While recapping the 53rd annual Grammy Awards, Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb had a humorous exchange on
NBC’s The Today Show about Arcade Fire, the Montreal-based indie-rock outfit who were the surprise winners of
the night’s biggest award for Album of the Year.
First up was Kotb.
“Who won for Best Album? OK wait. What was it? Who was it, what, Acadier? What is it? Arcade Fire!” she
finally said.
Her co-host Gifford seemed to be equally clueless about the band, whose triumph this past February marked
their first Grammy award.
“That’s not a good thing when you have a fire in an arcade but I guess in their case it’s good, right?” she
said.
“I don’t even know who they are,” she concluded.
But it wasn’t just media pundits who were shocked at the choice. Social media platforms were abuzz with
comments of disbelief after Arcade Fire won the biggest award in the music industry for their third album
entitled The Suburbs.
Twitter and Facebook lit up with comments from people who clearly couldn’t spell the band’s name, with
attempts ranging from arcade fries to arcade flyer to arcadia fire. It seemed that a large swath of the
population simply couldn’t fathom how an indie-rock band out of Canada could beat out mainstream music giants
like Lady Gaga, Eminem, Lady Antebellum and Katy Perry, the remaining nominees in the category.
Many people were asking the same question: Just who are these guys?
First of all, by the numbers, they should be considered a Canadian band. While band leader Win Butler and his
brother Will are originally from Texas, the rest of the seven-piece outfit are Canadian, hailing from
Montreal, Ottawa, Guelph and Vancouver. The group came about when Win moved to Montreal to study at McGill
University in 2000. It was there that he fell in love, twice.
Not only did he meet, fall in love with and marry fellow band-member Régine Chassagne, a French-Canadian born
and raised on Montreal’s south shore, but he also fell in love with the city itself. Win and his bandmates
found creative inspiration in the eclectic streets of the artsy Mile End neighbourhood, from their unique
coffee shops to their world-renowned bagels.
“There’s such a beautiful art scene and music and dance, and a lot of creative forces there,” Win said of
Montreal after his band won the Grammy, according to BuzzSugar.com. “So I think everything our band is kind
of came from that city.”
Arcade Fire have been performing their unique brand of rock since 2001 but really began making a name for
themselves with the 2004 release of their debut album, Funeral. They perform on stage with a cornucopia of
instruments including violins, xylophones, French horns, accordions, harps and even something called a
hurdy-gurdy, a violin-like instrument played by turning a crank. In a musical climate that Win refers to as
the “age of the single,” he was quick to defend the creation of records, where each song is meticulously
prepared.
“This award is for our record,” he said after the win. “And we really believe in records, records have really
changed our lives, music has changed each of our lives so when we make a record we really put all of our soul
into it. We work so hard.”
With four of the seven members providing vocals, constant instrument switches between them during sets and a
veritable party atmosphere on stage, Arcade Fire have become known as one of the best live shows around, most
recently evidenced by back-to-back sold-out headlining gigs at the iconic Madison Square Garden in New York
City, one of which was streamed online free of charge to almost two million viewers. With David Bowie
describing them as “fantastic” and some music critics putting them in the same category as Nirvana and
Radiohead, the band clearly has the attention and respect of those who recognize good music when they hear
it.
So despite all the shock, maybe Arcade Fire’s win should not have come as much of a surprise. And upon closer
inspection, the band had been building towards such success. You could almost feel it coming.
Their 2004 debut Funeral and their 2007 sophomore offering Neon Bible both picked up Grammy nominations in
the Best Alternative Music Album category. Both albums were also nominated at the Brit Awards, the U.K.
equivalent of the Grammys. With the momentum on its side, The Suburbs was poised for a breakthrough. And
that’s what it did.
Two days after the Grammys, the album won Best International Album at the Brit Awards, followed by a win at
the NME Awards for Best Album a week later. Not too shabby.
In fact, of the seven major music award shows, Arcade Fire have had 30 nominations and 11 wins in six years.
So no matter what people want to believe, this win did not come out of left field. Rather, it could be seen
as a vindication for three critically acclaimed albums and one of the best live shows around.
While many were left scratching their heads after the win, others were just plain critical of the choice.
Steve Stoute, a powerful music executive best known for turning rapper Nas into a commercial success, paid
$40,000 to take out a full-page ad in The New York Times lambasting the Grammys for overlooking commercial
successes like Eminem and Justin Bieber. While Grammy winners are chosen based on the quality of the music
and not on record sales, Stoute made clear that the latter should still count. As an example, he brought up
U.S. rockers Steely Dan, who beat out Eminem for Album of the Year back in 2001.
“Not only is Eminem the best-selling artist of the last decade, but The Marshall Mathers LP was a critical
and commercial success that sold over 10 million albums in the United States (19 million worldwide), while
Steely Dan sold less than 10% of that amount,” he wrote.
But the band was quick to defend itself against Stoute. Scott Rodger, the band’s manager, fired back in an
open letter of his own.
“Arcade Fire deserved the win this year,” he wrote. “They made the best album. If the award was named ‘Album
Sales of the Year’ award, there would be no discussion.”
And he’s right. According to hitsdailydouble.com, which tracks and updates album sales on a weekly basis, The
Suburbs was far behind the rest. At the time of writing, the website, which lists the top 50 bestsellers, had
Lady Antebellum listed 12th, Eminem 14th, Katy Perry 17th and Lady Gaga 34th. Arcade Fire was nowhere to be
found on the list.
Rodger, adding that he was proud of the band he manages and what they have accomplished, continued to defend
the selection.
“Arcade Fire are now one of the biggest live acts in the world,” he wrote. “It’s not all about record sales.
It’s about making great records and it’s about building a loyal fan base.”
It should be mentioned that some people watched the Grammys and simply felt that a great album and a great
band were given their due. For this contingent, the Arcade Fire win signalled a return to rewarding music as
an art form and represented a much-welcomed break from Taylor Swift and the Dixie Chicks. It was also a
victory for independent music as a whole as the band was the only nominee not signed to a major record
label.
It is clear that Arcade Fire does things their way and on their own terms. One of these things turned out to
be one of the coolest features on the web in a long time. The band released an online interactive music video
using the Google Chrome browser, Google Maps and the brand-new HTML5 technology. Entitled The Wilderness
Downtown, fans visit the site, enter their childhood address and watch the music video take place where they
grew up, with the main character snaking around their childhood streets. The video is set to “We Used to
Wait” from The Suburbs.
Arcade Fire, who sing in French as well as English, were the last performers of the night at the Grammys and
played “Month of May” before being awarded the final prize of the evening. Looking shocked, humbled and giddy
all at the same time, Chassagne gave a shout-out to the city that in many ways created Arcade Fire.
“Merci Montréal! Merci tout le monde au Québec,” she said.
“Thank you,” said her husband Win. “We’re gonna go play another song because we like music.”
And that’s what they did, closing out the show with “Ready to Start.” Despite what people may think or
realize, Arcade Fire have been ready to start for quite some time. And if you’re a Canadian music fan, three
words sum it up.
Merci a vous. •
Arcade Fire photo by Eric Kayne (above)
