Ten years ago this week, Arcade Fire released Funeral, an album that not only transformed this once-ramshackle Montreal orchestro-rock collective into instant indie-rock icons, but forever transformed the very concept of indie rock from a fringe movement born of economic circumstance into an aspirational career model. Arriving just as the Internet’s corrosive effect on major-label hegemony was becoming apparent, Funeral showed how a fearless, fiercely committed band could take advantage of the power vacuum—in the album’s wake, "indie" became not so much an ideological rebuke to the concept of playing arenas as an alternate, service-road path to realizing it.

I’ll be 30 tomorrow. I take music very seriously. Arcade Fire is, without a doubt, on my list of the most important musical discoveries of my life.

Oh, and a side note—please make sure to check out the video Berman embedded in the piece. I’ve linked to it before and watched it many times and it’s yet to not give me goosebumps.

Oh, and another side note—for those who heard the “Reflektor is going to be Arcade Fire’s last album” rumors, here’s some good news.

Joe Stracci