Who the hell are Arcade Fire?!

[Grig]

And how the **** did they win album of the year over artists like Lady GaGa, Katy Perry, Eminem. They can barely sing...

Does anyone here actually like them?

[Banana Pancakes]

I myself don't like them but a lot of my friends do.

[dirrty]

let's go through this.
1. the grammys doesn't represent anything in regards to quality anymore. that died long long time ago.
2. katy perry...album of the year...lol. if she won, LAWD HAVE MERCY
3. i did think lady gaga would win, but hey ***** won 3 awards that night so it's all good
4. eminems album was not that good imo.
5. it's not always the most popular/mainstream artists who win. just look at the best new artist category this year


conclusion - underneath all that supposed prestige of a grammy, it's just a 'fancy' mtv vma award that no one should care about besides the performances on the show.

[wixard]

are you kidding me?

arcade fire are amazing much better than any of that crap

editing to show you all the hilarious comments people on the internet are making
http://whoisarcadefire.tumblr.com/

[FlyingJesus]

Arcade Fire are loved by indie kids because they sound like a campfire karaoke group

The Grammys as a whole were rubbish tbh, Not Afraid as best rap solo performance and Recovery as best rap album? It's better than Relapse but so are my toenail clippings.

Anyone got any idea who Ezperanza Spalding is? I don't care if she's some creative genius jazz hooker, Justin Bieber and Florence & The Machine should have been the only two likely winners of the nominees in that category. Also not sure how a record can apparently be album of the year but not win its own subcategory... really makes you wonder how the judging's done

[dirrty]

Anyone got any idea who Ezperanza Spalding is? I don't care if she's some creative genius jazz hooker, Justin Bieber and Florence & The Machine should have been the only two likely winners of the nominees in that category. Also not sure how a record can apparently be album of the year but not win its own subcategory... really makes you wonder how the judging's done
idk who she is, and i thought justin or florence and co would have won but hey.

[wixard]

Arcade Fire are loved by indie kids because they sound like a campfire karaoke group




LEAVE ARCADE FIRE ALONE, THERE IS SO MUCH MORE TO THEM THAN THAT
and fyi they hate indie kids, even made a song


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=az_2oiccZNo

[Judas]

i'm surprised a lot of people don't know them, thought they were quite big lol :S i honestly thought gaga would like it, maybe i was just being biased but hey

[Special-1k]

Arcade Fire is an orchestral indie rock band which formed in Montreal, Quebec, Canada in 2003. The band consists of Win Butler (vocals, guitar, piano), Régine Chassagne (vocals, accordion, keyboards, hurdy gurdy, drums), Richard Reed Parry (bass, guitar), William Butler (keyboards, guitar), Tim Kingsbury (bass), Sarah Neufeld (violin), and Jeremy Gara (drums). Howard Bilerman, who played drums on the album Funeral, has since moved on to other projects. Montreal percussionist Dane Mills performed on the EP and in early live shows. As of May 2005, the touring band includes horn player Pietro Amato (who is in Bell Orchestre and Torngat) and violinist Owen Pallett. Pallett has also opened for their shows, appearing as the one-man band Final Fantasy.

The band’s trademark fashion is the waistcoat, giving them an air of “frumpiness”. When asked about the rumour that the band’s name refers to a fire in an arcade, Win Butler replied: “It’s not a rumour, it’s based on a story that someone told me. It’s not an actual event, but one that I took to be real. I would say that it’s probably something that the kid made up, but at the time I believed him.” Win Butler and his brother Will grew up in Texas.

Band formation

Arcade Fire formed around the husband and wife duo of Win Butler and Régine Chassagne. Joining together as recently as mid-2003, the current line-up solidified in late 2003/early 2004, when their first full-length album Funeral was recorded. Before this an eponymous EP (often referred to by fans as the Us Kids Know EP) had been sold at early shows. The EP was subsequently remastered and given a full release once the band started becoming more prominent. Arcade Fire are known for their enthralling live performances, as well as its use of a large number of musical instruments. In addition to mainstays guitar, drums, and bass guitar, members play piano, violin, viola, cello, double bass, xylophone, keyboard, French horn, accordion, and harp. With several able musicians, the band take most of their instrumental diversity on tour and members switch instrumental duties throughout their shows. The number of instruments, along with a wide set of musical influences has provided a substantial number of resources on which to draw from during the recording process. The promise showed by the band in its live shows allowed it to land a record contract with Chapel Hill-based independent record label Merge Records.

Funeral

Their first full-length album, Funeral, debuted in September 2004 in the USA and in February 2005 in the UK, and was very highly acclaimed by critics. The title of the debut album was chosen because of the deaths of several relatives of band members during recording. These events created a sombre atmosphere which influenced songs such as “Une année sans lumière” (“A Year without Light”), “In the Backseat”, and “Haïti”, Chassagne’s elegy to her lost homeland.

Without a major label backing, the success of the band and the album Funeral has been acclaimed as an Internet phenomenon. After a 9.7 rating from Pitchfork, Merge Records sold out their inventory of Funeral and it became the label’s first album in the Billboard 200 chart. An early tip from David Bowie was also influential. The band booked small clubs for their 2004 tour but growing interest forced many venue changes, far beyond the band’s expectations, and continued internationally into mid-2005 throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, and the SummerSonic Festival in Japan. Taking much of the summer of 2005 off, the band made four key festival appearances at the Coachella Music Festival, the Sasquatch Music Festival, the Lowlands Festival and Lollapalooza. Funeral graced several top ten album lists in 2004. This continued in 2005 with the release of Funeral in the UK, Japan and Australia. The MTV2 2005 Review hosted by Zane Lowe named Funeral Album of the Year, and NME named Funeral Number 2 in their list of 2005’s best albums and “Rebellion (Lies)” the best track. By November 2005, Funeral had gone gold in both Canada and the UK and sold in excess of half a million copies worldwide, a phenomenal number for an independent release with minimal television or radio exposure. It has also surpassed Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea as the biggest selling Merge Records album to date.

Arcade Fire were featured on the April 4, 2005 cover of Time Magazine’s Canadian edition, and hailed as a band who “helped put Canadian music on the world map”. On May 1, 2005, the band performed to approximately 15,000 fans at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival; their performance is often viewed as the highlight of Coachella 2005. In May 2005, the band signed a short-term publishing contract with EMI for Funeral and in June, the band released a new single, “Cold Wind”, on Six Feet Under, Vol. 2: Everything Ends, the second soundtrack album to the popular HBO series Six Feet Under. The BBC used the track “Wake Up” on an advertisement for their autumn 2005 season and they are now using the tracks “Rebellion (Lies)” and “Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)” on adverts in January 2006. On September 9, 2005, the band appeared on the UK/US TV special Fashion Rocks, where David Bowie joined them for “Wake Up”. This recording, as well as recordings by the collaboration of Bowie’s “Life On Mars” and “Five Years”, were made available on the iTunes Music Store in a virtual live EP. The same trip to New York City took them to the Late Show with David Letterman and a concert in Central Park. The Central Park Show had a surprise appearance by Bowie, and capped a great touring season for the band. On September 11, 2005, Arcade Fire appeared on the long running BBC music series Top of the Pops, performing “Rebellion (Lies)” - on what was one of the band’s first mainstream UK television appearances. The band also performed to a TV audience in Paris for Canal +, and the show was later screened on UK television channel, Channel 4. The band has scored two Number One songs on MTV2(UK)NME CHART SHOW, with “Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)” and a three week run with “Wake Up”. However this followed Rough Trade Records (the label who distributes Arcade Fire’s music in the UK) deciding at the last minute not to release “Wake Up” on CD, and only on 7” vinyl.

Arcade Fire’s song “Wake Up” was played immediately before the Irish rock group U2 opened their concerts on their 2005 Vertigo Tour; the band would subsequently open three shows for that tour, and at the third show, they appeared onstage during U2’s encore to join them in a cover of Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart.

Their album Funeral and their single “Cold Wind” were respectively nominated for Grammys in the best Alternative Rock Album and Best Song Written for Television, Film, or Other Media categories (Six Feet Under, Vol. 2: Everything Ends). On April 2, 2006, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, they received the Juno Award for Songwriters Of The Year for three songs from Funeral: “Wake Up”, “Rebellion (Lies)” and “Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)”. The band was nominated for, but not awarded, three Brit Awards: Best International Group, Best International Album and Best International Breakthrough Act.

Arcade Fire have also recently made two appearances on Later with Jools Holland, a live show on the BBC.

On December 27, 2005, Funeral was ranked #1 on MTV2’s “50 Greatest Albums of the Year” in the United Kingdom.

Arcade Fire then planned to begin recording a follow up to Funeral in the winter of 2005-2006, having bought an old church forty minutes from central Montreal which they converted into a studio.

Neon Bible

In mid-December 2006 www.neonbible.com went live containing nothing more than a phone number, 1-866-NEONBIBLE where people can listen to a new track called Intervention. Built in the style of customer support lines, the number has other features including a contest and a chance to talk to a live person at a specific time each week.

Then in January 2007, they finally announced that the new album Neon Bible would be released March 5th in UK, March 6th in US. The announcement was made with a video in the album’s website, with guitarist Richard Reed Parry using a gramophone and a paper mask of Parry’s own face, and sitting on Win Butler´s chair. After the announcement of the album´s release, the website was updated with a streaming version of “Black Mirror”, new art and a few phone messages sounding like the band´s members.

So far, 3 singles have been released: Intervention, Keep the Car Running and No Cars Go.

The band headlined the Latitude Festival in 2007, playing all of the hits and joined by Owen on violins

On December 15, 2008, Arcade Fire released Miroir-Noir, a concert movie that includes live footage from the 2006-07 tours shot by Vincent Moon.

A new song called Lenin appeared on the highly acclaimed compilation “Dark Was The Night”, a release benefiting the Red Hot Organization, among other high tipped indie artists. The song is very straightforward, remembering the pre-Funeral material, and maybe showing direction for future releases.

The band released their third album “The Suburbs” on August 2, 2010 in the UK and August 3, 2010 in the United States. It debuted at #1 in both countries. On February 13, 2011, the album won Album of the Year at the 53rd Grammy Awards.

[Plebings]

omgs how dare a act i've never heard of win an award, they rnt even famous lol if it's not in the top 40 then it must suck I mean lady gaga wasn't born til she had a number one cause i never heard her before etcetcetc

Arcade Fire have an audience, sadly you are not part of it.

[Judas]

i'm surprised a lot of people don't know them, thought they were quite big lol :S i honestly thought gaga would take it, maybe i was just being biased but hey

i meant this btw... i'm tired :P

[beth]

older arcade fire was much much better than the crap they churn out lately, but they have a massive audience.

[Grig]

older arcade fire was much much better than the crap they churn out lately, but they have a massive audience.

Yeh I've heard some of the older stuff and it seems better. But really still not my cup of tea, but then I'm more into rock. I do like Indie, bands like Arctic Monkeys and what not, but Tom is right they do sound like they sing around the campfire. I must say though, the performance they gave before they won the actual Grammy looked like half of the band (especially that guy screaming maniacally in a high pitched voice at the back) seemed as though they were stoned throughout it.

For best new artist, Florence should have had it, not JB because I swear he may have had that last year. I did hear of Esperanza but her music to me seems sleepy.

[samsaBEAR]

i'm surprised a lot of people don't know them, thought they were quite big lol :S i honestly thought gaga would like it, maybe i was just being biased but hey
this, i thought arcade fire were huge

[Plebings]

older arcade fire was much much better than the crap they churn out lately, but they have a massive audience.

funeral is hard to beat, but the suburbs craps all over neon bible surely?

[IceNineKills]

How dare a group that isn't in the media spotlight every bloody day win an award. I'm happy for them.

[RedStratocas]

arcade fire are a really really popular band. just because something isn't played on the radio, doesn't mean it isn't popular. hell, their album went #1 in both the US and UK. honestly the only people who haven't even heard of arcade fire are people who are a) old or b) don't delve into music past whats played on the top 40. cause really all of 2010 i couldn't get away from articles/news about arcade fire.

oh and here's a really funny tumblr (http://whoisarcadefire.tumblr.com/) made right after the grammys dedicated to twitter/facebook posts of angry people who have no idea who arcade fire is but think eminem is kewl

and as someone said earlier, their win is a huge surprise not because their album isnt as good as the other nominations (it's not a great album, but it sure as hell beats out the rest of the competition) but because Grammys usually go to whoever has sold the most albums. it isn't about musical merit in the slightest, its run by the music industry for the music industry. it doesnt matter if every music critic on the planet panned it, if it sold the most albums it will most likely win. the Grammys have been taking baby steps towards credibility the past couple of years, but they're still really, really terrible.

their first album is great, their second album is okay, the suburbs is also alright but it didn't really stick with me too much.

[Muct]

a) old or b) don't delve into music past whats played on the top 40.

....... The only person I know that has even heard of arcade fire is my mum LOL, & I have a very open mind when it comes to music, aswell as a fair few of my friends etc..

[dirrty]

....... The only person I know that has even heard of arcade fire is my mum LOL, & I have a very open mind when it comes to music, aswell as a fair few of my friends etc..
so because a 12 year old and a few of his friends haven't heard of arcade fire, that makes them essentially redundant? time for bed little one

[Plebings]

....... The only person I know that has even heard of arcade fire is my mum LOL, & I have a very open mind when it comes to music, aswell as a fair few of my friends etc..

You can have an open mind without hearing about certain acts, I guess it depends on how you hear about new acts, tv, radio, blogosphere etc.
ps your mums cool

[Yupt]

They performed well at Reading..x

I dont see whats wrong with them winning lol, they're good.

[Judas]

i had to tell my mum who arcade fire were lol..

[rnix]

I for one don't listen to all mainstream and not once have i came across these people.

[RedStratocas]

I for one don't listen to all mainstream and not once have i came across these people.

then you don't get too far past mainstream. especially since arcade fire's album went #1 in both the US and UK (thus effectively making them "mainstream"). really people who haven't heard them haven't been paying attention much at all, because for real ive seen them everywhere the past year especially, and even before that they we're pretty damn well-known.

i'm not bashing people who haven't heard of them, i dont really care, but people thinking they're "nobodys" really have no idea what they're talking about. google "best albums of the decade" and i can guarantee you that every list you find, arcade fire's "funeral" will be in the top 10.

ps. if you ever saw the trailer for where the wild things are (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01-PqqifyjA), then you indeed have come across arcade fire

[rnix]

then you don't get too far past mainstream. especially since arcade fire's album went #1 in both the US and UK (thus effectively making them "mainstream"). really people who haven't heard them haven't been paying attention much at all, because for real ive seen them everywhere the past year especially, and even before that they we're pretty damn well-known.


Well is listening to stuff people record in their own houses too mainstream for you.

[Judas]

Well is listening to stuff people record in their own houses too mainstream for you.

actually a lot of music is recorded at the artist's home these days

[benjamin]

seriously, even i know who arcade fire are... are people really that dense? i guess people aren't as open minded about music as i thought.

[samsaBEAR]

I for one don't listen to all mainstream and not once have i came across these people.
Nothing I listen to is mainstream, yet I've still heard about them everywhere. People who haven't at least heard their name must be either too stuck with their Top 40 made-to-sell ********, or are just musically ignorant.

[Judas]

i don't get it, how can someone be 'musically ignorant' just because they haven't heard of a band? it's not a decision that they have made to never have never come across them before... if they were making judgments about them when they have never heard of them or listened to their music then yes fine but how is not hearing of them ignorant :S am i missing something :S

[beth]

musically ignorant would be the right term in this situation because arcade fire are/have been everywhere. they're all over commercials, they're used in tv shows, in movies.

i am so shocked at the majority of people who do not know them ;l.

surely you recognise this song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_aFmziaRdU

[FlyingJesus]

To be fair there's no reason I would have known them except for the accident of my brother daring to play such tripe in my presence - I don't watch TV or listen to radio and theirs isn't the sort of music I like so I wouldn't have found them through any sort of "similar artists" list. I'm not going to try justifying my musical diversity by naming every single genre and obnoxiously named sub-genre that I listen to but I'm certainly not musically ignorant. Using the same logic I could say that anyone who's never heard of The Neptunes is musically ignorant as they are found absolutely everywhere, but I wouldn't really suggest it because I know that not having 100% knowledge of every act around isn't the same thing as knowing nothing and being closed-minded

[JackBuddy]

musically ignorant would be the right term in this situation because arcade fire are/have been everywhere. they're all over commercials, they're used in tv shows, in movies.

i am so shocked at the majority of people who do not know them ;l.

surely you recognise this song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_aFmziaRdU


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jq6M4PWKvq4

I'd say that's their most iconic/well known song.

[Plebings]

Wouldn't say musically ignorant is the right term, maybe a smaller drive to delve into different genres, eg me and hip hop

HOWEVER MAYBE THAT IS IGNORANCE, just of a certain genre

[Judas]

musically ignorant would be the right term in this situation because arcade fire are/have been everywhere. they're all over commercials, they're used in tv shows, in movies.

i am so shocked at the majority of people who do not know them ;l.

surely you recognise this song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_aFmziaRdU

if you're talking to me i've already previously stated i know who they are. but the term musically ignorant isn't correct... just because they're used on tv or whatever that doesn't necessarily mean people will know them as a band, maybe they will know parts of a few of their songs but i fail to see how being unable to recognise the name makes someone "musically ignorant"