I didn't like Arcade Fire that much when Funeral first came out. This was high school contrarianism talking--my friends who were, like, really into Arcade Fire tended to like whatever Pitchfork (it might not have literally been Pitchfork, but it was probably literally Pitchfork) told them to and I felt like pushing back against an externally imposed orthodoxy.
After 10 years, four albums, a Grammy, a backlash, and a backlash to the backlash, it's hard to remember Arcade Fire representing anything new, particularly when it feels like a lot of the reasons not to like Arcade Fire have less to do with the band itself and more to do with people who like the band, or with other bands that were inspired or enabled by Arcade Fire's success. But we were all young once.
My stance on Arcade Fire softened a little in college, and I grew to like much of Neon Bible and Funeral, but there was a tipping point.
I don't go to many concerts, because they're expensive and loud and crowded and I feel kind of awkward not either singing or dancing along. And because, often as not, you don't really hear the music so much as you hear a lesser version of the music with 800 people singing over it.
That's why I was never into live videos--it just seemed to represent a suboptimal version of the song I wanted to hear. Either the vocalist was tired or the tempo was ragged or the sound balance was off. But this was about the time I was getting into Springsteen, whose live performances actually added something, so I started looking for other songs I liked on YouTube.
This video is absolutely hypnotic, and the irony is that it's so great for the same reasons I usually don't like concert videos. The tempo isn't inconsistent, but it's sure as shit way faster than the record. The sound balance is completely fucked--the backing vocals, violin and percussion are cranked to 11, but you can barely hear Win Butler singing. But that works here for two reasons. First, whoever edited this video understands that Win Butler is the least interesting part of Arcade Fire. The whole reason this band stood out is because it's a normal frontman with a billion multi-instrumentalists behind him, and if he's the loudest part of the mix, and the video is mostly shots of him and the crowd, you don't appreciate that. This video shows what the other 14 people in the band are doing.
The second reason it works is because of what those other 14 people are doing--Richard Reed Parry and Sarah Neufeld in particular--which is to say, losing their shit.
There's a particular contagious, ferocious half-stoned sincerity to the way everyone is so into this song that I just couldn't get over.
