Trystan's Best #1: Arcade Fire - Funeral

Released: September 14th, 2004

I was going to pick Radiohead like everyone else... but then I remembered that they suck and I hate them... anyway, back to professionalism...

The best way to sum up Arcade Fire's seminal album, Funeral, is in a Jeopardy-like fashion. What is the album that made the Canadian alternative music scene a real player on the international stage? What is the album that created a style that was endlessly emulate for the remainder of the decade? What is the band that started the aging-stars-playing-with-the-hip-new-kids trend? (David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen, etc.) Of course, all of this impact on the cultural world resonated from the music. Beautiful, powerful music by an orchestra of starry-eyed believers. Funeral is an emotional rebirth of a musical experience, uncontrived and shameless and without the slightest shred of indie pretense. Beauty. Art. Rock'n'roll. Perfection.