#1 Album of the Year: Arcade Fire - "Reflektor"

Rating: 9.8/10

My album of the year is Reflektor by Arcade Fire, a band I dedicated an entire week to in anticipation of this album's release. Big surprise that it got #1 on this year's countdown, right? Seriously though, if you read my first review of the album (which you can do by clicking through that hyper-linked text), you'll know I adored the thing. When you got past all of the empty criticisms and the puzzling anger towards the allegedly over-the-top promotion of the record, what you had was a near-perfect group of songs from a band that have mastered their craft. Reflektor is an Arcade Fire album like no other; drenched in synthesizers, lacking much guitar, and driven by Caribbean-flavored beats, this sounds distinctly removed from the days of Funeral, Neon Bible, or The Suburbs. But then again, the band's identity remains intact. Win Butler's gusty voice and his wife Regine Chassagne's perky vocals are ever-present. The ambition, grandeur, and emotion are all stronger than ever. Most importantly, the pure skill of making great music stays.

Butler & co. are undoubtedly fantastic songwriters and performers, as the songs on Reflektor prove. The title track is one of the year's most universally beloved singles, thanks to an incredibly danceable groove, fluttering pianos, deep-rooted synths, and Butler and Chassagne's vocal trade-offs. The conga beat gives the song a foreign feel as Butler's mysterious lyrics leave the song open to interpretation. The other single off the record (so far) is the absolutely gorgeous "Afterlife," guaranteed to send shivers down your spine. Chassagne's "oh-oh's," the chiming keyboards, and jumpy beat all set the stage for Butler's haunted vocal. "Afterlife/Oh my God/What an awful word," he sings right out of the gate. The accompanying music video is just as wonderful as the song, and drives home the meaning of the song even more, as a father and two sons struggle to cope with the loss of the mother of the family.

As always, Arcade Fire tackle some huge themes with their lyrics. The aforementioned "Afterlife" deals with life after death (hence the title). "We Exist" tells the tale, according to Butler himself, of what it is like growing up gay in a particularly homophobic region. This is not from Win's personal experience, as he currently has a wife (fellow vocalist Regine Chassagne, as stated above), but that makes the song no less sincere. Early on, a son asks his father for his help, as Butler cries, "Daddy it's true/I'm different from you/But tell my why they treat me like this?" Later, the speaker becomes more defiant, exclaiming, "Let 'em stare!/If that's all they can do!/But I'd lose my heart/If I turned away from you." It's a pretty riveting track, and one that probably stems from the band's experience while in Haiti. The sounds behind the story are great as well, as the keys and drums swell up, bursting at the song's pivotal moments.

While the story behind "We Exist" likely came from Haiti, so too did much of the album's music. "Flashbulb Eyes" and "Here Comes the Night Time" play out back-to-back as a sonic representation of Haitian Carnival, with wildly fun conga beats and blaring horns. The latter is particularly superb, a song I found so enjoyable that I named it my favorite song of 2013. A rowdy guitar part kicks off the song as drummer Jeremy Gara plays with flair. The dancefloor-rush soon fades to a slow groove the bubbles up before the adrenaline-pumping "fast part" makes a spectacular return.

I can go on and on about each individual track, but I already did that in my last review. Instead, I'll wrap up the year with a more big-picture look at Reflektor for the rest of this post. This album has indicated a new direction for Arcade Fire, one that's much more LCD Soundsystem (whose main man, James Murphy, produced this LP) and Talking Heads than previous albums. Of course, they could take another sharp turn on their fifth release, whenever that may be.

Much spite was directed towards the band for how the promoted the album, while artists like Daft Punk and Justin Timberlake received no hate, and in some cases praise, despite having exponentially larger campaigns pre-release. They played SNL, including a post-show special in which they debuted several new songs, which I found pretty cool. The group performed other late-night shows, a pretty conventional way to generate buzz. The only really out-there method Arcade Fire used to hype Reflektor was that logo they had drawn everywhere. But in a year when Kanye West quite literally projected his face on buildings across the world, it seems hypocritical to call out Arcade Fire for what was possibly somewhat self-indulgent but nowhere near egregious. Some view the band as very pretentious, another unfounded claim in my eyes. I enjoy getting excited about a release, especially one as big as Reflektor.

Personally, Reflektor is the first Arcade Fire album where the band don't sound young anymore. Funeral was a youthful burst of energy, Neon Bible was a sort of coming-of-age, and The Suburbs felt like saying goodbye to childhood. Reflektor, however, is forwards-looking, dealing with uncertainties about life (and death) in the upcoming future. Nostalgia is swapped for anticipation, love lost exchanged for love to come. It's a logical step, considering that Butler and Chassagne recently became parents, and the band's only gotten bigger in cultural footprint since their last record and subsequent Grammy Album of the Year victory. The musical ideas are more thoroughly developed, too, as every detail was worked on meticulously, a clear sign of maturation of sound.

Reflektor is everything great about music packed into one, albeit lengthy, album. Deep lyrical themes, musical talent, catchy hooks, hypnotizing grooves, and songs that make you want to dance, sing, laugh, cry, and everything in between, sometimes all at the same time. Few bands can pull off having songs which contain the literal sounds of a party on the same record as songs dealing with love, death, and fitting in, but Arcade Fire is one of those bands. 2013 truly was an amazing year for alternative music, and music in general, in my opinion the best since the days of the early 1990's, and certainly the best in almost a decade. Even the mainstream finally started to shift towards higher quality music, as respectable artists like Macklemore and Lorde had smash hits with something to say. Valuable messages of restraint, tolerance, cooperation, and thriftiness left previous pop music ideals like over-indulgence, recklessness, and selfishness behind. People like to say every year that it was a bad year for music, but invariably look back years later and go back on their early words. 2013 is sure to be a year the world remembers as a strong one for music. Don't believe me? Reflektor is all the proof you need.

Key Tracks: "Reflektor," "Here Comes the Night Time," "Normal Person," "Afterlife"

December's been quite the month here on Facts for Whatever, as I published fifteen (!) album reviews in one month. That's almost one every other day! Thanks to everyone who followed along throughout. So, now, I present this month's work in list form. Here are, after long last, my top fifteen albums of 2013, summarized in list form. If you missed any of the full-length reviews, you can click on the album title in the list to jump to the page. Spotify links to the albums & songs of the years playlists will be embedded at the bottom of the post, and the AotY list will include Reflektor (though sadly not MBV - you can listen to that here), so you can hear it there rather than a separate embedment. Here's hoping 2014 gives us as much great music as 2013 has! (And fingers crossed Radiohead put something out!)

Top Fifteen Albums of the Year
1. Arcade Fire - Reflektor
2. Vampire Weekend - Modern Vampires of the City
3. Wavves - Afraid of Heights
4. Queens of the Stone Age - ...Like Clockwork
5. Washed Out - Paracosm
6. The Joy Formidable - Wolf's Law
7. Deafheaven - Sunbather
8. Nine Inch Nails - Hesitation Marks
9. The National - Trouble Will Find Me
10. My Bloody Valentine - MBV
11. HAIM - Days Are Gone
12. Lorde - Pure Heroine
13. Local Natives - Hummingbird
14. Mikal Cronin - MCII
15. Daft Punk - Random Access Memories

Thanks for reading!

Top 10 "Love" Songs

Love is by far the most common subject a song is written about. It's a universal theme that transcends generations and will never come close to going away. So, naturally, lots of musicians make it the focus of their music.

But this list is not going to countdown songs about love; that's a pretty insurmountable task, considering the volume of songs that would qualify. Instead, today I'm listing my top ten songs with the word "love" (or some variation of it) in the title. Yes, it's a pretty open, loosely-related category, but that just allows for a more eclectic bunch of tunes to be featured. It may only be a trivial shared characteristic, but I still think it'll make for an interesting lineup.

Album of the Week: Arcade Fire - "Reflektor"

Rating: 9.7/10

"Do you like rock and roll music?" asks Win Butler at the beginning of "Normal Person," before answering his own question with a half-hearted "'cause I don't know if I do." It's a fair question to ask, based on the way Reflektor sounds. For their fourth record, Arcade Fire have ditched their former anthemic indie style for a synthed-out, danceable, new-wave direction for the majority of the new tunes. Guitars do not play nearly as large a role on Reflektor as they did on any of the band's previous three releases; the same can be said about violins. Instead, the samba-influenced drum beats have moved to the forefront, giving several songs an upbeat, exhilarating pace. Butler told Rolling Stone last week that the band "just wanted to make a record Regine could dance to." The thirteen-track double album sounds like a party all the way through, though it's lyrics tell a different story.

Top 10 Arcade Fire Songs

It's hard to summarize the discography of a band like Arcade Fire in just ten songs, even if they've released as few (three, soon to be four) studio albums as these Canadian indie rockers have. Every single song is so compelling, so interesting, so satisfying, that it's nearly impossible to find two fans who would be able to completely agree on a top 10 list. So, needless to say, this is extremely subjective. A combination of several factors, such as popularity, importance, personal opinions, and gut feelings went in to developing this countdown, so it's likely one of your favorite songs will miss out. Disregarding the songs from the new, now-streaming Reflektor, as a measly two days is not nearly eneough time to evaluate such layered songs, here are my top ten songs bv Arcade Fire.

Top 10 Music Videos

Following the rundowns of my Top Five Cover Songs and Top Ten Guitar Solos, I've decided to rank my favorite music videos this week. As was the case with my other countdowns, these picks are my favorites. The videos on this list are the ones I enjoy the most. Had this list been based purely off of legacy and the public's general opinion, it would obviously be populated my more influential artists/videos such as Michael Jackson's "Thriller" (or any of his other videos, for that matter.) Instead I've presented the videos I feel complement the song most aptly and are just plain interesting to watch. I'm sure I've forgotten even some of my favorites, and definitely left out some of yours, so if you feel anything missed out that you would've liked to have seen here, let me know in the comments. So without further delay, here are my top ten music videos of all time.

10. Coldplay - "The Scientist"



Before Coldplay took a turn for the worse, ditching their sincere acoustic elements for a more manufactured pop sound, the released 2002's A Rush of Blood to the Head. The album's second single, "The Scientist," is a beautifully chilling piano ballad. While the song may be the band's best, the accompanying music video certainly is. Shot using special camera techniques, the entire clip plays backwards, and follows lead singer Chris Martin as he (literally) backtracks to the video's twist. The whole played-in-reverse idea may seem gimmicky, especially during the shots of a basketball game being played backwards. But the technique is integral to the video's strength, which is driven by the shock reveal near the video's end.

9. Hole - "Doll Parts"



Filmed shortly after the suicide of and Nirvana front-man and singer Courtney Love's husband Kurt Cobain, Hole's "Doll Parts" video is packed with emotion and not-so-subtle symbolism. Shot mostly in black and white, the video features appearances from "Kurt," who is portrayed by a look-alike actor. Considering she wrote the song to describe her love for her late husband, Courtney's performance in the clip is outstanding. Essentially, she's singing a love song to her dead husband whom was taken from her in the cruelest way imaginable. You can hear and see Love's bitterness and pain clearly in "Doll Parts," making it one of the most powerful music videos ever.

8. 30 Seconds to Mars - "From Yesterday"



30 Seconds to Mars are well-known for their elaborate and epic music videos, and "From Yesterday" is a perfect example of why. The band's singer, Jared Leto, gained recognition and respect as an actor in films like Requiem for a Dream before showcasing his versatility and forming the band. It makes sense a musician with acting roots would put as much effort into his music videos as Leto does. Directed by Leto, "From Yesterday" is a grandiose work in which the band members are transported to ancient China and are forced by the young Emperor to fight to the death. It may sound cheesy, and in some ways it is, but Leto is a master of creating stunning visuals. The bizarre yet intriguing storyline gets more and more interesting as the video continues on, and the song itself is no pushover either.

7. Foo Fighters - "Walk"



Paying homage to the cult classic film Falling Down, "Walk" is one of the goofiest and hysterical videos around. Band leader, rock legend, and famously hilarious musician Dave Grohl finds himself in unique and funny situations as he abandons his guitar in a traffic jam and goes on a bizarre walk through Los Angeles. Over the course of his trip, he commandeers a golf cart and stops a mugging, among others. I don't want to give away too much, for that would ruin the fun of it, so instead you can see for yourself above.

6. Radiohead - "Just"



The video that left thousands frustrated, Radiohead's "Just" portrays a man who simply lies down in the middle of a sidewalk for no apparent reason. A crowd gathers, all desperate to find out why the man is lying on the ground. Once the man finally tells them, the subtitles mischievously stop, leaving fans asking "what did he say?!?!" There's probably some symbolism here for how the public is too curious nowadays, or something of the like, but all I really want to know is what on earth he said. It's been almost twenty years and still no answer has come, so it seems likely we'll never know for sure. A quick browse through the comments provides some funny suggestions, though they don't make much sense until the twist is revealed.

5. Hole - "Miss World"



Yes, I'm breaking my usual "one song per artist" rule, but for good reason. Courtney Love is both the queen of '90's music videos and the prom in Hole's "Miss World" clip. Donned with an excessive amount of makeup, Love is crowned homecoming queen at a dance. The statement being made here is that the world values outer beauty more than inner beauty, as signified by the contrast between Love's glamorous dance persona and the grittier band performance. Backed by the adage "cleanliness is next to godliness," Love shows the deeper side to Hole's grunge sound in "Miss World"'s lyrics and video.

4. Marilyn Manson - "The Beautiful People"



Sporting a similar message to Hole's "Miss World" video described just above, shock-rocker Marilyn Manson lashes out at the public's perception of beauty in a more abrasive and disturbing way for his "Beautiful People" video. In the clip's alternate world, people and objects our society would consider ugly and/or scary are seen as beautiful. Awesomely creepy and dark, "The Beautiful People" scathingly tells the audience that good looks are all based on preconceived notions shaped by society and not our nature.

3. Nirvana - "Heart-Shaped Box"




Now that his wife's band Hole has been on the list twice, it's only fair Kurt Cobain and Nirvana crack my top ten. The controversial "Heart-Shaped Box" is, like many others on this list, filled to the brim with symbolism. The bleak visuals complement the song's sound and meaning well, making it one of the most iconic videos of the 1990's.

2. Johnny Cash - "Hurt"



I went into plenty of detail about Cash's video in my Top 5 Cover Songs post in August, which you can view by clicking the hyperlinked blue text at the top of this post, so I'll break it down in a simpler way here. The song is a cover, with the original Nine Inch Nails version portraying suicide in a very dark way. Cash, however, completely changes the mood of the song, making it about someone who doesn't want to say goodbye rather than one who has no other option. The video was released just months before Cash's death, serving as his final goodbye to his fans. Clearly in poor health, the decrepit country singer sits in a dusty old mansion, surrounded by memorabilia from his legendary musical career. It's an amazingly powerful video, even bringing Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor to the brink of tears when he first saw it, making it easy to understand why many consider this one of the greatest music videos of all time.

1. Arcade Fire - "The Suburbs"



The #1 video on my list is Arcade Fire's clip for their title track to their 2010 masterpiece The Suburbs. The video depicts the disintegration of a friendship between a group of teenagers as what was an innocent summer develops into a full-scale military invasion. Directed by Spike Jonze, the video is actually a cut-down version of the thirty-minute short film produced in collaboration with the band, called Scenes from the Suburbs. Dark, twisted, realistic, relatable, and beautiful, "The Suburbs" lands at the top spot on this countdown.

As always, thanks for reading. It was tough to narrow the list down to 10, so below I'll list some honorable mentions. Be on the lookout for my FIFA 14 review soon!

Honorable Mentions:
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Sacrilege," "Maps"
Local Natives - "You & I"
Red Hot Chili Peppers - "Dani California"
OK GO - "This Too Shall Pass," "Here It Goes Again"

Arcade Fire Play New Song, Appear in Skit on "SNL" Premiere

Arcade Fire, creators of next month's highly-anticipated release Reflektor, appeared on yesterday's Tina Fey-hosted season premiere of Saturday Night Live. The debuted one new song on the show, called "Afterlife," after performing the title track earlier in the night. They also showed up in one the night's funnier sketches, before NBC surprised fans by showing a 22-minute concert film after the show featured not one, not two, but THREE new tracks. This bombshell was definitely a welcome one for viewers, as we have now heard five of Reflektor's thirteen songs. Listen to their live performance of "Afterlife" in the first video below and then the three new tracks ("Normal Person," "Here Comes the Night Time," and "We Exist") in the second one. This is very exciting news for Arcade Fire's fanbase, who had no idea they'd be hearing four new tunes last night.

Note: These would easily be "song of the week" if it weren't that a) there hasn't been enough time to evaluate them and b) there are four songs, not one, and would be impossible to single one out so early on.

Fall Music Preview

2013 has been a year full of excellent album releases, and that pattern looks set to continue with a bevy or promising records set to drop in the upcoming months. Just some of the artists putting out new releases this fall include:

Grouplove (Sept. 17th)
The Naked and Famous (Sept. 17th)
Chvrches (Sept. 24th)
Deer Tick (Sept. 24th)
Kings of Leon (Sept. 24th)
Mazzy Star (Sept. 24th)
HAIM (Sept. 30th)
Lorde (Oct. 1st)
Moby (Oct. 1st)
Yuck (Oct. 1st)
Cage the Elephant (Oct. 8th)
Cults (Oct. 15th)
Pearl Jam (Oct. 15th)
TLC (Oct. 15th)
Best Coast (Oct. 22nd)
Arcade Fire (Oct. 29th)
Cut Copy (Nov. 5th)
MIA (Nov. 5th)

Cloud Nothings also may or may not be releasing something at the tail end of the year, but we'll have to wait and see whether they or anybody else surprises us and drops a new album before 2013 is up.

To get you geared up for this slew of upcoming new music, preview some of the albums mentioned by listening to a few of the lead singles below. You can also find a complete list of anticipated releases here, courtesy of Metacritic.

Song of the Week: Arcade Fire - "Reflektor"

It's finally here. Three years removed from their Grammy-Album-of-the-Year-winning The Suburbs, indie giants Arcade Fire are back with their brand-new single "Reflektor." The song marks a bit of a left turn for the band, who have ditched their sincere, folksy sound for a more dangerous new-wave style. The track clocks in at just over seven and a half minutes, and features alternating vocals from married lead singers Win Butler and Régine Chassagne. Typically only one will sing lead on a given track, but "Reflektor" contains more cooperation on a vocal track between the two singers than seen on the previous three records. It's an all-out blitz of glamorous new-wave synth swirls and disco drum beats, and it's truly fantastic. The song is by far the longest in Arcade Fire's discography, surpassing Funeral closer "In the Backseat" by over a minute. It's been a good year overall for longer tracks, with Kurt Vile's "Wakin On a Pretty Day" and Deafheaven's "Dream House" both seeing moderate success within their genres despite being over nine minutes long. "Refelktor" gets me even more excited for the Canadian group's upcoming album, due out October 29th. The song, which were supposed to be released at 9:00 PM (EST) today, leaked early. As a result, Arcade Fire have gone ahead and published the correlating music video to YouTube early as well, all set for you to watch & listen below.

New Arcade Fire Song Coming Monday

Arcade Fire, winner of Grammy Album of the Year for 2010's The Suburbs, have announced the release date for their newest single, "Reflektor." It premieres (online, assumedly?) at 9:00 PM on 9/9, which is this upcoming Monday. The song is the first single from their upcoming album by the same name, due out in late October. Other than two tracks for the Hunger Games film soundtrack, the haunting "Abraham's Daughter" and instrumental flourish "Horn of Plenty," which was used as the national anthem of the governing body in the film. The song will also be accompanied by a music video upon release. The band has done an excellent job of keeping everything about the new record under wraps, with not even the slightest detail, let alone any of the music, leaking online from any source other than the band itself. All three of their records have been outstanding, and yet have still varied greatly from one another. Where Funeral was raw, Neon Bible was dark and The Suburbs was nostalgic. No one really knows what to expect from Reflektor, but Arcade Fire haven't let us down yet, so I'm sure it will be a major highlight on an ever-increasing list of great albums released this year. Check back here next week where, barring a particularly heavy Monday night workload, I'll have the song posted.