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  • From: grady <grady AT ibiblio.org>
  • To: RTP-area local music and culture <ch-scene AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: Arcade Fire. I'm not insane.
  • Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2007 13:07:05 -0400

If your favorite CD review site couldn't be bothered to at least attempt to understand the very real appeal that the band has, then they're doing you a disservice. It's easy to take pot-shots at bands, and much moreso if they're popular, but for a band like the Arcade Fire, who are on a tiny label with a similarly tiny promo budget, to get as huge as they did based on their debut album and their live shows, there's clearly *something* at work there, and any critic who expects to be taken seriously should at least make an attempt to suss that out.

(Though I do find it amusing to see a "critic" who apparently expects to be taken deadly seriously while simultaneously dismissing a band as an "overhyped critics' fave" . . .)

I'm not suggesting (not at all) that they have to *agree* with the furor, or even fully comprehend its roots, but to just dismiss it out-of-hand just makes them look silly. A band can sell a certain # of records based on critical acclaim alone (and I'd wager that number is in the low thousands). A band can sell a whole lot more records based on a massive wall of expensive promo-machine hype, but in the case of _Funeral_, they certainly didn't have that going for them. If you can figure out how to factor out Pitchfork (and I dunno if anybody really knows the actual impact of a good Pitchfork review), I think _Funeral_ fits the classic definition of an old fashioned word-of-mouth success story. It's the kind of record that somebody plays for you, and you go out the next day & buy it.

Chris Rossi is definitely correct: _Funeral_ is where the furor began, and it's definitely a much more immediately compelling/polarizing album. I think it would fit your Radiohead test-case, in other words. (It's also certainly a much better record than the damn Clap Your Hands Say Yeah album, which comes much closer to maybe being a hype-related flash-in-the-pan.)

I found _The Neon Bible_ pleasant enough, though once this phrase popped into my head, it was hard to shake it back out: "Bruce Springsteen & the Bunnymen." I think the arrangements, recording, and performances are all less interesting than those on _Funeral_; I haven't listened to it enough to be able to address the songwriting. I will definitely sympathize with you, and all the other people, I guess, who never heard _Funeral_ and picked up this one expecting to be blown away. But then I guess you didn't actually buy either album, so no harm done, right?

Ross

p.s. try going here & listening to "Wake Up" and "Laika," which will give you a pretty good idea of what's got people so hot-and-bothered. The videos are pretty fun, too: http://www.mergerecords.com/band.php?media=true&band_id=98


Baby Messy wrote:
I watched them on SNL the other week and thought..."this is it?...why all the hype?" and I really thought I was missing something in my old age. I mean, as soon as you heard Radiohead you KNEW, love it or hate it, that there was something special there. So maybe I needed to dig deeper, and through the magic of Youtube, etc. I tried. Lord I tried.

My fave CD review cite, warr.org, reviewed them thusly:

Arcade Fire, Neon Bible (2007)
I wanted to get this warning out as quickly as possible: this Montreal indie septet is possibly the worst, most overhyped critics' fave band I've ever heard. I mean, at least the guy from TV On The Radio can sing. Lead "singer" Win Butler has no range or projection - he sounds like Lou Reed without the accent - and he's probably the best thing about the group. Pretension factor is through the roof with turgidly deep lyrics (title track) and pompous orchestrations (the pseudo-Springsteen "Black Wave, Bad Vibrations"). Meanwhile, musicianship is beneath the floorboards, with rote chord progressions ("Keep The Car Running"; "Antichrist Television Blues") and plodding tempos ("Intervention"; "My Body Is A Cage") - the band members play a zillion different instruments, but find nothing interesting on any of them. The two passable tunes are the typically overblown "No Cars Go" and the uptempo Franz Ferdinand-style rocker "The Well & The Lighthouse": they're still worthless melodically but at least have some energy. (DBW)


So whew. I'm not insane. Drinks on me!!!!
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