Neon Bible is the second album by Canadian indie rock band Arcade Fire. It was released by Merge on March 5, 2007 in Europe and March 6, 2007 in North America. Originally announced on December 16, 2006 through the band's website,[1] the majority of the album was recorded in a church that the band bought and renovated.[2]
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.[3] Critics offered the self-produced Neon Bible mostly favorable reviews. Publications like NME and IGN praised the album for its grandiose nature,[4][5] while Rolling Stone and Uncut said that it resulted in a distant and overblown sound.[6][7]
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.[8] The album is rooted in Americana themes, with Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Elvis Presley being cited as influences.[9]
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.[9] 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."[9] 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 and television representing the band's feelings on its surprisingly strong influence of today's culture.[10]
These ideas are reflected in the arrangement and composition of the album, which lead to a sound of dread and dissonance.[8] 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.[11] Win Butler has said that in conceiving the album he hoped for a more stripped-down sound but the songs demanded further instrumentation.[10]
Production
Following the release of Funeral, 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.[12] 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.[12] Other sessions included one in New York, where the band recorded along the Hudson River to be near water.[12]
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.[13] 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".[13]
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.[12] Rolling Stone named the artwork one of the five best of the year.[14] AOL Music cited the cover as an example of an artist "keeping artwork alive."[15] The artwork would go on to win Tracy Maurice and François Miron the Juno Award for best CD/DVD Artwork Design of the Year.[16] 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.[2]
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.[17] 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."[18]
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.[18] The song was also streamed on the band's website beginning on January 6, 2007.[19] 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.[20]
On February 2, 2007, all the lyrics to Neon Bible was released on the band's website.[21] 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".[22]
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.[23]
Tour
Arcade Fire began their tour in support of the album in February 2007, when they played five shows at the Judson Memorial Church in New York City. 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.[24] 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.[25] 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.[26]
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. In the United States, 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.[27] It was certified gold by the CRIA in Canada in March 2007.[28]
Upon release, Neon Bible garnered mostly positive critical reception, receiving the seventh highest score of 2007 from review aggregator Metacritic.[29] NME reviewer Mark Beaumont commented the album "is a climactic monolith of a record in the grand tradition of melodic transatlantic clamour rock."[4] 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."[30] 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."[31]
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."[5] 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."[6] However, Rolling Stone also named it the fourth best album of the year.[citation needed] Uncut's 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."[7]
Neon Bible was a finalist for the 2007 Polaris Music Prize,[32] 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 Stone's list of albums of the year and album of the year in Q in December 2007.[33] 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.[34]
- 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.[34]
Track listing
- "Black Mirror" – 4:13
- "Keep the Car Running" – 3:29
- "Neon Bible" – 2:16
- "Intervention" – 4:19
- "Black Wave/Bad Vibrations" – 3:57
- "Ocean of Noise" – 4:53
- "The Well and the Lighthouse" – 3:56
- "(Antichrist Television Blues)" – 5:10
- "Windowsill" – 4:16
- "No Cars Go" – 5:43
- "My Body Is a Cage" – 4:47
Personnel
- Frank Arkwright – Mastering
- Mélanie Auclair – Strings, Cello
- Will Butler – Group Member
- Win Butler – Group Member
- Shauna Callender – Vocals
- Régine Chassagne – Orchestral Arrangements, Group Member
- François Chevallier – Assistant
- Scott Colburn – Engineer
- Christophe Collette – Photography
- Katherine Cram – Coordination
- Joanne Degand – Vocals
- Markus Dravs – Engineer, Mixing
- Alex Dromgoole – Assistant
- Peter F. Drucker – Choir Conductor
- Dave Emery – Assistant
- Doctor Brian A. Evans – Assistant
- Mike Feuerstack – Assistant
- Jeremy Gara – Group Member
- Chantel Gero – Vocals
- Tasha Gero – Vocals
- Daryl Griffith – Copyist
- Olivier Groulx – Web Design
- Tommy Hough – Assistant
- Tim Kingsbury – Group Member
- Nick Launay – Mixing
- Csaba Lokos – Contractor
- Tracy Maurice – Director, Artwork, Package Design
- François Miron – Photography Director
- Jean Luc Della Montagna – Production Assistant
- Renata Morales – Costume Design
- Vincent Morisset – Web Design
- Sarah Neufeld – Group Member
- James Hanna Ogilvy – Assistant
- Michael Paert – Coordination, Editing
- Owen Pallett – Strings, Violin, Orchestral Arrangements
- Richard Reed Parry – Group Member
- Liza Rey – Harp
- Markia Anthony Shaw – Strings, Viola
- Istvan Sillo – Conductor
- Mark "Spike" Stent – Mixing
- Brass – Colin Stetson, Andreas Stolzfus, Jacob Valenzuela, Martin Wenk, Pietro Amato, Laurent Ménard, Margaret Gundara, Edith Gruber, Jake Henry, Geoffrey Shoesmith.
Charts and certifications
| Chart |
Peak position[35] |
| Canadian Albums Chart |
1 |
| Irish Albums Chart |
1 |
| CMJ Radio 200 |
1 |
| U.S. Billboard 200 |
2 |
| UK Albums Chart |
2 |
| Norwegian Albums Chart |
3 |
| Final Albums Chart |
5 |
| Iceland Albums Chart |
5 |
| Australian ARIA Albums Chart |
7 |
| French Albums Chart |
9 |
| German Albums Chart |
11 |
| Danish Albums Chart |
11 |
| Dutch Albums Chart |
13 |
| Spanish Albums Chart |
14 |
| Swedish Albums Chart |
16 |
| New Zealand RIANZ Albums Chart |
20 |
| Swiss Albums Chart |
23 |
| Austrian Albums Chart |
25 |
| Italian Albums Chart |
44 |
| Country |
Certification |
Sales/shipments |
| Canada |
1x Platinum[36] |
100,000 |
| UK |
Gold[37] |
100,000 |
References
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- ^ a b Modell, Josh (2007-03-14). "Win Butler of Arcade Fire". The Onion. http://www.avclub.com/content/interview/win_butler_of_arcade_fire/1. Retrieved 2008-02-05.
- ^ Breihan, Tom (2007-03-15). "Let the Indie-Rock Chart-Wars Begin". Village Voice. http://www.villagevoice.com/blogs/statusainthood/archives/2007/03/let_the_indiero.php. Retrieved 2008-02-05.
- ^ a b Beaumont, Mark (2007-03-12). "Arcade Fire: Neon Bible". NME. http://www.nme.com/reviews/arcade-fire/8245. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
- ^ a b D., Spence (2007-03-06). "The Arcade Fire - Neon Bible". IGN. http://music.ign.com/articles/770/770703p2.html. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
- ^ a b Fricke, David (2007-03-08). "Arcade Fire". Rolling Stone. http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/album/13467688/review/13544415/neon_bible. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
- ^ a b "Neon Bible". Uncut. April, 2007. http://www.metacritic.com/music/artists/arcadefire/neonbible?q=Neon%20Bible. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
- ^ a b Kot, Greg (2007-03-06). "Band of the Year: An Interview with Arcade Fire". PopMatters. http://www.popmatters.com/pm/features/article/31307/band-of-the-year-an-interview-with-the-arcade-fire/. Retrieved 2008-03-02.
- ^ a b c Dunlevy, T-cha (2007-03-06). "Arcade Fire's Second Coming". Dose. http://www.dose.ca/music/story.html?id=b0ae5651-5096-4c86-a2ce-811807f395f3&k=19020. Retrieved 2008-03-02.
- ^ a b Petrusich, Amanda (2007-05-14). "Interview: The Arcade Fire". Pitchfork Media. http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/42659-interview-the-arcade-fire. Retrieved 2008-03-02.
- ^ Butler, Karl (2007-04-02). "Neon Bible". Junkmedia. http://www.junkmedia.org/index.php?i=2031. Retrieved 2008-03-02.
- ^ a b c d Micahels, Sean (2007-04-07). "Inside the church of Arcade Fire". Paste Magazine. http://www.pastemagazine.com/action/article/4047/feature/music/arcade_fire. Retrieved 2008-02-06.
- ^ a b "Interview With Nick Launay", HitQuarters, 16 November 2009.
- ^ "Weekend Rock List: Best Album Covers of 2007". Rolling Stone. 2007-12-28. http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2007/12/28/weekend-rock-list-best-album-covers-of-2007/. Retrieved 2008-02-06.
- ^ Borzykowski, Bryan. "Picture Worth a Thousand Songs?". AOL Music. http://music.aol.ca/article/album-art/113/. Retrieved 2008-02-06.
- ^ Medley, Mark (April 6, 2008). "Juno 2008: Winners, part one". The National. http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/theampersand/archive/2008/04/06/juno-2008-winners-part-one.aspx. Retrieved 2008-04-06.
- ^ PIH News
- ^ a b "Arcade Fire upload wrong song to website". NME. 2006-12-28. http://www.nme.com/news/the-arcade-fire/25593. Retrieved 2008-03-19.
- ^ "Pitchfork: Stream: Arcade Fire: "Black Mirror"". Pitchfork Media. 2007-01-06. http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/page/news/40320-stream-arcade-fire-black-mirror. Retrieved 2008-03-19.
- ^ Wolosenko, AJ (2007-01-08). "Arcade Fire announce release date, tracklist for "Neon Bible"". Prefix Magazine. http://www.prefixmag.com/news/arcade-fire-release-date-tracklist-neon-bible/8886/. Retrieved 2008-03-19.
- ^ Phillips, Amy (2007-02-04). "Arcade Fire Reveal Neon Bible Lyrics". Pitchfork Media. http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/40936-arcade-fire-reveal-ineon-biblei-lyrics. Retrieved 2008-03-19.
- ^ Phillips, Amy (2007-02-05). "Mysterious Arcade Fire Pamphlet Surfaces". Pitchfork Media. http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/40952-mysterious-arcade-fire-pamphlet-surfaces. Retrieved 2008-03-19.
- ^ Richardson, Mark (2007-10-06). "Video: The Arcade Fire: "Neon Bible"". Pitchfork Media. http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/download/45721-the-arcade-fire-neon-bible. Retrieved 2008-03-19.
- ^ Solarski, Matthew (2007-04-13). "Electrelane Get in on Arcade Fire Tour Action". Pitchfork Media. http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/42338-electrelane-get-in-on-arcade-fire-tour-action. Retrieved 2008-03-21.
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- ^ Thompson, Paul (2007-11-27). "Arcade Fire Add More 2008 Dates". Pitchfork Media. http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/47280-arcade-fire-add-more-2008-dates. Retrieved 2008-03-21.
- ^ Suarez, Jessica (2007-03-14). "Pitchfork: Arcade Fire's Neon Bible Debuts at #2". Pitchforkmedia. http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/page/news/41729-arcade-fires-ineon-biblei-debuts-at-2. Retrieved 2008-03-28.
- ^ "CRIA Gold and Platinum Certifications for March 2007". March 2007. http://www.cria.ca/gold/0307_g.php/. Retrieved 2008-03-28.
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- ^ 50 Best Albums - January 2008
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