20. Pinback - Summer in Abaddon (2004)
Excuse the analogy, but Pinback is like an upper-tier middle reliever in baseball: under the radar to most fans and deserving of a lot more respect. I can't believe people aren't more familiar with this band. It is, after all, some pretty accessible indie rock -- even if the lyrics are nothing to write home about. I just love their sound.
Summer in Abaddon reminds me of my junior year at ASU, walking/riding my bike to class through that sketchy neighborhood to the east of campus. Maybe the sexiness of the slinky guitars, the awesome drums, and the slightly jazzy piano helped to ease my mind. If these songs were a person, they'd be a sexy, sexy person. And I would sleep with that person. To wrap this thing up, this album is like a middle reliever that I want to have sex with. That's... what... I... think I'm trying to say here (we're off to an amazing start). Also check out their previous album
Blue Screen Life for other sweet songs like "Offline PK", "Concrete Seconds" (sooo reminds me of waiting for public transport in Portland), and perhaps their best songwriting effort, "Penelope."
Favorite Lyric:
Uh oh, I could strangle you all
Uh oh, did I say that out loud?
-- "This Little Red Book"
Top Three Tracks:
Non Photo-Blue
Syracuse
3x0
19. The Decemberists - Picaresque (2005)
Is it cliche that during the month of December I listened to a shitload of The Decemberists? You want songwriting... these guys are a bottomless pit of amazingly interesting tales. You want a song about a young Spanish princess's coronation ("The Infanta")? Check. A 9-minute tale of revenge achieved in the belly of a whale ("The Mariner's Revenge Song")? Check. A whimsical anecdote about blowing the big game ("The Sporting Life")? Check. A Cold War-infused love affair ("The Bagman's Gambit")? Quadruple check. These guys are ridiculous, and so is their subject matter on this, my favorite of their albums. Lame personal anecdote: at work at the winery I change the lyrics to the song "Eli, the Barrow Boy" to "Brandon, the Barrel Boy." An equally chilling substitution.
Favorite Lyric:
The entirety of "The Mariner's Revenge Song." Or...
Meet me on my vast veranda
My sweet untouched Miranda
-- "We Both Go Down Together"
... what other band would be crazy enough to even attempt a rhyme with the word "veranda"?! Fucking rules.
Top Three Tracks:
The Mariner's Revenge Song
We Both Go Down Together
The Sporting Life
18. matt pond PA - Emblems (2004)
Yeah, that's right... "matt pond"... no caps. Like a 21st Century e.e. cummings, if you will. Only with like 100% less sonnets. Ah, progress. Can you imagine a world today filled with sonnets? I sure don't want to, so let's talk about matt pond PA instead. This band is 1) the shit and 2) too prolific for its own good. I mean, everyone can only take the guy-wants-girl, girl-denies-guy schtick so many times. In 11 years, these guys have put out 7 full-length albums (with another one coming next year) and 12 shorter EP's. Basically, every six months something is coming from Mr. Pond and that's not always great news (2007's
Last Light sucked). And as a long-time fan I have to wonder: are they just phoning it in at this point? And how come he never seems to get the girl? Is he some closet asshole behind the nice-guy act or something? But I digress.
Emblems is matt pond PA at their best and most accessible -- a great intro to the band... as are 2002's
The Green Fury and 2005's
Several Arrows Later (my first mppa album). I guess a few years back their cover of "Champagne Supernova" made it on to a little TV show called
The O.C., which to my knowledge made not one e.e. cummings reference (not that I ever watched that shite). Suck on that, cummings! (That's what
he said?)
Favorite Lyric:
Look out
There is danger even in the simple word hello
Hiding in the reeds
You would not believe where darkness goes
-- "Closest (Look Out)"
Top Three Tracks:
Closest (Look Out)
The Butcher
Grave's Disease
17. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes (2008)
Holy hell, was 2008 a great year for indie rock debuts or what? Bon Iver, Vampire Weekend, and Fleet Foxes? Unbelievable. This record is one of my all-time favorites and, in the context of this list, is only this low because most of the other albums have had an extra 7-8 years to work their way into my heart. Fleet Foxes draw from all realms of folk -- hints of Neil Young without the feeling that you're being sung to by white trash, notes of Appalachian folk with less twang and less suck -- and their harmonizing might be some of the best since the Beach Boys. They're doing it from one of the least folky places in the country too -- metropolitan Seattle. "White Winter Hymnal" might be my favorite song in the history of mankind. Honestly, chill-inducing. This debut will forever remind me of my first wine harvest and the hour-long commute through the farms of rural Oregon. There's truly not a bad track on the album, even if "Oliver James" can get to be a bit grating. After this album and the
Sun Giant EP (which features the awesome song "Mykonos"), I can't wait to see what else these guys can put out.
Favorite Lyric:
I was following the pack
All swallowed in their coats
With scarves of red tied 'round their throats
To keep their little heads
From fallin' in the snow
And I turned 'round and there you go
And, Michael, you would fall
And turn the white snow red as strawberries
In the summertime...
-- "White Winter Hymnal"
Top Three Tracks:
White Winter Hymnal
Sun It Rises
Blue Ridge Mountains
16. Frightened Rabbit - Midnight Organ Fight (2008)
Speaking of bands that deserve some serious respect, Scotland's Frightened Rabbit fucking rock. And it's appropriate that I use the word "fucking" because that's what a lot of this album is about. Not that
Midnight Organ Fight (innuendo, or am I just a perv?) is obscene, it's just so post-awful-breakup and real life that you can't help but love it. Grant Hutchison's thundering drums and his brother, singer Scott Hutchison's undeniably Scottish brogue,
make this album -- and it's just the right amount of brogue if you ask me. Snow Patrol (though technically Northern Irish)? Not enough brogue. Twilight Sad? Way too much brogue. Frightened Rabbit? The Goldilocks of brogue. Awesome songs and witty vocals abound on this album, notably on the first track, the anthemic "Modern Leper." The album is ostensibly about Hutchison coping following a breakup, and on "Backwards Walk" when he confessedly repeats, "You're the shit and I'm knee deep in it" you can't help but want to give the poor bastard a hug. A great album (well worth the $9.99 on iTunes and a literal steal on Pirate Bay) and a pleasant musical discovery in 2008 to say the least.
Favorite Lyric:
Jesus... is just a Spanish boy's name.
How come one man got so much fame?
-- opening lines from "Head Rolls Off"
Top Three Songs:
Head Rolls Off
The Modern Leper
Fast Blood
15. Pedro the Lion - Control (2002)
I miss Pedro the Lion. I mean, I get it... singer and Pedro mastermind David Bazan has moved on to a few solo projects (Headphones) and has recently released an album under his own name... but I still miss the magic that was Pedro the Lion. There's just something incredibly captivating about someone at odds with their faith. Mainly I'm just interested to see if Bazan will turn out to be a heathen like me, but regardless this whole tortured soul business can make for some good listening indeed. On
Control however, Bazan -- sometimes labelled a "Christian" indie artist -- laments American vanity and the domestication of married life. It can come off as a bit more polished than some of his earlier work like 1998's
It's Hard to Find a Friend, which features the superb indie-pop that is "Big Trucks." Still,
Control is a great example of Bazan at his most contemplative... even if it's more regarding his country than his faith or religion.
Favorite Lyric:
The ultraviolet rays are washing over all the boys and girls
As their moms lay tanning by the pool
Oh, look, their dad's arriving home
All the children hug his neck
Unaware of their inheritance
-- "Indian Summer"
Top Three Tracks:
Indian Summer
Priests And Paramedics
Rehearsal
14. Bloc Party - Silent Alarm (2005)
Just to give a point of reference here, it was 2005 when Bloc Party's debut Silent Alarm was released. Freshman and sophomore years of college had passed and believe me I was perfectly content to let the past keep the New Found Glory, Early November, and Taking Back Sunday songs that I had so previously loved (why, god, why?). I had just gotten into some bands like the previously mentioned matt pond PA and Pedro the Lion, as well as others like The Appleseed Cast, American Football, Owen. And who could forget Garden State introducing most of the world to The Shins just the year before in 2004? And you take a look at those names and it's no secret that by and large they produce slower, introspective tunes. Then these Londoners dropped a massive bomb on my musical world. From the moment I first saw the music video for the first single "Banquet" I knew I had to get this CD. Then like a week later I heard this amazing song on a Target commercial of all things (I know, right?) and it turned out to be another fantastical (yes, fantastical) Bloc Party song called "Always New Depths" (which is unfortunately not on Silent Alarm). So I bought the album (probably at Target, that ad must have fucking worked!) and I thought to myself... what are these tasty licks? What rhythm! What joyous angular guitars! Crazy drumming! And what's this... I want to dance? I never dance, but it made me fucking want to! And that's saying one hell of a lot. Thank you Bloc Party for irreversibly altering my musical tastes (even if it's still hard as hell to actually get me to dance).
Favorite Lyric:
It's so cold
in this house!
-- "Like Eating Glass"
Top Three Tracks:
This Modern Love
Little Thoughts
So Here We Are
13. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend (2008)
I didn't like Vampire Weekend from the start. Vaguely reggae-infused, yuppie, east coast, Ivy league, indie rock that was highly regarded well before their first album dropped... I hated the whole idea. I'm not quite sure when the switch in my brain turned, but when I first arrived in Portland, this album was basically all I listened to when I walked around the neighborhood in Northwest PDX. All of the sudden I loved it all. The yuppie-ness... who in the world sings about kefir (cultured goat milk)? I was able to find kefir at the Trader Joe's around the corner from my place and I love it, by the way -- thanks, Vampire Weekend! Now I don't get a reggae vibe at all -- it just sounds like a new age Africanized-version of The Police, which is cool with me. I still occasionally pick up kefir at the New Frontiers Market here in Sedona, and I still listen to Vampire Weekend and it makes me think of those days of walking around NW Portland.
Favorite Lyric:
Walcott, fuck the women from Wellfleet
Fuck the bears out in Provincetown
Heed my words and take flight
-- "Walcott"
Top Three Tracks:
Walcott
Oxford Comma
Mansard Roof
12. Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago (2008)
What can I possibly say about Bon Iver that hasn't been said already? There's the legendary status of this album being basically recorded by singer Justin Vernon, alone in the Wisconsin woods. It was easily my favorite album last year. "Skinny Love" was probably tied or a close second to Fleet Foxes "White Winter Hymnal" for my favorite song of the year. In just one year I've literally listened to For Emma, Forever Ago to death on two CD's (and recently had my original gladly stolen by a coworker), I have it on iTunes on two different computers, and now I own it on vinyl. As a matter of fact, it's my favorite album released in the last five years. It's a haunting record, ideal for winter-time listening and it's another one that will forever remind me of driving up Germantown Road northwest of Portland on my way out to my first wine harvest. When I saw them perform in September this year (third row!), it was one of those rare moments that you build up in your head that can't possibly live up to expectation, but then it actually does. I actually drove to Mesa for just a couple of hours in the middle of a wine harvest (70+ hour work weeks) just for the chance to see these guys. And if you want to get really sentimental: my obsession has extended to the point that when I wear flannel, Blake says I look like Justin Vernon with my beard. Yikes, I swear it must be subconscious. I can't issue enough superlatives about this album. And nothing I could write would ever convey the true beauty of this debut album. If you haven't heard the whole album, I have two questions for you: 1. What rock have you been living under? And 2. What in the hell are you waiting for already? This one's an instant classic.
Favorite Lyric:
And I told you to be patient
And I told you to be fine
And I told you to be balanced
And I told you to be kind
And in the morning I'll be with you
But it will be a different kind
And I'll be holding all the tickets
And you'll be owning all the fines
-- "Skinny Love"
Top Three Tracks:
Skinny Love
For Emma
Flume
11. Coldplay - A Rush of Blood to the Head (2002)
Back before Coldplay ruled the world, they were just the next little 4-piece from some island off of mainland Europe. Back then in 2002, Chris Martin had yet to marry Gwyneth Paltrow and Coldplay as a band had yet to try their hand at selling out, copying U2, and/or
generally sucking. Not to say that they were little-known by the time
A Rush of Blood to the Head came out, but they were still the little band that could -- on their own, at that. I still remember the first time I heard "In My Place"... in a Roman hotel room with my family. At that time I was already in love with Coldplay from their first album
Parachutes, but I'd have to wait for this new album to arrive back home in the US. And what a second album it was.
A Rush of Blood to the Head was a tremendous success both commercially and in my own mind. The pinnacle: "Clocks" won record of the year at the Grammy's. The little band that could had hit the big time (in retrospect, perhaps for the worse). All told,
AROBTTH is a great album by any means -- littered not with "could be" singles, but bona fide ones that have been lauded the world over. Following this album, it's basically taken the band 6 years to put out a decent album (
Viva la Vida) and even that one was just that: decent. From a band that's gone from amazing (
Parachutes), to exceptional (
A Rush of Blood to the Head)... to bad (
X&Y) to just decent? I'm glad to see they might be back on the right track, but will I really care the next time Chris Martin muses falsetto about his amazing life, married to a beautiful American actress? How many of us can really relate...?
So this was more of a diatribe on Coldplay, but
Rush of Blood is still pretty good :)
Favorite Lyric:
Nobody said it was easy
Oh it's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be so hard
I'm going back to the start
-- "The Scientist"
Top Three Tracks:
The Scientist
Warning Sign
Green Eyes
10. The Shins - Oh, Inverted World (2001)
Far and away the coolest thing to ever originate from New Mexico -- not that that's saying a whole lot. I really wish I could claim that I knew about The Shins before Garden State, but I didn't. And that's ok, becuase I will literally do
anything Natalie Portman says... so when she told the world that "this song will change your life," I knew I couldn't doubt her (look at that face... could she lie?). "New Slang" and "Caring Is Creepy" are modern classics. "One By One All Day," "The Celibate Life," "Girl on the Wing" and "Girl Inform Me" are sunny, retro-influenced indie pop at its finest. And this album is The Shins at their best. For the first-time listener, it must be hard to believe this came out in 2001. These guys seem like they're from another time.
Favorite Lyric:
I'm looking in on the good life I might be doomed never to find.
Without a trust or flaming fields am I too dumb to refine?
And if you'd 'a took to me like
Well I'd a danced like the queen of the eyesores
And the rest of our lives would 'a fared well.
-- "New Slang"
Top Three Tracks:
New Slang
Caring Is Creepy
Girl Inform Me
9. Wolf Parade - Apologies to the Queen Mary (2005)
Don't look now Seattle, but Montreal has been putting out some of the best music over the last decade. And I would say from the past decade, Montreal's Wolf Parade have without a doubt put out the best pure
rock album. If I were giving these albums a rating out of 10,
Apologies to the Queen Mary might score in the top 3 -- there are just too many other "favorite" albums that I get nostalgic about and that stand in the way of ranking it any higher in this list. There's not a single bad track on here -- one of the rare albums where I never have to skip a song. Strangely this album reminds me of San Diego... on one memorable trip there I drove Nick, Phil, and Blake around town and to the beach and I basically played this CD non-stop.Not exactly a beach CD though... what with the singing about ghosts and zombies and all. Plus, how many bands can sing about a zombie invasion ("It's A Curse") and not make it sound downright awful?
Au contraire, it makes for one of the best songs on the album. Spencer Krug and Dan Boeckner must be two of the best frontmen in all of indie rock... and they're in the same band. Did your mind just explode? Well, my pants did. Check out their respective side projects Sunset Rubdown and Handsome Furs for more musical awesomeness.
Favorite Lyric:
I said nobody knows you
And nobody gives a damn either way
About your blood, your bones
Your voice, and your ghost
Because nobody knows you
And nobody gives a damn either way
-- "I'll Believe In Anything"
Top Three Tracks:
Shine A Light
I'll Believe in Anything
This Heart's On Fire
8. Iron & Wine - Our Endless Numbered Days (2004)
Now we get to the really nostalgic stuff! Iron & Wine is another one of those bands I just didn't get off on the right foot with. Really it was their cover of "Such Great Heights" which appeared on the aforementioned Garden State Soundtrack in lieu of the original beloved Postal Service version. I hated it. Man, was it sloooow? And this fucking guy was whispering... into what sounded like some kind of a tin can with a recording device on it? Then I discovered this was called "lo-fi" and eventually ended up buying a couple of Mr. Sam Beam's records. I don't really know that I ever fell in love with Our Endless Numbered Days until I was relocating to Portland in mid-2008. One morning I woke up in my San Luis Obispo hotel and headed up the coast to Morro Bay -- and just outside SLO there are tons of these rolling hills and really beautiful vineyards. There was something about the natural beauty, the finger-plucked guitar, and Beam's hushed voice that was just perfect. I think about that moment a lot... even considering a potential move to SLO within the next two years. It's a little funny to mention nostalgia alongside an album that I've only been listening to for such a short while, but Our Endless Numbered Days has such a natural and intimate sound that it feels like I've had it lying around forever. Definitely my favorite folk album.
Favorite Lyric:
Love is a dress that you made
Long to hide your knees
Love to say this to your face
I'll love you only
For your days and excitement
What will you keep for to wear?
Someday drawing you different
May I be weaved in your hair?
-- "Love and Some Verses"
Top Three Tracks:
Love and Some Verses
Naked As We Came
Sodom, South Georgia
7. Death Cab for Cutie - The Photo Album (2001)
The possibility exists that next decade I'll look back and shun Death Cab the way I currently shun the music I listened to in high school. The boyish voice of Ben Gibbard, the emotive lyrics, the appearance on the new Twilight Soundtrack (and the assumed increased swooning of teenage girls). All the signs are there for a good shunning, but I doubt it. Death Cab will forever hold a special place in my heart. Why? For starters I don't think I listened to any other band more in college... nay, possibly my life. Maybe it's because they're just so damn easy to relate to. Who hasn't lived through a regretful breakup ("We Laugh Indoors")? Who hasn't been confronted with having to take in your ex's new life ("Why You'd Want To Live Here")? Maybe it's because there's just a bunch of plain catchy songs on here. Revisit "Blacking Out The Friction" and just try not to tap your foot on the ground (note: foot-tapping not advisable in a D.C.-area men's restroom).
Favorite Lyric:
I don't mind the weather
I've got scarves and caps and sweaters
I've got long johns under slacks for blustery days
I think that it's brainless
To assume that making changes
To your window's view
Will give a new perspective
-- "Blacking Out the Friction"
Top Three Tracks:
Blacking Out the Friction
Why You'd Want To Live Here
A Movie Script Ending
6. Owen - Owen (2001)
Owen (Mike Kinsella) is one of my all-time personal favorites and another artist that I wish more people knew about and appreciated. Just so that I could have someone to talk with about how incredible this music really is. An album that has such a calming effect that I used to put on before bed-time back in sophomore and junior years of college. Truthfully this album as well as American Football's self-titled 1999 release (another Kinsella-voiced band) helped get me through a pretty tough stretch in college. It was the semester I was scheduled to take the LSAT... my then-girlfriend and I broke up... then the apartment I shared with Michael was involved in a fire that put two students in the hospital... the building was condemned and we had to move back in with our families. I was scheduled to take the LSAT two weeks later, but instead put it on hold indefinitely (and still haven't taken it to this day). I was too stressed to take a life-determining test in that kind of a mental state. At that time, I just needed someone to let me feel sorry for myself or at least something to relate to. I remember studying my ass off in the stacks at Hayden Library for hours listening to this album. And then magically at the end of that semester I posted my highest ever GPA! Since then I've been a fan of Owen and all things Mike Kinsella. His next two albums,
No Good For No One Now and
I Do Perceive, are a little more upbeat and are both standouts in their own right.
Favorite Lyric:
I've a picture of you:
A Parisian street
Early morning
Late spring
And I know what you were thinking
You were taking a break from life
You were traveling light
(A pair of walking shoes
and a sweater)
You were where you were when
You pictured where you'd be:
Anywhere but home
Top Three Tracks:
Places To Go
Most Days and
Most Nights
5. Modest Mouse - The Moon and Antarctica (2000)
Musical genius! Backwards drums?! WTF? Are we still on planet Earth? If you're listening to
The Moon & Antarctica by Modest Mouse then just barely, my friend. Song titles like "3rd Planet", "Gravity Rides Everything", "Dark Center of the Universe" and "The Stars Are Projectors" do nothing to discourage classifying this album as other-worldly. It's just as well, really... musical talent, lyrical wisdom, general badassery... there aren't many people on Earth that could touch Modest Mouse and lead singer Isaac Brock in any of these categories. I fucking love these guys. And I get so blindsided that I can't conjure up any words less generic than "amazing", "brilliant", or "awesome" to better describe this album. Although in my case at least, it literally does inspire awe. And that's a rarity :)
Favorite Lyric:
These walls are paper thin
And everyone hears every little sound
Everyone's a voyeur as
They're watching me watch them watch me right now
-- "Paper Thin Walls"
Top Three Tracks:
3rd Planet
Paper Thin Walls
Gravity Rides Everything
4. The Postal Service - Give Up (2003)
It's almost 2010 and by now everyone and their grandma has heard at least one Postal Service song (assuming your grandma owns a television set). It's true, I'm thinking mostly of those UPS commercials that utilize "Such Great Heights" in the background. You know, the ones that after years
still seem to come on every other commercial break with the smug asshole and the dry-erase board? Ah, you know it. Wait, why are The Postal Service and UPS joining forces? Aren't they like, rivals or some shit? So you'd think. Turns out Mr. Zooey Deschanel in Washington and some techno dude (Jimmy Tamborello from Dntel) on the east coast got together and decided it would be a great idea to mail each other demos across the country as a way of developing a joint album. And they probably went "We'll call ourselves The Postal Service! GET IT?!" And they laughed and laughed and slapped their knees all the way to those UPS commercials! That's what they did. And then you know what those selfish pricks did after that? They quit making music together. And now we're left with some awful knock-off band called Owl City. Fuck you, Owl City. Fuck you straight to hell. (Seriously have you heard that shit? It's the definition of awful.)
Favorite Lyric:
You seem so out of context
In this gaudy apartment complex
A stranger with your door key
Explaining that I'm just visiting
And I am finally seeing
Why I was the one worth leaving
-- "The District Sleeps Alone Tonight"
Top Three Tracks:
Sleeping In
The District Sleeps Alone Tonight
We Will Become Silhouettes
3. Death Cab for Cutie - Transatlanticism (2003)
Mr. Zooey Deschanel strikes again! What a lucky bastard Ben Gibbard is. I don't really fancy myself the jealous type, but I've literally never been more jealous of anyone for any single thing than him and the fact that he gets to be married to her -- and that whole super-succesful musician thing. On the flip side, way to lock it up, buddy. Things weren't always so rosy for the Death Cab frontman though. For example the album's title track (all 8 minutes of it) epically details a failing long-distance relationship. For me, this album is just a great case of being a new release that, at that time, ended up as the perfect soundtrack to my life (way too many "distance" relationships for any normal college student, in retrospect). I still vividly remember sitting in my freshman-year dorm watching the music videos for "The New Year" and "Sound of Settling" on MTVu! Man, whatever happened to music videos? Well, "
Title and Registration" is a pretty great one as far as indie rock music videos go. One of my longtime favorite bands and arguably their best album.
Favorite Lyric:
And when I see you
I really see you upside down
But my brain knows better
It picks you up and turns you around
Turns you around
-- "A Lack of Color"
Top Three Tracks:
Title and Registration
The New Year
A Lack of Color
2. Coldplay - Parachutes (2000)
I'm not gonna lie, at first it feels a little weird putting a world-success like Coldplay on a list replete with indie acts, but back at the beginning of the decade even Coldplay were relative unknowns stateside. I can recall seeing the music video for "Yellow" for the first time super late at night on one of the music channels. I can remember putting it on my Christmas list that year. And I can remember being thrilled to see Parachutes under the wrapping when I opened that present on Christmas morning. Getting a new album seems much less of an "occassion" these days, doesn't it? I can vaguely remember Parachutes being one of the first CD's on rotation in my car when I first got my Civic. Things were so much easier then. And that's why I like this album -- a reminder of an easier time. But it's funny what time will do: sometimes when I go back and listen to Parachutes I find the singles "Yellow" and "Spies" borderline annoying (probably because we've heard them a million times now) and take much greater pleasure in songs like "Sparks", "Shiver" and the lesser-touted "We Never Change." In some ways I guess you could say that for me the album is comparable to a fine wine, evolving over the years yet still standing the test of time. Parachutes is Coldplay at their absolute best; pre-headlines, pre-U2-sounding-guitar comparisons, and pre-weight-of-the-world expectations. That's how I like to think of the band anyway.
Favorite Lyric:
So, I wanna live in a wooden house
Where making more friends would be easy
I wanna live where the sun comes out
-- "We Never Change"
Top Three Tracks:
Shiver
Don't Panic
Sparks
1. Arcade Fire - Funeral (2004)
It's hard to come up with a review that would be halfway decent enough to do justice to the greatness that is Arcade Fire's Funeral... and I'm still not certain that's something I can accomplish. Funeral is an album that is nothing if not epic. Add on to that the band's dramatic flair and I could see where some people might think this album is a little over the top. In my humble opinion, Arcade Fire's songwriting formula (notably the song-ending, goosebump-inducing crescendo into awesomeness) is what make them a hit. There's also a bit of a story behind this, their debut album. Mainly that it was recorded shortly after the deaths of three of the band's family members... so you can well imagine that Funeral is a bit of an emotional album.
There's truly not a bad track on the album. If Fleet Foxes' "White Winter Hymnal" isn't my favorite song in the world, then it has to be Funeral's opening track, "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)." At this point I'm fairly certain the album's second song is about Chris "Alex" McCandless from Into the Wild -- a theory that does nothing to assuage my love of the band or this album. Overall there were, technically speaking, three other singles released from Funeral (Neighborhood #3, Wake Up, and Rebellion), but if you were to ask me I wouldn't be surprised if all 10 were to receive commercial success. Just for good measure Arcade Fire switch it up near the end of the album when lead singer Win Butler's wife and fellow band member, Régine Chassagne, sings on both "Haiti" and the album's closer "In the Backseat." Oh, and she's not too shabby either.
It's an album about things universally human; whether it be growing up, getting older, or dealing with loss. And while funerals can be particularly sad affairs, there's something uplifting about this one.
Favorite Lyric:
With my lightning bolts a-glowin'
I can see where I am going
With my lightning bolts a-glowin'
I can see where I am going
You better look out below!
-- "Wake Up"
Top Three Tracks:
Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)
Wake Up
Neighborhood #2 (Laika)
