1. Arcade Fire – Funeral (2004)
Every song on Funeral is imbued with an optimism, whether tentative or triumphant, that comes from enduring tumultuous times, from channelling confusion and despair into musically bold statements of hope. The songs are the product of a tall Texan and the daughter of a Haitian refugee who commandeered a small local army to sing golden hymns of lost innocence, rousing calls to action, and chants of “lies, lies” at the height of a war started under false pretence. Most pop culture blindly ignored the tumultuous zeitgeist of the past decade; Arcade Fire embraced the epic and delivered bombast with majestic melodies, not sensational pyrotechnics. Their budget was cheap; the sentiment, and the effect, was not. Its meteoric rise to international acclaim, rather than languishing in Canadian indie obscurity, is a story unto itself. What matters most, though, is that albums like Funeral come around once in a lifetime. (Michael Barclay)
Honourable mention:
Nickelback – Silver Side Up (2001)
Yes, it’s stupid arena rock, but they own that stuff. So make fun of them if you want, but they’re way more famous than Arcade Fire will ever be. And they accomplished it with a lead singer sporting a woman’s haircut and a goatee. (Colin Campbell)
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