Alphabetical is the second studio album by French indie pop band Phoenix, released in 2004. The album has two singles, "Everything Is Everything" and "Run Run Run".
Commercial performance The album has sold 30,000 copies in the United States according to Nielsen SoundScan. Overall it has shipped 170,000 copies worldwide with 65,000 shipped units in continental Europe and Japan, 20,000 of those were in France.
Critical response Alphabetical was met with largely positive reviews. DIY Magazine called the record "a beautiful and melodious, yet still not quite on a par with some of their debut album." Drowned in Sound described Alphabetical as "a deceptively simply album; a lot of work has gone into making tunes as beautifully organic as this sound so impressively pieced together." They gave the album 8/10, concluding it to be "so utterly, utterly Parisian. Not French, mind, Parisian. But what else did you expect? The most sophisticated, deliciously out of step pop album of 2004 simply had to come from the most urbane, beautiful city in the world." Pitchfork praised the lead single "Everything Is Everything" as "a glorious example of how to write a classically ambiguous soft-pop song." They gave the album a score of 6.7 describing the entire record as something that "doesn't ask you to remember it in the morning."
Track listing
Personnel Deck D'Arcy – bass guitar, keyboards and backing vocals Laurent Brancowitz – guitar, keyboards and backing vocals Thomas Mars – vocals and drums Christian Mazzalai – guitar and backing vocals
Additional musicians Ivan Beck – acoustic guitar (4) Pino Palladino – bass (5, 7, 10) Jm Mery – additional keyboards (7, 8, 10) Alex Locascio – drums and percussion (1, 3, 4, 5)
Charts + Chart performance for AlphabeticalChart (2004)PeakpositionBelgian Alternative Albums (Ultratop Flanders)19Japanese Albums (Oricon)265
Release history + Release history and formats for Alphabetical Country Date Label Format Catalog Japan 24 March 2005 Toshiba-EMI CD VJCP 6862729 March 2004Source LP SOURLP095CD CDSOUR095 France 30 March 2004 Australia 12 April 2004 Virgin 5986350 United States 27 July 2004 7243 5 98635 0 4
References