Funeral
Studio album by Arcade Fire
Released	September 14, 2004 (2004-09-14)
Recorded	August 2003 – early 2004 at the Hotel2Tango
Genre	Indie rock, baroque pop, post-punk revival, art rock
Length	47:55
Label	Merge, Rough Trade
Producer	Arcade Fire
Arcade Fire chronology
Arcade Fire (2003) Funeral (2004) Neon Bible (2007)
Singles from Funeral
"Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)" Released: June 20, 2004 "Neighborhood #2 (Laïka)" Released: March 28, 2005 "Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)" Released: May 23, 2005 "Rebellion (Lies)" Released: September 12, 2005 "Wake Up" Released: November 14, 2005

Funeral is the debut full-length album by the Canadian indie rock band Arcade Fire, released on September 14, 2004 in North America by Merge Records and on February 28, 2005 in Europe by Rough Trade Records. It was given its title because several band members had recently lost members of their families: Régine Chassagne's grandmother died in June 2003, Win and William Butler's grandfather (swing musician Alvino Rey) in March 2004, and Richard Reed Parry's aunt in April 2004.^[1]

Preliminary recordings for Funeral were made during the course of a week in August 2003 at the Hotel2Tango in Montreal, Quebec, and the recording was completed later that year.

The album produced five singles. The most successful, "Rebellion (Lies)", peaked at #19 on the UK Singles Chart. The album was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2005 for Best Alternative Music Album. It received wide critical acclaim and topped many year-end and decade-end lists. According to the website Metacritic, the album had the second most appearances on end-of-decade Top 10 lists, only behind Radiohead's Kid A.^[2] In the updated version of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, it was ranked at #151.

  Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[3]
Drowned in Sound	(10/10)[4]
NME	(9/10)[5]
Paste	[5]
Pitchfork	(9.7/10)[6]
PopMatters	(Favorable)
Robert Christgau	A−[7]
Rolling Stone	[5]
Tiny Mix Tapes	[5]
Uncut	[5]

Funeral has received almost unanimous praise from music critics, and it is hailed as a modern classic. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has received an average score of 90, based on 30 reviews. It is listed at number 24 on Metacritic's list of highest scored albums of all time.^[8] Allmusic reviewer James Christopher Monger gave the album a rating of five stars out of five. He described it as "brave, empowering, and dusted with something that many of the indie-rock genre's more contrived acts desperately lack: an element of real danger."^[9] Rock critic Robert Christgau gave the album an A−, saying that Funeral was "...too fond of drama, but aware of its small place in the big world, and usually beautiful."^[10] Pitchfork Media gave the album a 9.7 out of 10 rating, and ultimately ranked the album #2 on their Top 200 Albums of the 2000s list, after Radiohead's Kid A.^[11]

Drowned in Sound also highly praised Funeral. Reviewer Jesus Chigley called the album "...empowering and hopeful and euphoric all at once", saying that "it says everything there is to say about mortality and it does it in 10 tracks."^[12] Stylus's Josh Drimmer gave Funeral an A, calling it "celebratory, emotionally rich and life-affirming".^[13] Tiny Mix Tapes gave the album five stars out of five; "Funeral," the reviewer wrote, "is like nothing you've heard before, and altogether familiar."^[14] Dave Simpson of The Guardian called it "one of the year's best already, by a mile."^[15] Zeth Lundy of PopMatters complimented Funeral on its eccentricity, calling it "bizarre at turns and recognizable elsewhere, equally beautiful and harrowing, theatrical and sincere, defying categorization while attempting to create new genres."^[16] Entertainment Weekly put it on its end-of-the-decade "best-of" list, saying, "Funerals are generally somber affairs, but the Canadian indie rockers' emotionally charged 2004 debut mostly just made us smile. And, okay, mist up a little."^[17]

  Accolades

  Track listing

All songs written and composed by Arcade Fire, with help from Josh Deu on "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)" and "Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)". 

  Personnel

• Win Butler – vocals, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, piano, synthesizer, bass
• Régine Chassagne – vocals, drums, synthesizer, piano, accordion, xylophone, recorder, percussion
• Richard Reed Parry – electric guitar, synthesizer, organ, piano, accordion, xylophone, percussion, double bass, engineer, recording
• Tim Kingsbury – bass, electric guitar, acoustic guitar
• Howard Bilerman – drums, guitar, engineer, recording
• William Butler – bass, xylophone, synthesizer, percussion
• Sarah Neufeld – violin, string arrangements
• Owen Pallett – violin, string arrangements
• Michael Olsen – cello
• Pietro Amato – horn
• Anita Fust – harp
• Sophie Trudeau – violin on "Wake Up"
• Jessica Moss – violin on "Wake Up"
• Gen Heistek – viola on "Wake Up"
• Arlen Thompson – drums on "Wake Up"
• Arcade Fire – producer, string arrangements, engineer, recording
• Ryan Morey – mastering
• Tracy Maurice – cover art
• Hilary Treadwell – photography, insert

  References

  External links

• Funeral at Metacritic