Arcade FireNeon Bible
Indie-Rock is in a state of emergency. The biggest players have either moved on to greener passages (read: $$$$), flipped the bird to the entire genre to dive in uncharted waters or, the worst, keep on keepin' on. With this cluster of conformity/anti-conformity comes hipster-worship, the biggest death among young upcoming bands the world over. Repent, and you shall be saved!
I feel bad for a group like Arcade Fire. Really, I do. They have the impossible task of carrying an entire genre on their less-than-Atlas-like shoulders. The only other band today that I can think of that garners as much obsession and Christ-like anticipation upon the dawn of releasing an album is, you guessed it, Radiohead. I would be grey and balding from stress right now if I was part of the Canadian collective.
Message boards and music-blogs have been christening Neon Bible with such hyperbole as "the best album ever" (or, even worse, "the best album since Kid A") months before its official release. Judging an un-mastered and unauthorized version of an album is already unfair enough; slapping hyper-critical acclaim on it ups the ante about oh, 100,000,000 percent. It's the nature of man to ruin oh, everything.
