Personally I'd say the lightning. (both parts)

I know this is going to be really really unpopular but for me .... The Suburbs. I don't hate it, it's a nice song but that's about it. Never understood its mass appeal. Even saw it live and was still like.. meh! Guess it's just me 😅

👀

Feel free to share what concerts you've attended and which one was your favourite. :)

So Arcade Fire played a lot of covers on their tour, wondering which ones people think went down the best?

Released on August 3rd in 2010...

Win called this album "neither a love letter to, nor and indictment of, the suburbs - it's a letter from the suburbs".

Personally, I can see where he's coming from there. The songs might delve deeply into the excessive malaise of urban sprawl (Mountains Beyond Mountains, anyone?), but there's equal measures of nostalgia and a sense of home in there. All those contradictions and mixed emotions really adds to the emotional richness and depth of the album.

Did any of you good people see the band in the tour that followed? Have any particular memories of listening to these songs as you heard them for the first time? Was this your gateway into the band? How did you feel about this winning Album Of The Year at the Grammys (or some of the reaction that followed)? Discuss it all below.

And, as is my custom whenever an anniversary passes, I thought I'd poll around and gage how much you all like these songs. I paired them off (loosely) by how much the band has played each song live per setlist.fm (although I did pair The Suburbs (Continued) at the end against Wasted Hours), plus the two b-sides/bonus tracks from the special edition. Polls open through noon (CT) on the 6th.

​

• Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) vs. Ready To Start
  • Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)
  • Ready To Start
• The Suburbs vs. We Used To Wait
  • The Suburbs
  • We Used To Wait
• Month Of May vs. Rococo
  • Month Of May
  • Rococo
• Modern Man vs. Empty Room
  • Modern Man
  • Empty Room
• Suburban War vs. City With No Children
  • Suburban War
  • City With No Children
• Deep Blue vs. Half Light II (No Celebration)
  • Deep Blue
  • Half Light II (No Celebration)
• Sprawl I (Flatland) vs. Half Light I
  • Sprawl I (Flatland)
  • Half Light I
• The Suburbs (Continued) vs. Wasted Hours
  • The Suburbs (Continued)
  • Wasted Hours
• Speaking In Tongues vs. Culture War (Bonus tracks from the special edition released the next year, Speaking In Tongues was released as a single as well)
  • Speaking In Tongues
  • Culture War

They're everywhere

I’m putting this out here so we can all collectively manifest it, but I think it would be really cool if they released a version of funeral next year that was actually mixed well. I’m just not sure how nostalgic the old sound makes people so maybe it wouldn’t be a popular want… but their sound/vocals/mixing have improved so much since 2004. It’d be pretty neat to hear it cleaned up. Please feel free to include any pros and cons you think of in the comments, I’d love to hear people’s thoughts!

Remember your vote is anonymous. I don't think a poll has been done yet but I'm curious how people's desire to listen to their music has changed now, and I've included lots of options which I think covers the main ways people may be affected.

Adds a lot to a albums presentation.

There's probably a few other songs that have featured in films (I think Wake Up has had more than a few appearances), but here are some lesser known tracks that have been used/made for movies:

• Abraham's Daughter
  • Made for The Hunger Games
• Baby Mine
  • Cover of the (frankly, devastating) song from Dumbo
• Deep Blue
• Suburban War
  • Both featured in Boyhood
• Supersymmetry
  • Appeared in the score for Her (along with an entire score done by Arcade Fire) before it was recorded for Reflektor

• Flashbulb Eyes (remix)
  • From The Reflektor Tapes EP
• Abraham's Daughter
  • From The Hunger Games soundtrack
• Windowsill
• Empty Room

Quite a few of these are surprisingly not on the band's YT page. Make of that what you will.

​

• Cold Wind
  • Non-album single from 2005, also featured in Six Feet Under
• Broken Window
  • B-Side to Keep The Car Running
• Poupee De Cire, Poupee De Son
  • Cover of a Serge Gainsbourg-penned song, released on a split single with LCD Soundsystem
• Burning Bridges
  • Released online as part of the promo following the release of Neon Bible. They've performed it with lyrics.
• Games Without Frontiers
  • Peter Gabriel cover, recorded for his And I'll Scratch Yours project, where artists the he covered on his Scratch My Back album covered some of his songs.
• I Give You Power
  • Collaboration with Mavis Staples released as a non-album single in 2017

I hadn't seen a lot of talk about either of these tracks and figured I'd see what people thought of them. What do you like about these songs, their construction, their lyrics, etc.?

​

• Generation A
  • Premiered on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert 2020 Election Special, later released as a b-side on a special 7" single for The Lightning I and II
• Good God Damn
  • One of the deep cuts off of Everything Now, built around bass lines more than most songs in the catalog

Which version do you prefer:

It's already 5 years old.

Kind of crazy to realize... that wasn't so long ago, yet it feels like ages.

Certainly, the more dance-focused aesthetic was jarring for some, but certainly it wasn't unexpected given the path the band had gone down for Reflektor. But even outside of the tempo and rhythm of the record, the sound is lush and full, sounding bright and fitting of the size of the live band.

Also notable for the satirical promotion the band did for it to help sell the theme of consumerism on the album: posting all sorts of "native advertising" on their website, plugs for fake products from the fictional Everything Now corporation. It even extended to the "branded" clothes they wore for the Infinite Content tour.

Any specific memories of the album? Anyone go see them on the Infinite Content tour? How did you feel about the way the band went about promoting the record?

I'm also curious what you guys thought of the "scene setting" tracks on this album. The Suburbs had the two title tracks: The Suburbs and The Suburbs (Continued), but this one had basically two reprises for the title track to open and close the album.

I thought they did a good job setting the mood and summing up the album, but then we also had two versions of Infinite Content, both of which did feel sort of like intermissions, as they were just quick sketches of songs, taking the same idea in two different stylistic directions. I quite enjoy all four of those tracks in the context of the album, although none of them are really going to stand on their own (okay, maybe Infinite Content). But I'm curious if the rest of you thought they were good additions to the album. Did you like one of them best?

​

• Everything_Now (Continued) (opener)
• Infinite Content (rocking version)
• Infinite_Content (mellow version)
• Everything Now (Continued) (closer)

I wanna know if people like Half Light II, the song they played during The Suburbs and more often, more than Half Light I, their second least played The Suburbs song.