20 Fave Arcade Fire Songs
Updated by Daphne Ellis on February 12, 2021
I remember having to ask the diner waitress for a pen so I could scribble the lyrics on a napkin. "Move your feet from hot pavement and into the grass," I wrote. As one might expect from a thirteen-year-old internet sleuth, I found The Suburbs' title track first thing when I got home that evening. Arcade Fire quickly imprinted me with a sense of belonging to a home I'd never visited, a time I didn't live through and a future that I didn't know how to reach for.
From the rich ceremonial gestures that define Funeral to the disco renaissance that is Everything Now, their discography consistently proves a talent for innovating nostalgia. Their contribution to the budding world of indie-rock even invited the appreciation of David Bowie, which both artists monumentalized in a collaborative performance. Simply put, Arcade Fire sings about life itself in a way that does justice to its very complicated emotional twists and turns.
Special thanks to Zet Gold for this incredible cover art.
20. "Electric Blue”
18. “Haiti"
17. “Windowsill"
15. "Modern Man”
13. "Good God Damn”
12. "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)
11. "Joan of Arc”
8. "Empty Room”
7. “(Antichrist Television Blues)”
4. "We Exist”
3. "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)”
1. "Wake Up”
