to the band. If that, and that the guitarist from the Smiths joined the band, weren’t enough for people to get the hint that Modest Mouse has stepped out of the songwriting morass of their own depression and fucked-upness and squarely into the mainstream, then I don’t know what will be.

The only frightening thing about “Dashboard” is that it’s further evidence that someone at Sony actually knew what they were doing when they signed the band back in 2000. We’re so used to the depiction of majors as bumbling imbeciles, their ears held far from the ground, that it’s tempting to see Modest Mouse’s recent success as a corruption on the part of their label; “Dashboard” is the cleanest, slickest, biggest sounding, most upbeat thing the band has ever released. But if we don’t subscribe to convenient mythologies, if we consider for a moment that the song can be judged on its own terms, then there’s nothing scary about “Dashboard.” In fact, there’s nothing even mildly controversial about it. My roommate and I had an honest-to-goodness conversation about whether or not it can be considered ska. Not exactly the stuff of which brawls are made.

Yes, there are horns. No, the horns don’t sound as purposefully obnoxious as those throughout Good News. Yes, Brock’s voice does sound different, less inebriated and nasally though no less caustic (especially as the song draws to its energetic close). There are strings in the chorus, sure, and a dance beat to boot. And I liked a lot of Good News, so a sympathetic ear for those lamenting the band’s decision not to recycle their discography I’m not. But it’s hard to deny that the songwriting hasn’t become any less sound: this is a good song, fun to listen to because of its less than conventional arrangement and Brock’s never-contested ear for a catchy melody. The guitar lines are memorable and inventive. It is strange to hear this bouncier, enfranchised version of Modest Mouse, but no trial to get through. For some reason it was taboo to admit liking “Float On,” but not “The View”; “Dashboard” simply answers the question of what might have happened had “The View” been released as Good News’ first single.

The refrain throughout “Dashboard” is, “well it woulda been / coulda been / worse than you would ever know.” Some out there in the blogosphere are acting as if this isn’t true. Fifteen years into a career distinguished by both hardship and beloved indie staples, that Modest Mouse has entered so unapologetically into a commercial phase is far from the end of the world. In fact, they may be going places The Lonesome Crowded West didn’t dare.