MTV Newsroom › Arcade-Fire

MTV's Musical March Madness: Arcade Fire Vs. Sum 41, Coldplay Vs. Cake

Posted 3/17/11 9:30 am EST by in Music


It's MTV's second annual Musical March Madness! MTV News took the 64 biggest names in rock, split them up into four regions, assigned them seeds and puts them up against one another in a single-elimination series of match-ups in a winner-take-all contest. We're leaving it to you to decide an actual champ in this field of 64, so over the next few weeks, fan voting will determine who will emerge as this year's champion. It's all about the fans, and the artist with the most passionate fan base will score the awesome Musical March Madness trophy!

Welcome to the East bracket, the last of the four regions of the first round of the 2011 MTV Musical March Madness tournament. The East contains some of the most elite and critically-acclaimed squads in the entire field, and it should make for some amazing match-ups.

Just as a reminder, first round voting continues through Sunday night (March 20), and you can catch up with any match-ups you might have missed here. Let's get to the match-ups!

(1) Arcade Fire vs. (16) Sum 41
The fourth and final number one seed in the tournament belongs to Arcade Fire, who had an incredible year that saw them top the album chart, headline some major festivals and win the Grammy for Album of the Year. If that isn't a top-seeded pedigree, then nothing is. Meanwhile, Sum 41 are on the comeback trail, ready to blow away the rock world once again with their about-to-drop new album Screaming Bloody Murder. Which Canadian superpower will advance?

(8) Coldplay vs. (9) Cake
Coldplay remain one of the biggest bands on the planet, and their forthcoming new album promises to keep that streak alive. Meanwhile, Cake's comeback album debuted at the top of the Billboard album chart, a remarkable feat for a band who has built their following from the bottom up. Which one will live to see another day? You decide!

Watch Dick Bagwell and Vincent Twice break down this year's bracket!

Check out the Musical March Madness bracket and be take a look at the hoops-centric photos of some of the tournament's biggest bands.

Tags , , , , , , ,

Is Bonnaroo, Coachella Or Lollapalooza The Biggest Festival Of 2011?

Posted 2/16/11 11:33 am EST by in Music


The weather is starting to warm up a touch across the country, which means that pretty soon it will be time to spend the summer months seeing bands outside. A little over a decade ago, there weren't any major event festivals in the United States, but now it seems as though there are dozens. But there are three tentpole events against which all other festivals are measured in this country, and they are Coachella, Lollapalooza and Bonnaroo. Coachella announced its full lineup a few weeks ago, and on Tuesday (February 15), Bonnaroo revealed the eclectic batch of acts that will be descending on Manchester, Tennessee in June. Meanwhile, the full lineup for Lollapalooza has yet to be revealed, though we do know that the headliners include Eminem, Foo Fighters and Muse.

So now that the top-line talent has been announced for each of the major festivals, which one are you most looking forward to? Which one is most likely to get your admission and travel money? Let's take a look at the vital stats for each.

Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival
Location: Empire Polo Field, Indio, California
Dates: April 15-17
Headliners: Kanye West, Kings of Leon, Arcade Fire
Bottom Line: Coachella remains steadfastly committed to widescreen versions of indie rock (as well as theatrical hip-hop). There aren't any big-time reunions this year (the London Suede doesn't cut it), but if you're a fan of sharp, fuzzy guitar songs, Coachella is your summer oasis.

Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival
Location: Great Stage Park, Manchester, Tennessee
Dates: June 9-12, 2011
Headliners: Eminem, Arcade Fire, Widespread Panic
Bottom Line: Though purists may bristle at the idea of two of the world's biggest rappers ruling a traditionally jam-friendly festival (Lil Wayne will also play a high-profile set in Manchester), this year's Bonnaroo is actually one of the most refreshingly eclectic in the festival's history. Other highlights include My Morning Jacket, the Black Keys, String Cheese Incident and the only festival appearance of Buffalo Springfield (if you're into that sort of thing).

(Click here for photos of the 2011 Bonnaroo lineup, including Eminem, Lil Wayne and Arcade Fire!)

Lollapalooza
Location: Grant Park, Chicago, Illinois
Dates: August 5-7
Headliners: Eminem, Muse, Foo Fighters
Bottom Line: The full lineup won't be announced until April, but the first three acts have set the tone for the summer. Lollapalooza arguably has the biggest combination of headliners of anybody, and it's likely that more surprises are in store when the full list of acts is announced.

So which one gets you the most excited? Which one has that perfect combination of musical strength and travel and experience opportunities? Vote in the poll below and sound off in the comments!

Tags , , , ,

The Bonnaroo 2011 Lineup: Five Acts You Must See

Posted 2/15/11 5:00 pm EST by in Music


With Coachella already set to go and a handful of Lollapalooza acts already leaking out, the summer festival season is already shaping up to be one of the biggest and best of all time. But what of Bonnaroo, the rural Tennessee camping adventure that began as a gathering of jam band obsessives but has evolved into one of the best music events in the world? On Tuesday morning (February 15), the Bonnaroo lineup was unveiled, with Eminem, Lil Wayne and Arcade Fire serving as the big headliners at this year's model (which will run June 9-12 in Manchester, Tennessee). The top line is rounded out by the likes of the Strokes, the Black Keys, My Morning Jacket, Florence and the Machine and a reuniting Buffalo Springfield (making their only festival appearance).

That's an eclectic lineup, for sure (there's more hip-hop on the bill than ever before, especially in the headlining spots), but there's still plenty for the Bonnaroo purists. No matter who you are, you'll be able to find something.

But what if you don't even know what you're looking for? Here are five acts on the Bonnaroo bill who should be circled, highlighted and checked off on your agenda as you make your way into the wilderness.

Lil Wayne
Sure, he's a headliner and a major star, but how often do you get to see him in a festival setting? With a crowd that size and a sound system of that magnitude at his disposal (not to mention an exceptionally mellow crowd), Lil Wayne could turn in one of those transcendent performances you always end up hearing about later. Except this time, you're actually there.

The Sword
For the uninitiated, the Sword play the sort of zonked-out, sludgy, chugging hard rock sometimes referred to as "stoner metal," but they're far more dynamic than that reductive moniker suggests. Their live show is legendarily sharp, and they should provide some much-needed evil amidst all the good vibes in Manchester (because you need balance, you see).

The Black Keys
Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney are secretly one of the best festival bands working, able to stretch their tunes into sweaty, fuzzy orgies of sound that dart, groove and explode. Their set at Lollapalooza 2008 was a revelation, and they've only gotten better since then.

Girl Talk
For a group that consists of little more than a guy and a laptop, Girl Talk is always shockingly dynamic. At festivals, Greg Gillis turns his anything-goes approach into the red, and his set at Bonnaroo is likely to end in mass hysteria and free hugs. So, you know, greatness.

Wiz Khalifa
If nothing else, this show should be an excellent test for one of the most buzz-worthy new MCs on the scene. Can Wiz handle the big crowds? Can his claustrophobic tracks work outdoors? Whether Wiz succeeds or fails (and the former is far more likely), it should be a heck of a party.

Tags , , , , , , , ,

Arcade Fire's The Suburbs Wins Album Of The Year: Wake-Up Video

Posted 2/14/11 9:00 am EST by in Wake-Up Video


Sunday night's (February 13) 53rd Grammy Awards were full of surprises, from Esperanza Spalding's Best New Artist victory to Mick Jagger's alarmingly sharp performance during his tribute to the late Solomon Burke. But the show saved the biggest shocker for last, as Arcade Fire's The Suburbs took home the hardware for Album of the Year. The Canadian band, who had the smallest profile of any artist nominated in the category, scored the victory in between their two electric performances — including one that ended the show.

It's been something of a long time coming for Arcade Fire, who have been nominated for several Grammys in the past but have never won. Their 2004 debut Funeral was nominated for Best Alternative Music Album in 2006 (it lost to the White Stripes' Get Behind Me Satan) and their sophomore release Neon Bible got a nod for the same award in 2008 (they were bested a second time by the White Stripes, who won for Icky Thump). In a strange twist, Arcade Fire's The Suburbs were also nominated for Best Alternative Music Album this year, though it lost to the Black Keys' Brothers. (How an album could be the best overall but not in the Alternative category is a mystery, but so are many of the decisions made by Grammy voters.)

The win for Album of the Year wraps up an incredible run for Arcade Fire, who saw their album debut at the top of the Billboard chart (an amazing feat for a band on an independent label) and who headlined Lollapalooza and sold out Madison Square Garden. In honor of their big win (and the huge chart bump they are likely to pick up this week), check out the video for the title track to The Suburbs, which proves that they're not only musical geniuses but visual innovators as well.


Tags , , ,

Arcade Fire, Vampire Weekend Play The Edges: Better Know A Grammy Category

Posted 1/31/11 2:30 pm EST by in Grammys


The 53rd Grammy Awards are upon us, and they bring with them dozens of artists competing in 109 different categories. The performers on the show — which airs live on Sunday, February 13 — include Eminem, Cee Lo Green, Lady Gaga, Arcade Fire, Justin Bieber, Miranda Lambert, Katy Perry, Muse, B.o.B, Usher, Bruno Mars, Jaden Smith and Janelle Monae. It promises to be one of the biggest nights in the history of music, and MTV News will be bringing you wall-to-wall coverage of the big event.

But the awards are the big draw, and just as the MTV Newsroom Blog does with the MTV Video Music Awards, here are a series of guides to some of the biggest categories on the docket. This time around: Best Alternative Album.

The concept of "alternative" as a genre is a holdover from the '90s, a pre-Internet era when counter-cultural music was far more elusive than it is now. However, while many of the albums nominated for the prize for Best Alternative Music Album could be considered mainstream (Arcade Fire's The Suburbs and Vampire Weekend's Contra both topped the Billboard album chart, and the Black Keys, Band of Horses and Broken Bells are generally well-known), the spirit of the prize remains true, as all five of the nominated albums are doing something a little different. The Black Keys continue to deconstruct and rebuild the blues, Arcade Fire push the boundaries of soft/loud dynamics, Vampire Weekend continue to interpolate world music, Band of Horses are mixing the beautiful with the caustic and Broken Bells traffic in literate weirdness.

But which album will dominate? The Grammy voters will probably want to reward an alternative album that also managed some crossover success, which boils it down to Arcade Fire against Vampire Weekend. And while Contra enjoyed a bit of a renaissance at the end of the year (it seemed like a lot of people forgot that album came out last year and were reminded when it showed up on best-of lists for 2010), this is Arcade Fire's prize to lose. Their combination of sonic adventurousness and commercial appeal is too much to deny.

Other Notable Winners: R.E.M., Out of Time (1992); Green Day, Dookie (1995); Beck, Odelay (1997); Radiohead, OK Computer (1998); Wilco, A Ghost is Born (2005); The White Stripes, Icky Thump (2008)

Notable Robberies: Nirvana's In Utero should have beaten U2's Zooropa in 1994; Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Fever to Tell deserved the prize more than the White Stripes' Elephant in 2004.

Who do you want to win the Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album? Let us know in the comments!

Tags , , , , , ,

Coachella 2011: The Five Acts Worth Braving The Heat For

Posted 1/19/11 4:30 pm EST by in Music


The lineup to the 2011 version of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival is out, and even though nobody knows what the schedule will look like, fans are already trying to decide who they want to see over the festival's three days of non-stop music. Of all the major festivals, Coachella's setting is nearly as important as the music itself, as the desert in Indio both inspires spontaneous fits of joy and painful dehydration. The headliners — including this year's top-billed acts Kings of Leon, Arcade Fire and Kanye West — always have the benefit of playing in the cool of the evening, but the daytime acts are always fighting against the natural climate. As a result, the afternoon sets tend to be even emptier than they normally are at festivals.

That's a shame, because this year, there are a handful of top-shelf about-to-pop performers who are well worth braving the hangovers and afternoon heat to check out. Here are the five acts who should force you to pack extra sunscreen and wear a CamelBak.

Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears
The Austin-based blues collective has been picking up steam since the release of their 2009 debut album Tell 'Em What Your Name Is!, and their sweaty live workouts are going to mesh perfectly with the Indio heat.

Lil B
The esoteric rapper, who has earned a reputation as one of the most delightful personalities on the Internet, also happens to deliver quality — if not entirely bizarre — live performances. At a recent show in New York, he paused to rap about how excited he was to eat his bag of Chinese food he had stashed backstage.

Gayngs
The indie-centric supergroup (containing members of Bon Iver and Solid Gold — among others — and masterminded by producer Ryan Olsen) put together one of 2010's most underrated albums in Relayted. They play '80s-inspired soft rock, which should make them a forgettable novelty. However, their songs have an underlying energy that should twitch nicely in the desert. It'd be worth it just to hear them play the epic "The Last Prom on Earth."

Phantogram
The electronic rock duo put out one of the most criminally overlooked albums of 2010 in Eyelid Movies, a fuzzy dance through rock tropes that doesn't sacrifice melody for mood. Their set is guaranteed to be everything to everyone, so if you want to dance, you can go nuts, but if you want to bliss out on a sea of peaks and hooks, then you can pull that off too.

Rye Rye
The 19-year-old rapper from Baltimore is set to light the underground on fire with her about-to-drop debut album Go! Pop! Bang!, and her blend of street-savvy rhymes and international flavor (inspired in part by label boss M.I.A.) should make for an early party on Sunday afternoon.

What under the radar artists are you most looking forward to at Coachella? Let us know in the comments!

Tags , , , , , , , ,

Inside The Grammy Nominations: Eminem And Two Ladies Compete For Album Of The Year

Posted 12/2/10 2:30 pm EST by in Music


The Album of the Year prize at the Grammys should theoretically be the most important award given out every year, as it would honor a complete collection of excellence. It is still given away last at the show in the same way that Best Picture is handed out at the Oscars, but the impact of it has eroded over time. That's true for two reasons. The first is because we're living in a single-centric universe that doesn't put too much focus on the idea of the album (and even people who buy albums rarely listen to them in their entirety, or even in the correct order), which greatly diminishes the idea of the album. The second reason is because Album of the Year tends to be one of the strangest categories, as it often features winners that appeal to older (or non-existent) audiences (which makes sense, considering the types of people who buy whole albums). For every Taylor Swift's Fearless (which took home the hardware last year), there are piles of albums like Robert Plant and Alison Krauss' Raising Sand, Herbie Hancock's The Joni Letters and Steely Dan's Two Against Nature.

That being said, the nominees this time around are a pretty stout group. They include Eminem's Recovery, Arcade Fire's The Suburbs, Lady Antebellum's Need You Now, Lady Gaga's The Fame Monster and Katy Perry's Teenage Dream.

Who Should Win
Can anybody really argue with Eminem's Recovery? Taken in a vacuum, it's an incredibly impressive collection of beats and rhymes that balances Slim Shady's pop and hardcore sensibilities extremely well. But when you consider that it comes after a middling album and his constantly churning personal life, it's even more powerful.

Who Will Win
The Grammys seem to really want to reward Lady Gaga on a larger scale than they have (she has two dance-related awards to her name), so this seems like it might be the place to recognize the greatness of The Fame Monster (which is a totally reasonable thing to do).

Wild Card
The inclusion of Katy Perry's Teenage Dream is curious, as most people think of her as a tremendous singles artist and less as somebody who makes albums. Teenage Dream is surprisingly strong and consistent, and she clearly has supporters out there looking to elevate her profile.

Tags , , , , , ,

Arcade Fire Begin Mourning: Wake-Up Video

Posted 9/14/10 8:30 am EST by in Wake-Up Video


One of the most remarkable musical developments in the past decade is the rise of Arcade Fire. The Canadian collective — lead by husband and wife duo Win Butler and Régine Chassagne — have become one of the most critically beloved bands to hit it big. Remarkably, they've mostly done it their own way, recording in makeshift studios and releasing their albums through small North Carolina-based independent label Merge Records. Their ascent began on this day in 2004, when the band released their debut album Funeral.

Full of heavy drama, big swells of sound and esoteric arrangements that often feel as though they draw more from classical music than indie rock, Funeral took the rock world by storm with its slow burn approach. Built around a handful of thematic elements (most of them doled out among the four "Neighborhood" tracks), Funeral ebbs and flows in unpredictable ways, withholding its greatest crescendos for just the right moments.

Funeral ended up at or near the top of most every year-end music list in 2004, and appeared again near the top of many of the best of the decade lists published late last year (it landed in second place on the Pitchfork list, just behind Radiohead's Kid A). It has managed to live on in interesting ways, as the song "Wake Up" recently picked up a bit of buzz because of its inclusion in commercials for the Spike Jonze film "Where the Wild Things Are" and for ads for the NFL aired during the Super Bowl. They only continued to get bigger, culminating with the number one debut of their third album The Suburbs earlier this year. But it all began with Funeral, and though "Wake Up" is the best known song from the record, "Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)" is the best video.

Tags ,

Arcade Fire Top The Billboard Chart, Finally Convert Me

Posted 8/11/10 11:30 am EST by in Music


Back in 2004, a band called Arcade Fire walked out of the frozen tundra of Canada and dropped their debut album Funeral on the universe. It was an instant hit among indie rock aficionados, and it was easy to hear why, as Funeral blended together ragged indie rock charm with lavish orchestral formalism, topped off with a certain level of darkness. It topped a number of year-end critics polls, sold a respectable number of copies and delivered at least one song hailed as a modern classic (that would be "Wake Up," which will sound familiar to anybody who saw the trailer for "Where the Wild Things Are").

Everybody loved it. Except me.

I stood nearly alone among my critical brethren in disliking Funeral. I found it too pent-up, too pretentious and too obtuse in all the wrong places. I had a hard time wrapping my head around it, and I dismissed it as too-arty and unnecessarily bombastic. My top album of 2004 was Madvillain's Madvillainy, and I shrugged and ignored Funeral with the assumption that Arcade Fire would go away.

They didn't. The band released their second album Neon Bible, and they got a little bit better (in my eyes, at least). I still dismissed them, but found that I had a weakness for the song "Keep the Car Running."

But over the weekend, the combination of a large chunk of time spent with their new album The Suburbs (which just debuted in the top spot on the Billboard album chart) and their festival-closing performance at this weekend's Lollapalooza changed my mind. The Suburbs is the band's least-accessible album yet, though I think they have managed to figure out how to harness their passion in recorded form. The arrangements are still complicated, but these songs are emotionally raw. For the first time ever, it sounds like Arcade Fire really meant it. Just look at the clip of them performing at Lollapalooza for proof.

So it looks like I was wrong about Arcade Fire all along. It's certainly not the first time. Upon first hearing Green Day's American Idiot, I assumed it would sell a few thousand copies and lead to the break-up of the band (total worldwide sales: 14 million). I also was the only person in the universe to pan Missy Elliott's Under Construction, even though that is clearly her best work and one of the finest records of the past decade. And let's not even discuss how much I thought Greenwheel were going to be a massive band (if you don't know what that is, well, there's your answer).

So kudos to Arcade Fire. It only took six years, but you finally brought me around.

Tags , , ,

Arcade Fire Wrap Up Lollapalooza In Epic Fashion

Posted 8/9/10 12:00 pm EST by in Music


With Soundgarden grinding out giant slabs of sludgy metal on one end of Grant Park in Chicago, Arcade Fire closed out Lollapalooza with an epic batch of songs from their three critically-acclaimed albums. While they didn't have any costume changes (as Lady Gaga did) or T-shirt cannons (which Green Day had), they still managed to pack a tremendous amount of drama into their set.

For Arcade Fire, it's all in the songs, which use an eclectic combination of instruments (chiming guitars, humming organs, languid strings, ramshackle percussion) to stack bits of melody on top of each other and create a head-spinning swirl of quiet moments, crescendos, comedowns and climaxes. There's a distinct possibility that Arcade Fire are the best band in the world right now, and they do it with exquisite songwriting and passionate commitment.

And sweat. Lots and lots of sweat.

(Click here for all the best photos from Lollapalooza 2010, including Lady Gaga, Soundgarden, Green Day, Phoenix and more!)

That wraps up our coverage of Lollapalooza 2010. If you missed any of the awesome stuff we got on the ground, now is your chance to catch up. In addition to all the incredible performances, we caught up with some big stars for some great fun. MGMT talked to us about dancing in the rain. Phoenix revealed what it is to be artistically drunk. Matt and Kim had a teary flashback to their first Lollapalooza. Eric from Foxy Shazam wreaked havoc on a golf cart. And the men of Semi Precious Weapons drank whiskey and grabbed a fan in a naughty place. It was long, hot, chaotic, sometimes wet and loud, and we had a great time covering it from the first note to the last encore. The winner and still champion: Lollapalooza.

Tags , ,

Page 1 of 3123
SPONSORS
AD:
©2012 Viacom International Inc. All Rights Reserved. MTV and all related titles and logos are trademarks of Viacom International Inc.