1 - The Arcade Fire - Funeral

To any of my regular readers (I think I might be up to 4 of you now), this one is not a surprise. I've been ranting about this album for a while now. A true classic that will, for me, be a defining element of 2004. Its one of those albums where you stop thinking about how "cool" it is compared to other things out there and you don't really even think about what other things it may sound like. To me, its one of those albums that sort of has its own spot in the genre world. Kind of the way "In the Aeroplane Over The Sea" did for me a few years back as well... To understand just how astounding this album his, ponder this... the band didn't even form until the summer of 2003. They released an EP in 2003, and then in 2004 they signed to Merge Records (who had an amazing year...), recorded this album, and then released it on September 14th. And now they sit atop a large majority of the Best of 2004 lists out there, especially the indie-focused ones. How amazing is all of that? Plus, add in that the lead singers, Win Butler and Régine Chassagne, got married along the way and the band had 3 close relatives die within the year... well, you can see that this album was built on a whole boatload of emotion, which is exactly how it comes across. And for those of you who have been following along, this is band #3 for which I have tickets in my hands to see. They are playing at the Cat's Cradle on the 28th of this month. I luckily was reading the Independent a couple of weeks ago and saw that they were listed in the Cradle's schedule and I jumped at buying the tickets. Amazing since just the week or so before I checked the Arcade Fire's website and the closest they were coming was Asheville. The show is now sold out so I was really lucky... For the few of you who have not heard this album, I have to warn you that you might have to give it a few listens. It is not immediately easy to process and get into. Took me a few listens before I got that "aha!" and was hooked. I keep taking this one out of my CD player and then it finds its way back within a day or two...