War On Pop: Best Albums of the 2000s: #1 Arcade Fire

In the 2000s, Indie-rock was defined largely by its flair for producing majestic and dramatic music. While many attempted to make music in this light, only a handful succeeded, including The Decemberists and Broken Social Scene, among other. No band, however, embodied this aesthetic more so than the Arcade Fire. Unlike any other album in recent memory, the Arcade Fire’s full-length debut Funeral (2004) brought together raw emotion and an impeccable level songwriting into a single brilliantly bombastic work. Funeral set the tone for the rest of the decade through its ability to stir listeners with its sweeping grandeur.

As Funeral reveals a band struggling with their own loss, the Arcade Fire transform their pain into a cathartic masterpiece—one that endures as timelessly theatrical, while maintaining a sense of poignant sincerity. Arcade Fire’s liner notes dedicate the record to 9 of their family members who passed away around the time during which the album was recorded. As the band further remarked in their notes, “When family members kept dying, [the Arcade Fire] realized that they should call their record, "Funeral", noting the irony of their first full length recording bearing a name with such closure.” So with this in mind, it is easy to see where the sadness within Funeral’s somber tracks draw from, as seen in the discouraged “Neighborhood #4 (7 Kettles)”, the reminiscing “Haiti,” and “Une Année Sans Lumière”—which translates to ‘A Year Without Light.’

While the solemnity of these tracks are near-heartbreaking and moving in their own right, Funeral’s greatness is not solely reliant on these tracks detailing their sadness, but in those where they turn their misery into transcending moments of brilliance. “Wake Up” prevails as the Arcade Fire’s masterpiece, leaving lead singer Win Butler to reflect on their loss of innocence, as he proclaims with an urgent sense of warning, “If the children don't grow up / Our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up / We're just a million little gods causing rainstorms / Turning every good thing to rust.” Both sides of “Wake Up” are nearly as impressive, as of “Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)” previews this with a bleak illustration of contemporary disenchantment (“And the power's out in the heart of man / Take it from your heart, put in your hand”). Near the end of the album, “Rebellion (Lies)” stands as a call to arms against the images preceded in the songs beforehand in a refusal to accept the normalcy of the world surround us.

Not only is Arcade Fire’s battle cry riveting in its own message, but also mesmeric in their radiant creativity on a large scale, further pushing listeners to join in their liberating musical escape from the routine doldrums of our everyday realities. Funeral concludes with “In the Backseat” and its reflective imagery of taking life by the reins. After the suffering throughout this period of the Arcade Fire’s lives, singer Regine Chassagne resolutely avows, “Alice died / In the night / I've been learning to drive/ My whole life / I've been learning.”

Albums like this exemplify the reason why people fall in love with music. Funeral endures as real, resonates as authentic, and displays the range of human emotion in all its magnificence and suffering. Although it was the bands’ own pain which spawned these ten songs, Funeral’s message triumphs in its relatable nature, one that lies innate within all of humanity’s experience. And as the Arcade Fire’s debut album cements its legacy among the best albums of the 2000’s, Funeral’s ageless sentiment will continue to be preserved.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Best Albums of the 2000s: #1 Arcade Fire - Funeral (2004)

No comments:

Post a Comment