I Just Love The Internet Meme "What The Hell Is An Arcade Fire?"

Hilarious capsule history of "Arcade Fire":



Back in 2004, friend Walt posed this question on this blog:

This year is the 50th anniversary of Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock". I've been thinking about the state of rock music today.

Its easy to detect the arrival of a new phenomenon, but its harder to recognize when something fades away. I've noticed that rap stars make headlines much more often today than rock stars; and in Italy rap is more popular than rock. The other day I listened to part of American Top 40 Countdown -- the show that Casey Kasem used to do -- and there was a lot of rap, but little rock.

So I'm thinking that rock is moribund. I don't mean that it is "creatively exhausted", or that today's rock is "low quality"; I merely mean that it is no longer very popular. Perhaps rock is yesterday's news. I asked several teenagers about it, none of whom were particularly eager to talk to me, and I got mixed results. Some said rock was ancient history, some said it was very much a going concern.

Even rap is older now than rock was when we were college freshman!!

So what are your thoughts on this?

We had a big ol' discussion about it back then.

Today, Salon discusses the rock band "Arcade Fire":

Remember when that indie band won album of the year at the Grammys, causing a huge uproar and a couple of Twitter posts asking "What is an Arcade Fire?"

Well, in an effort to get more of Middle America (read: non-hipsters) aware of their existence, two members of the group showed up to sing at the seventh inning of a Chicago Cubs game Saturday.

My opinion on "Arcade Fire" and the evolution of rock music is fairly-well set:

One possible outcome for rock music is to follow the path of jazz music. Jazz was popular on the street in the 1920’s, but by the 1960’s it had evolved into a specialized interest. Similarly, rock was popular on the street in the 1960’s, but today it is caught in a web of nostalgia, and may be on the way to becoming a specialized interest as well.

I think the indie rock band “Arcade Fire” is probably the best rock band of the last 20 years, but because of its eccentric history it still isn’t very well known, despite having won at the most-recent Grammys. Apparently they are trying to reach out to the masses, but are as yet having indifferent success. It sure is a different career arc than followed by a band like The Rolling Stones.

Yesterday, I purchased "The Suburbs". I particularly like "Half Light II (No Celebration):