Voice Choices
November 7, 2012Voice Choices
May 23, 2012Blogs
March 29, 2012True to its name, Bright Moments is a big sunshiny explosion of optimism: joyous found sounds, Afro-Brazilian rhythms, Beach Boys harmonies, anime keyboards and big explosions of billowing brass. It's the demented brainchild of New Yorker Kelly Pratt, a multi-instrumentalist who's played horns for B ... More >>
Film
November 9, 2011Voice Choices
November 9, 2011Blogs
September 27, 2011Kim Erlandsen
Want to sip cocktails and eat with the Arcade Fire? Unless you are already an awesomely talented, famous musician, too bad! What you can do, however, is sit and subtly stare at them from a few tables over while eating deconstructed Niçoise salads and sipping glasses of Bulleit ... More >>
Blogs
July 5, 2011"This icona pop video got the "arcade fire newsbreak 2008" blogger treatment, huh?," tweeted the blogger who runs The Culture Of Me a little while ago, and, well, a brief Twitter search will show you that yes, there's a fair amount of online chatter surrounding the Swedish pop duo's new video ... More >>
Blogs
February 15, 2011
Star-studded lineup videos: now a thing.
Yes, the Tennessee mega-festival, now in its tenth (!) year, has announced its initial lineup, the usual melange of rappers, rockers, and jam-band monoliths, this year headlined by Eminem and Arcade Fire, only one of whom won the Album of the Year Grammy 48 ... More >>
Blogs
February 14, 2011This picture is from Arcade Fire's Tumblr, where it's captioned "Win jumping up and down, thanking the world." Because why wouldn't it be?Radiohead may have already surpassed last night's Grammys as the au currant news of an indie-rock world that is all of a sudden drowning in good tidings, b ... More >>
Music
January 19, 2011The Suburbs and Contra contemplate little pink polos for you and me
Voice Choices
January 19, 2011Blogs
January 13, 2011"The whole chart thing is kind of like sports," said an unimpressed Merge label chief Laura Ballance, back when Arcade Fire hit #1 on the Billboard charts. That may well be true. But if selling records is like sports, Arcade Fire are weirdly good at it, considering they're a bunch of spindly ... More >>
Blogs
December 13, 2010Welcome to Sound of the City's year-in-review rock-critic roundtable, an amiable ongoing conversation between five prominent Voice critics: Rob Harvilla, Zach Baron, Sean Fennessey, Maura Johnston, and Rich Juzwiak. We'll be here all week!
Dear Rob, Sean, Rich, and Maura,
I believe, as per ... More >>
Blogs
December 8, 2010Ah M.I.A., it just wasn't your year, was it? Photo by Rebecca Smeyne.In 2010, Vampire Weekend and Arcade Fire both had #1 records. LCD Soundsystem, Spoon, MGMT, the National, M.I.A, and Sufjan Stevens all had albums debut in the top ten. Kanye West joined Twitter. Drake started a riot in New ... More >>
Blogs
December 2, 2010Behold, the future of music.The Grammy Awards are a bit of a punchline in music nerd circles, a place where, say, MGMT battles Hall & Oates for a trophy that will inevitably be won, and then dropped on the ground, by the more telegenic and industry-saving Taylor Swift. The Grammy voters hate ... More >>
Voice Choices
October 13, 2010Blogs
September 9, 2010So Pavement, in celebration of the five-night NYC stand that is (almost) finally upon us, are playing Jimmy Fallon later this month, and held a contest to determine their third guitarist -- submit a video of yourself playing a Pavement song, submit yourself to whatever online-voting scheme Fa ... More >>
Voice Choices
September 8, 2010Voice Choices
September 1, 2010Blogs
August 19, 2010This is the third most popular record in the country right now. So, one more qualification for Arcade Fire's still pretty respectable #2 this week: they snagged it amidst the worst seven days in SoundScan history. The industry managed to move a paltry 4.95 million units last week, a number th ... More >>
Blogs
August 18, 2010
Yeah, so their sales got cut in half and they only retained the #2 spot by the grace of one of the slowest release weeks in the entire year--but Arcade Fire are still mostly on top! (On top of the Disney Channel's Camp Rock 2: the Final Jam, but whatever.) The indie band sold 52,000 copies their s ... More >>
Blogs
August 12, 2010This accordian kills fascists. Photo by Kim Erlandsen.Though some of us here at SOTC may be somewhere between "agnostic" and "hater" when it comes to the all important subject of the Arcade Fire, there is one thing we can all agree on: it's been a hell of a week for the band's label, the vene ... More >>
Blogs
August 11, 2010The Arcade Fire will "probably, and most assuredly definitely" have the #1 album in the country this week, according to the L.A. Times, which attributes the 156,000-copies figure to Merge labelmates Spoon, who of course helped AF burn down Madison Square Garden last week. Should this number, ... More >>
Blogs
August 5, 2010Régine, basking. Pic by Ben Jay, more below.Arcade Fire/Spoon
Madison Square Garden
Wednesday, August 4
Gold medal, stage banter, 2010: "I have to say my favorite part of Madison Square Garden is this area right over here," announces Win Butler, gesturing toward a spot to his right maybe h ... More >>
Music
August 4, 2010A singular talent for grandiose, unintentional comedy, sadly dampened by The Suburbs
Blogs
August 4, 2010Win Butler, serenading The Kids. Photo by Kim Erlandsen.In this week's Village Voice, Rob Harvilla takes on the grandiose, unintentional comedy of the Arcade Fire's The Suburbs, Maura Johnston wanders around the revitalized Lilith Fair, and David Cotner breaks down the long-awaited Neu! retro ... More >>
Blogs
August 3, 2010Rejoice, ye lovers of absurdly grandiose indie-gone-arena-rock, for Arcade Fire's The Suburbs is out today, a full hour of anthemic chest-beating and regret-tinged nostalgia and Springsteenian grandiosity. Stream it here! Download it here for four bucks! Prepare thyself for their shows at MSG ... More >>
Blogs
August 3, 2010Look, we're trying here, OK?There is a thing where people get on the internet and express a strong, contrary opinion in the interests of getting other people angry. This is not that thing. There is a thing where a person sees a lot of other people getting excited about a cultural phenomenon a ... More >>
Voice Choices
July 27, 2010The biggest, baddest Northerners return
Blogs
June 24, 2010The four tracks that already leaked from The Most Anticipated Album Drop of the Third-Quarter of 2010 -- the Arcade Fire's The Suburbs -- have been met with mostly unmitigated, exuberant joy (also matched by the city at-large, who got an extra MSG date added recently). There's the waning folk ... More >>
Blogs
June 2, 2010So the Arcade Fire's got a new record (The Suburbs) and an NYC tour date (August 4 at MSG, with Spoon opening) on the horizon, but contrary to Merge Records' announcement yesterday, pre-sale tix for the latter don't seem to be available yet. Prefix mag notes much mashing of teeth from local f ... More >>
Blogs
May 4, 2010
As estimable friend-of-SOTC Maura Johnston notes, the verses here are straight outta Arcade Fire's "Rebellion (Lies)," just sung with a little more... force. And pep. And tunefulness. And so forth. It also sounds like the trance remake of itself, in advance. That's Kelly, always innovating.
Voice Choices
April 27, 2010Voice Choices
April 13, 2010Voice Choices
February 2, 2010Voice Choices
December 15, 2009Fanfarlo bring you haunted psych-folk jams
Blogs
November 25, 2009Since this archive page mysteriously disappeared over at its original home, consider this your new bookmark/placeholder/friend on late, lonely nights. Confused? More here.
It's super-cute to peruse decade-end lists and pretend to be enthusiastic about true artists like Arcade Fire, timeless m ... More >>
Voice Choices
October 13, 2009Blogs
October 9, 2009--Animal Collective's Fall Be Kind EP turns out to be very real: AC's Avey Tare confirms and previews the record over at Pitchfork, where he specifies a tracklist and explains: "The vibe is a little bit darker, I'd say-- not in terms of the sound, maybe. Well, the melodies are definitely dark ... More >>
Voice Choices
September 1, 2009Voice Choices
August 25, 2009Voice Choices
August 25, 2009Local folksters have stories for days
Voice Choices
April 22, 2009Your favorite compilation is now a live show
Blogs
October 1, 2008Music
October 2, 2007Two budding stadium-rock titans salute a summer that refuses to end
Music
May 8, 2007If Springsteen is right, the glory days for Brooklyn's best rock band may lie just ahead
Blogs
March 15, 2007Music
March 6, 2007A convenient guide to the Arcade Fire press inferno
Music
February 13, 2007Joyously overwrought arena rock often sounds even better in church
Music
January 18, 2005Young indie Canadians make a life together before their own lives can tear them apart
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