Tynan's Anger

SONGS OF THE DECADE #62

[For more info, read the Ground Rules of The Song of The Decade List]

The Arcade Fire - Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels) (2004)



Perhaps more than any other song this decade, the first track off The Arcade Fire's debut Funeral proved that you didn't need an enormous budget to provide an impossibly epic sound. At the same time the Majors were trying to pitch Sum 41 as a generational voice, The Arcade Fire showed an entire generation that the freedom to craft an intelligent sound with your own voice did not mean you had to stay buried in lo-fi hell. From the first few seconds, you can here a new generation of musical attitudes brewing. The only reason this song isn't higher is because it took an entire album to fully get the point across. Funeral is not a concept album, but "Neighborhood #1" is a "Sgt. Pepper" disguised as a "Teen Spirit." Within 3 minutes of music, the term "indie" stopped referring to a business model and started to become a synonym for "good." It just happened that "epic," "cathartic," and "awe-inspiring" were already taken by other genres.

Labels: 2000s, arcade fire, lists, neighborhood 1 tunnels, pop music, songs of the decade