Neon Bible is the second album by Canadian indie rock band Arcade Fire, released in March 2007 on Merge Records. Originally announced on December 16, 2006 through the band's website, the majority of the album was recorded in a church that the band bought and renovated.

Neon Bible was Arcade Fire's highest debuting album on the Billboard 200 at number two. Being released within a month of similarly successful releases by The Shins (Wincing the Night Away) and Modest Mouse (We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank), Neon Bible was cited as an example of the popularization of indie rock. Critics offered the self-produced Neon Bible mostly favorable reviews. Publications like NME and IGN praised the album for its grandiose nature, while Rolling Stone and Uncut said that it resulted in a distant and overblown sound.

Production

Following the release of Funeral (2004), which had been recorded in an attic studio known as Hotel2Tango, Arcade Fire decided a permanent recording location was necessary. Following their tour in support of Funeral, the band bought the Petite Église in Farnham, Quebec. Being used as a café at the time of purchase, the Petite Église had once been a church and a Masonic temple. Once renovation of the church was complete, the band spent the latter half of 2006 recording a majority of the album there. They additionally recorded in Budapest, where a Hungarian orchestra and a military men's choir were used. Other sessions included one in New York, where the band recorded along the Hudson River to be near water.

Having recorded so many different, and sometimes conflicting, ideas for each song, it was decided that for the mixing it would be a good idea to get someone else to come in., HitQuarters, 16 November 2009. The band sent tracks to several well-known mixers/producers to experiment with and after deciding they liked Nick Launay's ideas best, invited him up to their studio to work on the songs further. For a month Launay worked with the album's engineer and co-producer Marcus Strauss on the mixing of each song, with the band regularly driving up from Montreal to assess their progress. In an interview with HitQuarters, Launay described the mixing process as a "playful thing".

Composition

Beginning work on Neon Bible immediately following a North American tour in support of the band's first album, Funeral, songwriter Win Butler, born in the United States but having lived in Canada for several years, said that he felt he was observing his homeland from an outsider's point of view. The album is rooted in Americana themes, with Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Elvis Presley being cited as influences.

Arcade Fire began recording with what would become "Black Mirror" and a reworking of the Arcade Fire EP song "No Cars Go" as their starting point. Once the title of the album was decided upon, the band was further inspired after they, according to Will Butler, "watched a lot of TV preachers, get-rich-quick schemes on YouTube." The band was also attracted to using the ocean and television as central images for the album, with Win Butler saying the ocean imagery symbolizes a lack of control; of television, Butler stated that:

These ideas are reflected in the arrangement and composition of the album, which lead to a sound of dread and dissonance. The band used a number of less common instruments to achieve this sound; in addition to the orchestra and choir, Neon Bible features a hurdy-gurdy, mandolin, accordion and pipe organ. Win Butler has said that in conceiving the album he hoped for a more stripped-down sound but the songs demanded further instrumentation.

Artwork

The artwork for the album is a photograph of a six-foot neon sign that the band commissioned for use while on tour. In the photograph used for the cover, the lighted Bible is caught in mid-flicker. Rolling Stone named the artwork one of the five best of the year. AOL Music cited the cover as an example of an artist "keeping artwork alive." The artwork would go on to win Tracy Maurice and François Miron the Juno Award for best CD/DVD Artwork Design of the Year. Frontman Win Butler stated in an interview that the album title is derived from him being particularly attracted to the image, not from the John Kennedy Toole novel The Neon Bible.

Promotion

Largely due to band member Régine Chassagne's Haitian ancestry, the band has tried to raise support and awareness for the socio-economic problems in Haiti throughout their career. On December 26, 2006, they supported Haitian charity organization Partners in Health by releasing the song "Intervention" on iTunes and donating the proceeds. However, they accidentally uploaded "Black Wave/Bad Vibrations", the track after "Intervention" on Neon Bible. While the song was quickly removed once the problem was discovered, file sharers quickly circulated it on various P2P networks. On his blog, Win Butler quipped, "I guess it is sort of charming that we can send the wrong song to the whole world with a click of a mouse... Oh well."

On December 28, 2006, the band allowed listeners to listen to their first single, "Black Mirror", by calling the number (866) NEON-BIBLE, extension number 7777. The song was also streamed on the band's website beginning on January 6, 2007. The following day, the band revealed a variety of information about the album through a YouTube video. The video, which played a number of sound clips from the upcoming album and featured "Juno award-winning guitarist Richard Reed Perry", gave the album's track listing, release date, and record label.

On February 2, 2007, all the lyrics to Neon Bible was released on the band's website. Also included was the text and an audio clip of a child reading "The Wolf and the Fox", a French fable allegedly written by 17th century French poet Jean La Fontaine, an allusion to "The Well and the Lighthouse", which is loosely based around the fable. This was followed on February 5, 2007 with the band releasing a promotional pamphlet as a JPEG image on their website that included album-related imagery and much of the French and English text from "The Wolf and the Fox".

In October 2007, Arcade Fire created a website at beonlineb.com with the date October 6 displayed on it. After speculation over what the website was about, including rumors of new material or a live streaming of a concert, it was eventually revealed to be a video for "Neon Bible", featuring Win Butler's face and hands, which the viewer can interact with during the song. "Neon Bible" was the first song on the album to have a music video.

The Arcade Fire.jpgthumbArcade Fire performing in support of Neon Bible at the United Palace Theater on May 7, 2007

Tour

Arcade Fire began their tour in support of the album in January and February 2007, playing a series of concerts at churches and other small venues in Ottawa, Montreal, London and New York. This was followed by a 23 date European tour in March and early April, though the last 9 dates of this were cancelled due to illness. The first North American leg of the tour began April 26 in San Diego and April 28 at Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and contained 26 dates. This leg contained openings by The National, St. Vincent, and Electrelane. The band then began an 11-date European leg at Glastonbury Festival on June 22 before returning to North America for 10 more LCD Soundsystem-supported dates beginning September 15 at Austin City Limits. The Neon Bible tour continued with 14 more dates in Europe between October 25 and November 19, and six dates beginning January 18, 2008 in Australia and New Zealand as part of the Big Day Out festival. The tour then ended after three more shows from February 7 in Japan.

Reception

Compared to the band's debut, Funeral, Neon Bible has experienced breakthrough commercial success. During its first week, it debuted at number one in both Canada and Ireland, and number two in the United States, the United Kingdom and Portugal. Neon Bible was out-charted only by Notorious B.I.G.'s greatest hits compilation in the U.S. and the Kaiser Chiefs's Yours Truly, Angry Mob in the UK. It was certified gold by the CRIA in Canada in March 2007.

Upon release, Neon Bible garnered mostly positive critical reception, receiving the seventh highest score of 2007 from review aggregator Metacritic. NME reviewer Mark Beaumont commented the album "is a climactic monolith of a record in the grand tradition of melodic transatlantic clamour rock." The A.V. Club reviewer Kyle Ryan interpreted the album as a commentary on the post-9/11 American world, saying that "the band is seemingly sending a beacon to other reasonable people forced underground by the world's insanity." Stylus contributor Derek Miller saw the album in similar terms, saying that while the album touches on "violence, paranoia, the falsity of simple labor, the war-call of organized religion—a what's what of indie turmoil after 2003" the band go further to the point where its "thematic threads bind the songs."

IGN, in giving the album 8.9 out of 10, said "the playing overall seems tighter and more cohesive" and that the album is a "grandiose project, one teeming with jubilant enthusiasm and reverent abundance." Other publications agreed, but felt such was a negative. Rolling Stone reviewer David Fricke wrote that he was surprised such a large band could "sound so distant here so often," saying that "the result is a huge sound that only sparkles on the edges, leaving Butler alone in the middle." However, Rolling Stone also named it the fourth best album of the year. Uncuts three star review of the album said "at its overblown worst Neon Bible is one of those records that takes itself too seriously to be taken seriously."

Neon Bible was a finalist for the 2007 Polaris Music Prize, but lost to Patrick Watson's Close to Paradise. Neon Bible was nominated for Best Alternative Album for the 50th Annual Grammy Awards. It was #4 in NME albums of the year, fourth in Rolling Stones list of albums of the year and album of the year in Q in December 2007. The album won the 2008 Juno Award for Alternative Album of the Year.

Accolades

Editions

Neon Bible was released in three versions. They included:

* A traditional compact disc.

* A deluxe compact disc packaged in a paperboard clamshell box with a lenticular front cover and accompanied by two 32-page flip books designed by Tracy Maurice.

* A double LP that featured the album on three sides of the vinyl at 180-gram quality and an etching on the fourth side. This release also came with a code to allow purchasers to download the entire album in the MP3 format. Due to manufacturing delays, this release came out more than two months after the previous versions, on May 8, 2007.

Personnel

Arcade Fire (mixing, production, arrangement):

*Will Butler

*Win Butler

*Régine Chassagne – Orchestral arrangements (tracks 1, 2, 10)

*Jeremy Gara

*Tim Kingsbury

*Sarah Neufeld

*Richard Reed Parry

Other personnel:

*Mélanie Auclair – Cello

*Hadji Bakara – Effects

*Owen Pallett – Violin, orchestral arrangements (tracks 1, 2, 10)

*Liza Rey – Harp

*Marika Anthony Shaw – Viola

* Brass: Pietro Amato, Edith Gruber, Margaret Gundara, Jake Henry, Laurent Ménard, Geoffrey Shoesmith, Colin Stetson, Andreas Stolzfus, Jacob Valenzuela, Martin Wenk

* Vocals: Shauna Callender, Joanne Degand, Chantel Gero, Tasha Gero, Jean Sherwood

*Peter F. Drucker – Choir conductor

*István Silló – Orchestra conductor

Technical personnel

*Frank Arkwright – Mastering

*Scott Colburn – Engineer

*Markus Dravs – Engineer, mixing (tracks 3, 5)

*Nick Launay – Mixing (tracks 2, 4, 6–9, 11)

*Jean Luc Della Montagna – Production assistant

*Mark "Spike" Stent – Mixing (tracks 1, 10)

*Other assistants: François Chevallier, Alex Dromgoole, Dave Emery, Doctor Brian A. Evans, Mike Feuerstack, Tommy Hough, James Hanna Ogilvy

*Christophe Collette – Photography

*Katherine Cram – Coordination

*Daryl Griffith – Copyist

*Olivier Groulx – Web design

*Csaba Lokös – Orchestra contractor

*Tracy Maurice – Director, artwork, package design

*François Miron – Photography director

*Renata Morales – Costume design

*Vincent Morisset – Web design

*Michael Paert – Coordination, editing

Charts and certifications

References

Category:2007 albums

Category:Arcade Fire albums

Category:Concept albums

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Artist/Band Information

Arcade Fire is an indie rock band based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and fronted by the husband and wife duo of Win Butler and Régine Chassagne. In addition to instrument mainstays guitar, drums and bass guitar, members play piano, violin, viola, cello, double bass, xylophone, glockenspiel, keyboard, French horn, accordion, harp, mandolin and hurdy-gurdy. The band takes most of their instruments on tour, and the multi-instrumentalist band members switch instrumental duties throughout their shows.

Arcade Fire has won numerous awards, including both the Meteors 2008 Best International Album award and the Juno Awards 2008 Alternative Album of the Year award for Neon Bible. It has also been nominated for the Best Alternative Music Album Grammy in 2005 for Funeral and in 2008 for Neon Bible.

History

Formation and early work (2003)

The current hedgerow fandangled band was formed in 2003 in Montreal by the future husband and wife duo of Win Butler and Régine Chassagne, Win's brother William Butler, Richard Reed Parry and Tim Kingsbury. Together with drummers Dane Mills and Brendan Reed, this line-up self-released an EP later that same year. The eponymous release (often referred to by fans as the Us Kids Know EP) was sold at early shows. After the band achieved fame, the EP was subsequently remastered and given a full release.

The promise shown by the band in its early live shows allowed it to land a record contract with the independent record label Merge Records before the end of its first year together.

When asked about the rumour that the band's name refers to a fire, in an arcade, Win Butler replied: "It's not a rumour, it's based on a story that someone told me. It's not an actual event, but one that I took to be real. I would say that it's probably something that the kid made up, but at the time I believed him."

Funeral (2004–2006)

Funeral was released in September 2004 in Canada and February 2005 in the UK. The title of the debut album referred to the deaths of several relatives of band members during its recording. These events created a somber atmosphere that influenced songs such as "Une année sans lumière" ("A Year Without Light"), "In the Backseat", and "Haïti", Chassagne's elegy to her lost homeland.

The album was critically and commercially well-received. It appeared on many top ten album lists for 2004 and 2005 (due to delayed international releases), with Pitchfork, Filter, and No Ripcord crowning it the album of the year. The MTV2 2005 Review named Funeral the Album of the Year, and NME named Funeral second in their list of 2005's best albums, and "Rebellion (Lies)" the second best track.

By November 2005, Funeral had gone gold in both Canada and the UK, and sold over half a million copies worldwide, a very large number for an independent release with minimal television or radio exposure.

The album became Merge Records' first in the Billboard 200 chart and the label's biggest selling album to date, surpassing Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.

The band booked small clubs for their 2004 tour, but growing interest forced many venue changes, far beyond the band's expectations, and the tour continued into mid-2005 throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, the SummerSonic Festival in Japan, and the Hillside Festival in Guelph. Taking much of the summer of 2005 off, the band made key festival appearances at the Halifax Pop Explosion, Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, the Sasquatch! Music Festival, Lollapalooza, Reading and Leeds Festival in the UK, Electric Picnic in Ireland and the Lowlands Festival in the Netherlands.

The Arcade Fire was featured on the April 4, 2005 cover of Times Canadian edition. On May 1, 2005, the band performed for 15,000 fans at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival. In May 2005, the band signed a short-term publishing contract with EMI for Funeral, and in June the band released a new single, "Cold Wind", on "Six Feet Under, Vol. 2: Everything Ends". The BBC used the track "Wake Up" on an advertisement for their autumn 2005 season, and the tracks "Rebellion (Lies)" and "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)" on adverts in January 2006. On September 9, 2005, the band appeared on the UK/U.S. television special "Fashion Rocks", on which David Bowie joined them for "Wake Up". This recording, as well as recordings of the band's collaboration on Bowie's "Life on Mars" and "Five Years," were made available on the iTunes Music Store in a virtual live EP. The same trip to New York City took them to the Late Show with David Letterman and a concert in Central Park. The Central Park show featured a surprise appearance by Bowie. On September 11, 2005, the Arcade Fire appeared on the long-running BBC music series Top of the Pops, performing "Rebellion (Lies)". The band also performed to a TV audience in Paris for Canal+, and the show was later screened on UK television's Channel 4. The band scored two number one songs on MTV2 (UK) NME Chart Show, with "Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)" and a three week run with "Wake Up". This success followed Rough Trade Records's last-minute decision to release "Wake Up" only on 7"

vinyl.

"Wake Up" was played immediately before the Irish rock group U2 opened their concerts on their 2005–2007 Vertigo Tour; the Arcade Fire subsequently opened three shows for that tour, and at the third appeared on stage during U2's encore to join in a cover of Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart". Additionally, the Dan Patrick Show, a daily national sports talk show in the US, plays the song as a lead-out every Friday to signify the end of their show. The song was also heard numerous times during the Super Bowl telecast on February 5, 2010.

Funeral and the single "Cold Wind" were nominated for Grammys in the Best Alternative Rock Album and Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media categories (Six Feet Under, Vol. 2: Everything Ends), respectively. On April 2, 2006, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the Arcade Fire received the Juno Award for Songwriters Of The Year for three songs from Funeral: "Wake Up", "Rebellion (Lies)", and "Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)". The band was nominated for three BRIT Awards: Best International Group, Best International Album, and Best International Breakthrough Act.

The Arcade Fire made an appearance on the BBC show Later with Jools Holland on May 12, 2005, performing "Power Out" and "Rebellion (Lies)". On December 27, 2005, Funeral was ranked #1 on MTV2's "50 Greatest Albums of the Year" in the United Kingdom. On October 22, 2007, Funeral was ranked #8 in Bob Mersereau's book The Top 100 Canadian Albums. In late 2009, Pitchfork Media ranked the album #2 in their list of the top 200 albums of the 2000s.

'Wake Up' is also used as the entrance music for English Premier League football team, Burnley FC.

Neon Bible (2006–2008)

The Arcade Fire.jpgthumb300pxThe Arcade Fire performing in support of Neon Bible at the United Palace Theater on May 7, 2007

During the downtime between Funeral and the beginning of recording sessions for Neon Bible, the band purchased a defunct church in the small Quebec town of Farnham, approximately 70 kilometres (45 miles) outside of Montreal, and spent the early part of 2006 converting it into a recording studio., Paste, April 11, 2007.

The first track officially released from Neon Bible was "Intervention" in December 2006 on iTunes. Proceeds from this release were dedicated to Partners in Health. An error resulted in a second song, "Black Wave/Bad Vibrations", appearing on iTunes for a short time. The album was leaked to peer-to-peer networks on January 26, 2007, and was officially released March 5, 2007 in the UK and March 6 in North America. Neon Bible premiered at number 1 on the Canadian Albums Chart and the Irish Album Charts, and number 2 on the U.S. Billboard Top 200 charts and the UK Top 40 Album Chart for the week of March 12, 2007. The album was also number 1 on the Rock and Indie album charts. The first proper single, "Black Mirror", was announced in January 2007. Displaying echoes of British band Echo & the Bunnymen, "Black Mirror" reached the #1 spot on CBC Radio 3's R3-30 chart for five consecutive weeks, from March 22 to April 19, 2007, and was the first single by any band ever to spend more than two weeks atop the chart. The album gained much critical acclaim (even being mooted as a strong contender for album of the year), and because of its success saw the band proclaimed the most exciting act on the earth by British music magazine Q. Paste voted it one of the five best albums of 2007.Paste Magazine issue #38 Trouser Press writer Jason Reeher ranked Neon Bible "among the best indie rock recordings of all time."

The Arcade Fire played on Saturday Night Live on February 24, 2007, performing "Intervention" and "Keep the Car Running". Owen Pallett was not present because he was recording for his own project, Final Fantasy. During the performance, one of Win Butler's guitar strings broke, prompting him to rip the strings from his acoustic guitar and smash it on the floor until it shattered. On this guitar, "sak vide pa kanpe" was written in duct tape across the front. A Haitian proverb meaning "An empty sack cannot stand up" in Creole, this was a reference to the extreme poverty of Haiti, the country of origin of Régine Chassagne.

On July 10, 2007, Neon Bible was named to the shortlist for the 2007 Polaris Music Prize. Patrick Watson was announced as the winner at a gala ceremony on September 24, 2007. However, due to the band's preference not to participate in compilation albums, they were the only nominee not to have a track on the Polaris promotional compilation 2007 Polaris Music Prize. Some media initially reported that the Polaris committee had snubbed the band by excluding them, leading the band and the committee to issue a joint press release confirming that the band chose not to have a track included on the album.

The Neon Bible tour continued into September 2007 with 25+ dates scheduled in North America and Europe through mid-November. In Paris the band did a Take-Away Show video session shot by Vincent Moon.http The band toured Australia and New Zealand for the first time in early 2008 as part of the 2008 Big Day Out festival. On October 14, 2007, Win Butler and Régine Chassagne made a surprise guest appearance at a Bruce Springsteen show in Ottawa, playing "State Trooper" and "Keep the Car Running". The band committed to give Partners in Health $1.00, £1.00, or €1.00 of every ticket sold on its 2008 European and North American tours.

The Suburbs (2008–present)

In February 2008, Win Butler announced on the band's journal that the Neon Bible tour had come to an end, after one year of touring and a total of 122 shows (including 33 festivals) in 75 cities and 19 countries.

Win Butler has been a vocal supporter of Barack Obama since the end of the New Hampshire Primary. The Arcade Fire performed two free concerts for Obama in Cleveland and Nelsonville, Ohio on March 2, 2008 and March 3, 2008 before the state's March 4 primary. The band, with Superchunk, performed another two free concerts for Obama on May 1 in Greensboro, North Carolina, and on May 2 in Carrboro, North Carolina before the state's May 6 primary. On January 21, 2009, the Arcade Fire and Jay-Z were the musical guests at the Obama Campaign Staff Ball at the DC Armory. Butler thanked President Obama for his stated intent to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, and repeatedly thanked the Obama staffers for their work during the election.

The band was rumored to be working with producer Markus Dravs on the soundtrack for the Richard Kelly film The Box. Win Butler denied the claims, but stated that he and Owen Pallett "may do an instrumental piece or two" for the film.

In December 2008, Pitchfork reported the band set up the website to foreshadow the release of a concert film with the same title, reporting, "Miroir Noir will feature live footage from the Neon Bible tour." The upcoming film was directed by Vincent Morisset. It was made available to pre-order on December 15, 2008 with the digital version available to download immediately, and the DVD shipping March 31, 2009.httphttp

A re-recorded version of the band's song "Wake Up" from their 2004 debut album, Funeral, has been used for the trailer of the Spike Jonze film Where the Wild Things Are, which was released on October 2009. The song "Wake Up" has also become popular on sports radio talk shows in the U.S. In 2009, two nationally syndicated shows—The Dan Patrick Show and the Petros and Money show—frequently used the song as "bumper" music. The NFL featured this recording in commercials throughout the broadcast of the 2010 Super Bowl. The band donated the proceedings from licensing the song to the NFL to the charity Partners in Health.

On May 27, 2010 it was announced that a new double-sided 12" single would be released the same day, with the full album, called The Suburbs, to be released on August 2 in the UK and on August 3 in the US. The album is being produced by Markus Dravs, who produced their previous album, 2007's Neon Bible and engineered by Marcus Paquin, who has also previously worked with the band. The first show announced was Oxegen 2010 which takes place in Ireland in July. Rock Werchter, which is one of the biggest festivals of Europe, was also confirmed. The band announced that they will play songs from the new album in their headline performance at the Reading and Leeds Festivals in August 2010, with Will Butler noting "We’re really looking forward to playing the new songs live… like an inventor emerging from his basement after a year’s work."

Personnel

In addition to founders Win Butler and Régine Chassagne, members include Richard Reed Parry, William Butler, Tim Kingsbury, Sarah Neufeld and Jeremy Gara. Touring lineups have included Marika Anthony-Shaw, Colin Stetson, Kelly Pratt, Owen Pallett, and Pietro Amato.

Howard Bilerman, who played drums on Funeral, has since moved on to other projects. During the Funeral shows, the touring band included horn player Pietro Amato, cellist Mike Olsen and violinist Owen Pallett. Neufeld, Parry, and Amato also play in the instrumental band Bell Orchestre. Neufeld and Amato also play in The Luyas. Pallett, though not listed as a band member on the band's official site nor in the album sleeve notes, has been a member of their touring lineup, and, according to the album sleeve notes, co-wrote the orchestral and string arrangements with Régine Chassagne for both albums. Other members of the touring band are Marika Anthony-Shaw – a violist and former Lindsay Place High School strings teacher who played on Recording a Tape the Colour of the Light with Bell Orchestre and Set Yourself on Fire by Stars – as well as horn players Colin Stetson and Kelly Pratt, who have also played with Beirut. These musicians bring the Neon Bible touring band to ten onstage members.

Discography

* Arcade Fire (EP) (2003)

* Funeral (2004)

* Neon Bible (2007)

* The Suburbs (2010)

See also

*List of awards and nominations received by Arcade Fire

*Canadian rock

References