Funeral (album)

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Funeral
ArcadeFireFuneralCover.jpg
Studio album by Arcade Fire
Released September 14, 2004 (2004-09-14)
Recorded August 2003 – early 2004
Studio Hotel2Tango (Montreal, Quebec)
Genre Indie rock, baroque pop, art rock
Length 48:02
Label Merge, Rough Trade
Producer Arcade Fire
Arcade Fire chronology
Arcade Fire
(2003)Arcade Fire2003		 Funeral
(2004)		 Neon Bible
(2007)Neon Bible2007
Singles from Funeral
  1. "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)"
    Released: June 20, 2004
  2. "Neighborhood #2 (Laïka)"
    Released: March 28, 2005
  3. "Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)"
    Released: May 23, 2005
  4. "Rebellion (Lies)"
    Released: September 12, 2005
  5. "Wake Up"
    Released: November 14, 2005

Funeral is the debut studio album by the Canadian indie rock band Arcade Fire, released on September 14, 2004 in North America by Merge Records and on February 28, 2005 in Europe by Rough Trade Records. It was given its title because several band members had recently lost members of their families: Régine Chassagne's grandmother died in June 2003, Win and William Butler's grandfather (swing musician Alvino Rey) in February 2004, and Richard Reed Parry's aunt in April 2004.[1]

Preliminary recordings for Funeral were made during the course of a week in August 2003 at the Hotel2Tango in Montreal, Quebec, and the recording was completed later that year all in an analogue recording format.

The album produced five singles. The most successful, "Rebellion (Lies)", peaked at #19 on the UK Singles Chart. The album was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2005 for Best Alternative Music Album. It received wide critical acclaim and topped many year-end and decade-end lists. According to the website Metacritic, the album had the second most appearances on end-of-decade Top 10 lists, only behind Radiohead's Kid A.[2] In the updated version of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, it was ranked at #151.

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source Rating
Metacritic 90/100[3]
Review scores
Source Rating
AllMusic 5/5 stars[4]
Blender 5/5 stars[5]
Entertainment Weekly B+[6]
The Guardian 5/5 stars[7]
Mojo 4/5 stars[8]
NME 9/10[9]
Pitchfork Media 9.7/10[1]
Q 4.5/5 stars[10]
Rolling Stone 4/5 stars[11]
The Village Voice A−[12]

Funeral received universal acclaim from music critics, and is commonly hailed as a modern classic. At Metacritic, the album has received an average score of 90, based on 33 reviews. It is put at one of the top 100 albums on Metacritic's list of highest scored albums of all time.[13] AllMusic reviewer James Christopher Monger gave the album a rating of five stars out of five. He described it as "brave, empowering, and dusted with something that many of the indie-rock genre's more contrived acts desperately lack: an element of real danger."[14] Rock critic Robert Christgau gave the album an A−, saying that Funeral was "...too fond of drama, but aware of its small place in the big world, and usually beautiful."[15] Pitchfork Media gave the album a 9.7 out of 10 rating, and ultimately ranked the album #2 on their Top 200 Albums of the 2000s list, after Radiohead's Kid A.[16] Kludge called it a "glorious" debut album, in which Arcade Fire spins "elaborate art-rock full of passion and atmosphere."[17]

Drowned in Sound also highly praised Funeral. Reviewer Jesus Chigley called the album "...empowering and hopeful and euphoric all at once", saying that "it says everything there is to say about mortality and it does it in 10 tracks."[18] Stylus's Josh Drimmer gave Funeral an A, calling it "celebratory, emotionally rich and life-affirming".[19] Tiny Mix Tapes gave the album five stars out of five; "Funeral," the reviewer wrote, "is like nothing you've heard before, and altogether familiar."[20] Reviewing the album in February 2005, Dave Simpson of The Guardian called it "one of the year's best already, by a mile."[21] Zeth Lundy of PopMatters complimented Funeral on its eccentricity, calling it "bizarre at turns and recognizable elsewhere, equally beautiful and harrowing, theatrical and sincere, defying categorization while attempting to create new genres."[22] Entertainment Weekly put it on its end-of-the-decade "best-of" list, saying, "Funerals are generally somber affairs, but the Canadian indie rockers' emotionally charged 2004 debut mostly just made us smile. And, okay, mist up a little."[23]

The album was also listed in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

The album is certified Gold by the Record Industry Association of America for over 500,000 copies sold in the US.[24]

Accolades

Publication Country Accolade Year Rank
Consequence of Sound US Top Albums of the 2000s[25] 2009 2
LAS Magazine US Albums of the decade[26] 2009 1
Mojo UK The 100 Greatest Albums of Our Lifetime 1993-2006[27] 2006 60
NME UK The 100 Greatest Albums of the 2000s[28] 2009 7
Paste US Top 50 Albums of the 2000s[29] 2009 3
Pitchfork US Top 200 Albums of the 2000s[30] 2009 2
Rolling Stone US Top 100 Albums of the 2000s[31] 2009 6
Rolling Stone US 500 Greatest Albums of All Time[32] 2012 151
Slant Magazine US Top 250 Albums of the 2000s[33] 2010 4
Spin US 125 Best Albums of the Past 25 Years[34] 2010 66
Under the Radar US Top 200 Albums of the Decade[35] 2009 1
Q UK 250 Best Albums of Q's Lifetime[36] 2011 19
NME UK The 500 Greatest Albums of the All Time[37] 2013 13
CBC Music CAN 100 Greatest Canadian Albums of the All Time[38] 2013 4
Popmatters US 100 Best Albums of the 2000s[39] 2014 3

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Arcade Fire, with help from Josh Deu on tracks 1 and 4. 

No. Title Length
1. "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)"   4:48
2. "Neighborhood #2 (Laïka)"   3:33
3. "Une année sans lumière"   3:40
4. "Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)"   5:12
5. "Neighborhood #4 (7 Kettles)"   4:49
6. "Crown of Love"   4:42
7. "Wake Up"   5:39
8. "Haïti"   4:07
9. "Rebellion (Lies)"   5:10
10. "In the Backseat"   6:21
Bonus disc (Japan only)
No. Title Writer(s) Length
1. "My Buddy" (Alvino Rey Orchestra)   2:35
2. "Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)" (August Session) Arcade Fire 5:35
3. "Brazil"   Ary Barroso 3:56
4. "Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)" (Live at the Great American Music Hall) Arcade Fire 5:57

Personnel

Arcade Fire

Additional musicians

Production

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  12. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  13. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  16. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  17. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  18. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  19. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  20. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  21. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  22. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  23. ↑ Geier, Thom; Jensen, Jeff; Jordan, Tina; Lyons, Margaret; Markovitz, Adam; Nashawaty, Chris; Pastorek, Whitney; Rice, Lynette; Rottenberg, Josh; Schwartz, Missy; Slezak, Michael; Snierson, Dan; Stack, Tim; Stroup, Kate; Tucker, Ken; Vary, Adam B.; Vozick-Levinson, Simon; Ward, Kate (December 11, 2009), "THE 100 Greatest MOVIES, TV SHOWS, ALBUMS, BOOKS, CHARACTERS, SCENES, EPISODES, SONGS, DRESSES, MUSIC VIDEOS, AND TRENDS THAT ENTERTAINED US OVER THE PAST 10 YEARS". Entertainment Weekly. (1079/1080):74-84
  24. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  25. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  26. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  27. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  28. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  29. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  30. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  31. ↑ [1]
  32. ↑ [2]
  33. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  34. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  35. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  36. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  37. ↑ http://www.nme.com/photos/the-500-greatest-albums-of-all-time-100-1/324644/1/1#88
  38. ↑ http://music.cbc.ca/#/blogs/2013/7/100-greatest-Canadian-albums-ever
  39. ↑ http://www.popmatters.com/feature/186499-the-100-best-albums-of-the-00s-20-1/P3/

Further reading

  • Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

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