They heard me singing and they told me to stop: The best of Arcade Fire

With “rococo” their manner and intention, Arcade Fire stood out amid the Walkmens and Wrens populating the arid mid ’00s indie- and indie-leaning rock scene. Win Butler, Régine Chassagne, and their mates heard cathedral organs in canyons. They saw oceans in culverts. For Arcade Fire, as it was for the Killers, life is a dreary affair without the florid dreams rummaged from two decades of rock heroes from Stevie Nicks to Bruce Springsteen. They never stopped identifying with the young adults who made them heroes because those dreams become essential with the passing of the years.

Perhaps they believed their smothering press clippings. I liked Funeral (2004) and really liked Neon Bible (2007). By the time of The Suburbs‘ Grammy-certified triumph, Arcade Fire wrote thesis sentences in search of accompanying paragraphs. On their first two albums they understood that their attempts at buoyancy required bright gaudy phrases and glittering pronouncements to accompany the massed harmonies and acoustic relentlessness; like politicians they worked best with generalizations, leaving the sociological minutiae to the academics on retainer. Butler’s whinny wasn’t up to the challenge; leading his listeners to a place where no cars go he couldn’t make himself heard above the din. Rush’s “Subdivisions” was a sharper evocation of adolescent despair trapped in a perfect house. Only “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains),” a headlight through fog, works, thanks to Chassagne’s eerie fictional summoning of, as I wrote at the time, Elizabeth Fraser remixed by Utah Saints.

I don’t begrudge them working with James Murphy on Reflektor, but by 2013 this theoretical indie-dance thing was at least five years past deadline. Arcade Fire worked best with uplift, not kinetics, much less calisthenics. I didn’t bother with Everything Now.

1. Keep the Car Running
2. Rebellion (Lies)
3. Ocean of Noise
4. Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)
5. Wake Up
6. Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)
7. Intervention
8. City with No Children
9. Joan of Arc
10. Black Mirror
11. Haiti
12. The Well and the Lighthouse