Will Arcade Fire Hit #1?

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


ARCFIRENEONBIBLE.jpg
I can’t believe I’m typing this, but it seems entirely possible that Arcade Fire, the iconoclastic Canadian underground indie-rock mega-combo, may ride a wave of publicity to the top of the US charts this Tuesday (3/6) with their sophomore album Neon Bible. They just performed on SNL (also, apparently, doing an off-stage number right after the show just for the studio audience) and they’re all the blogs can talk about. They also remain one of two bands who have ever made me, ahem, misty-eyed at a live performance. (Okay, fine: the other was Low. All those other times, I just had something in my eye, really.)

New Yorker music critic Sasha Frere-Jones was a little late to the party on the Fire, but makes up for it with a fine article this week. He follows the band around to their recent London shows (lucky!!!) and admires their lo-fi tendencies by saying it’s “hard to imagine” them ever using a cordless microphone. I found that reference kind of amusing: capping off the aforementioned tear-inducing performance (at Coachella in 2005), lead singer Win Butler unplugged his mic and threw it in a high arc out over the massive crowd (see that at the end of this video here). It sounds silly now, but it was a heart-stopping moment, capping off probably the greatest live show I’ve ever seen in my life. I guess that doesn’t really count as a “cordless mic,” though, does it.

I’ve heard Neon Bible (like anyone with DSL has at this point), and it’s great. There probably aren’t any breakout hits (like “Rebellion (Lies)” from their debut album Funeral) but that seems kind of the point: the new songs unroll at their own pace, like hymns, without hurrying to a pop “hook.” This is a band who adamantly refuse to license any music (even, apparently, for Oscar-winning, if supremely hacky, directors), and who are so DIY, they can manage to screw up a charity single upload. Nothing against Norah Jones, but if they knock her off the #1 spot, it will be kind of exhilarating.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate