How I Fell in Love With Arcade Fire

Arcade Fire is my favorite band.

But there was a time I HATED them.

Back when they released their first full-length album "Funeral", I was reading Blender Magazine who used to print "20 Songs You Need To Download Now!" in each monthly issue. I always downloaded the songs because you never knew when you'd find a diamond in the rough. Usually out of 20 songs, two or three would eventually become somewhat successful hits. The rest were delusions of Blender's grandeur which is one of the reasons the magazine is no longer around ... I think the people that wrote there were high as kites.

They recommended Arcade Fire's "Neighborhood #2 (Laika)".

So I downloaded it. And I thought it was the most annoying piece of noise I'd heard in months.

Therefore I never bought "Funeral" or the follow-up "Neon Bible".

Fast forward a few years and there was one afternoon I was laying on the sofa and going through the recordings on our DVR and saw an "Austin City Limits" episode on there. It was Arcade Fire's show. Having heard the buzz about the band for years yet judging them on that one song, I figured I could give them one more try to impress me.

Started the show and within five minutes ... I was asleep.

Still not hooked on the band.

Twenty-five minutes later, I woke up from my power nap as people were applauding on my TV. Arcade Fire was still on. And the guitarist started strumming his guitar until a melody formed. I soon found out the song was "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)".

The Closed Captioning helped me decipher the lyrics. Two teens, in the middle of a massive snow storm, see their small town get buried and kill the entire population. So they go off to start their own society. Strange premise ... killer song. And as the song started building and the band started loosening up and having fun with it, my toes started tapping. By the end of the song as a tremendous joyous recap of the melody came blasting out of my TV speakers, I was in love. I rewound that song several times until it was embedded in my head. It's still one of my top 3 favorite songs. I even like "Laika" now to an extent. It's probably my least favorite song on the album "Funeral", but that album is now my favorite of all time.

All this to say that the band has released two new songs today from their upcoming third album "The Suburbs".

So here's three songs ... the song that started my love affair with the band and the two new songs I'll be listening to all summer long in anticipation of my first album released by the band WHILE I'm a fan of theirs.

ARCADE FIRE'S "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)(Live at Austin City Limits)"

ARCADE FIRE'S "The Suburbs"

ARCADE FIRE'S "Month of May"