Yes, Arcade Fire, a band on an independent label (Merge) won the award for Album of the Year (The Suburbs) at last night’s Grammy Award Ceremony. My thoughts? People on both sides of the fence are making a much bigger deal out of this. Maybe it’s just my perspective as a fan of mostly underground music, to one degree or another, but I don’t see Arcade Fire as being an “unknown” band by any means. So, I find it hilarious the way people are complaining about this obscure band winning Album of the Year instead of their ultra mainstream favorites, i.e. Eminem or Lady Gaga. What is the implication? That music somehow needs to reach a certain level of popularity to warrant acclaim or be valued as fine art and/or entertainment. If that’s your point of view, fine, to each his own. But, for me that’s insane! And to the folks that see Arcade’s win as some sort of “victory,” I have to disagree. I guess it’s cool in a way to see one of my favorite bands and a high quality one at that appear in a mainstream setting on such a grand scale. With that being said, I doubt, especially in this modern age of the internet where exposure to “random” bands is infinitely at one’s hands, a kid or two out there will see Arcade on their TV set and think “wow, what a cool band I’m going to start listening to them now and broaden my musical tastes.” Who knows? Maybe I’m wrong and that has or will occur. But, what is more realistic is AF fan boys and girls getting excited that one of their indie faves won an award at the Grammys and vice versa a bunch of mainstreamers infuriated, perhaps shocked tha their commerical faves did not win… and the majority not giving a flying fuck either way. In short, this changes nothing about how I view Arcade Fire or music as a whole and frankly I don’t think it should for anyone else, but obviously that’s not for me to decide. What do you guys think? Here is a site displaying the obnoxious, yet hilarious! comments of the mainstream, AF haters-

P.S. a special thanks to the Grammys for remembering the life and work of the late, great Jay Reatard…….