Funeral

Funeral is the debut full-length album by 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.

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 5 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 lists. It was ranked eighth in Bob Mersereau’s 2007 book The Top 100 Canadian Albums, and #2 on Pitchfork’s 200 Top Albums of the 2000s

Initial critical response to Funeral was very positive. 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. Allmusic reviewer James Christopher Monger gave the album a rating of four and a half stars out of five.