But Who Is Arcade Fire?

Six months after the Grammys and you'd think that after the whole "who is Arcade Fire debacle?", people would have at least heard of them by now. I've discovered that it is not so, which is a shame.

First off, let's see who they are before I talk about their latest album The Suburbs. The band is based on Montreal and it consists of Jeremy Gara, Will Butler, Richard Reed Parry, Jeremy Gara, Sarah Neufeld, Tim Kingsbury and founding members Win Butler and Régine Chassagne.

(from left to right: Sarah Neufeld, Richard Reed Parry, Tim Kingsbury, Régine Chassagne, Will Ferrel, Jeremy Gara and Win Butler)

Arcade Fire became somewhat relevant with their debut album Funeral (2004), which was critically acclaimed. Their second album Neon Bible (2007) was also well received by the critics and, at the time, was the band's highest charting album - an interesting trait of this particular album is that is was recorded in a church the band bought and then renovated. Regardless of being rather famous, Arcade Fire wasn't yet something that popular culture was much aware of.

Then the 2011 Grammys happened. The band was nominated for three categories: Album Of The Year (for their 2010 album The Suburbs), Best Rock Performance By A Duo or Group With Vocals (for the song Ready To Start) and Best Alternative Music Album. They only received the award for Album Of The Year, which so happened to be the most important category of the award. The reaction of the public to this was of shock considering that a virtually unknown band had gotten Best Album instead of more well-known artists such as Lady Gaga - such as it can be seen in the blog linked at the top of the post.


Now that you know who Arcade Fire is, let me get to the part where I tell you to listen to The Suburbs because the album is so great it's hardly a surprise it got best Album of The Year. If you prefer more upbeat music, though, this probably won't be your cup of tea because even though not all tracks have slow tempos, they're not exactly fit for dancing. However, they make a great soundtrack for travelling and lazy afternoons.

Here's their first single The Suburbs, released on June 1st, 2010:

I'm not going to go on and on about how the album is amazing both music and lyrically because it's not  always that those are all it takes to make you love someone's music. Although, I will point out something that I really like about The Suburbs and that is how there's this sense of continuity throughout it because some lines are repeated in different songs - the fact that the last track is a call back to the first greatly adds to it. It's a story, really. A story about feeling suffocated by your surrondings and sometimes feeling powerless to change things, despite wanting to so much.