Remember Arcade Fire's brilliant video for "The Suburbs", directed by Spike Jonze? I'm sure I'm not the only one who found the cryptic storyline fascinating.
Well, it seems that the video was actually a bit of a preview for a short film that Jonze and the band worked on together. The film is set to premiere at SXSW this week, and a trailer has just been released.
It looks like all the same footage from the video, but with dialogue that will help make sense of the music video's vague storyline. I can't wait to see the whole thing.
Apparently the rest of the world was upset that Arcade Fire won the Grammy for Album of the Year. Furthermore, many people had no clue who Arcade Fire was.
This took me by surprise, because I figured Arcade Fire was well-known enough to warrant some true props from everyone. But I guess it's just because I'm Canadian, like them, that I figured they were a big deal, and the rest of the world was upset.
I mean, I remember being very upset when Santana beat the Backstreet Boys. I was rooting for my fave pop band and had no idea who this Santana guy was, even though he is kind of a big deal. So, put in today's terms, Beliebers and Little Monsters would be pissed that this indie Canadian band stole their thunder.
Anyway, I'm really happy for Arcade Fire. I love them, The Suburbs is an awesome album, and they deserved it.
And that brings us to this funny PSA about Arcade Fire. Basically, if you don't know who they are, hipsters will murder you.
With 4 days left in 2010, it's time to count down my 10 favourite albums of the year. Please keep in mind, this is not intended to be a "best of" list. These are the albums that impressed me the most and that got regular play on my iPhone. Check back every day at 6 PM ET for to see who made my playlist.
4. ARCADE FIRE - THE SUBURBS
Now that they’ve conquered the music world, it seems Win Butler and company have to deal with being musical “grown-ups”. Using the idea of growing up and moving to the suburbs as a metaphor for their success, there’s the constant theme of adjusting to the next phase of their lives and careers, while reminiscing about their youth ("We Used To Wait") or realizing how misguiding today's youth is ("Rococo")
Yet, it’s not as depressing as it sounds. There’s a nugget of optimism buried deep in their lyrics as they look forward to bigger and better things.
The Arcade Fire got some help from visionary director Spike Jonze to helm their latest video "The Suburbs" and I'm just a little confused.
The video starts off very reminiscent of "1979" by The Smashing Pumpkins. It features a group of teens in some cardboard cut-out suburbia doing bored teenage things with lots of bike riding and lots of bromance going on. Except it seems they're living in some police state, with tanks and helicopters and guns all over the place.
Then, things take a turn for the worse when one guy's family gets raided by the army, which, I'm guessing, causes a rift between him and his BFF, who then rages out on him.
And that's what I don't understand...what exactly did the army find? Is this some kind of dystopian future where a certain class of people are second-class citizens? Was the Dude No. 1 some kind of undercover spy or terrorist?
My first thought was this was some kind of nightmare vision of the current gay rights struggle going on in the States - I mean, all that hand holding and those brief glances between the two BFFs were pretty intense. But, then I thought "God, not EVERYTHING has to be gay!" But I still can't shake that theory.
Either way, it's a great video that actually tells a story, so it's worth a watch. What are your thoughts?
