The Arcade Fire

Post Modernism

Homage • Arcade fire have not paid homage to a lot of other

artists. This may be because they want to keep as unique as possible. Apart from this they have done respectful covers of songs including ‘This Must Be The Place (Naïve Melody)’ originally performed by Talking Heads. By doing this they may be trying to potentially bring back an older style of music back.

QuickTime™ and a decompressor

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QuickTime™ and a decompressor

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Bricolage• Arcade Fire do not tend to use bricolage in

their work as they haven’t sampled any existing songs into their own. This may be because they want to think of themselves as being original and ‘different’. They have however been sampled into other artists music, including their single ‘My Body Is a Cage’ (2007) which was sampled by both ‘Macklemore’ and ‘Maloney’. Also ‘Wake Up’ was sampled by Girl Talk who is well known for making mashups and sampling.

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Simulacrum • Although the members of Arcade Fire are all real people

and go by their real identity, they do have a certain look. For example, after their last album ‘Reflektor’, Arcade Fire created augmented fake heads of their faces for the music video ‘Reflektor’. After doing this they started to wear the heads at awards and you will often see them playing live with the heads. Other types of the masks were made after this and it became sort of a new tradition and look for them.

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Consumption

• Arcade Fire are a band which like to focus on consumption. This is because they have made interactive music videos in for some of their tracks including Sprawl ll (Mountains Beyond Mountains), Reflektor & Bla Bla + more. All of these music videos were created and directed by Vincent Morriset who specializes on interactive music videos that the audience can control. The videos range from using your computer mouse, your webcam and your phone. There is also one music video which requires you to enter your post code to show a man running to your home.

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Sprawl ll (Mountains Beyond Mountains)

• Before the music video starts you are given the option as to whether you want to control the video using your hands via the webcam or if you want to use your mouse and left click. If you decide to use the webcam, you can then control which way the characters in the video move and where the camera goes. The principles are the same for the mouse click version but instead of controlling it with your hands, you control it by clicking in the direction of where you want.

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Creation • Arcade fire create all of there own music as they

are the musicians, songwriters and composers. They do however have some special apperances of vocals in their tracks. For example ‘Reflektor’ features backing vocals from David Bowie, who has been a fan of Arcade Fire for years.Though David Bowie doesn't appear in the song's music clip, his likeness does. "There is a David Bowie mask, in the very last second of the film, of the video," Will Butler (band member) explained, "that creepy mask that Win is wearing is in fact a David Bowie mask."

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Performance • Arcade Fire play a lot of different live events and

performances. When they do, they try to put on a show for the audience. What I mean by this is that they provide lots of lights, instruments and sometimes special appearances. One of the most memorable and recent appearances was with Daft Punk last year at Coachella 2014. The band also wears unique costumes. Their performances nearly always follow the same type of theme and were praised and positively reviewed.