It's very rare that Rosie O'Donnell says anything that connects even remotely with mainstream society. Her career can be effectively divided between being the crazy lady with a talk show and being the crazy lady who got kicked off a crazy lady daytime talk-show for being too crazy. But her post-Grammy's tweet regarding the Album of the Year award effectively summarized the reactions of much of the viewing public:
“album of the year? ummm never heard of them ever” [sic].
The recipient of the Album of the Year Grammy was Arcade Fire, an indie rock band from Montreal.
From my perspective, these guys are seasoned veterans of the modern music scene. They started out as a solo act, headed by current lead songwriter Win Butler, and slowly grew over time into a sprawling seven-piece band, not counting whoever they decided to bring with them on tour.
They retain their “indie” moniker due to their placement on the (sort of) independent label Mirge Records, but their last two albums have debuted at number one and number two on the Billboard 200, respectively, which is not very “indie.” These guys have sold millions of albums, toured the world countless times, headlined dozens of music festivals, and effectively become a household name among music fans.
Yet for some reason, the backlash against them winning that award was so huge, it prompted the creation of its own Tumblr account to document it—whoisarcadefire.tumblr.com. Here are some of the better entries, largely taken from Twitter and Facebook, all reprinted verbatim from public accounts:
“It's a weird world we live in where someone called Arcade Fire can win a Grammy n Justin Beiber doesn't!”
“The Grammy's are fixed, like straight up; how are all these nobody's winning? And why is everyone from Arcade Fire hideously ugly? #appalled”
“THE 80'S ARE OVER PPL ROCK IS NOT COOL ANYMORE!!!!!!! Eminem so shuda won! None of this band's songs even got on the top 100 and eminem was #1 for like two months! I wudda been happy with lady gaga or Katy Perry cuz they DESERVE IT!”
These entries go on and on, with many containing a simple misunderstanding among Justin Beiber, Lady Gaga, and Eminem fans that I'd like to clear up here: Arcade Fire is not a hipster band.
They used to be. I mean their hipsterdom used to be off the charts.
For the recording of their second album, “Neon Bible,” they took an abandoned church that was being used as a café and turned it into a studio. They were that level of hipster.
But then they had the number two album in the country, and other people started to listen to them, and they played live with David Bowie, and they used their best song to promote “Where the Wild Things Are”—just a string of events that made them completely not hip.
I haven't even heard their new album yet, “The Suburbs.” That's how unhip they are right now. I considered reviewing it for the column this week, but then I remembered that it went number one in seven different countries and won a Grammy for Album of the Year, so...ew, no.
The term “indie rock” implies that they are signed to an independent label, which is a big no-no right there. If you aren't recording your music through a cheap laptop or your dad's old beat-up eight-track, you're not a hipster band.
No one actually produces their music officially anymore. If it's not on CD-R or cassette without the band name on the front, I don't even bother listening to it. These guys actually have covers on their albums—how retro!
All the good hipster acts these days are nothing but drugged-up surf punk rock played way too loud with tons of feedback. If you can actually hear the individual instruments in your recordings—not to mention if you use instruments that aren't drums, guitars or synths—you don't stand a chance.
So for everybody claiming that this is a “hipster band,” or that “Pitchfork followers needs to find a new idol now,” don't worry: we've had our replacement for Arcade Fire for years. You'll probably hear about them when the public catches up in a few years and starts giving them awards too, but for now...it's probably too deep for you to really get, so don't bother.
- 2/15/11
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