Arcade Fire - clearly a model to revere

Pitchfork interview Arcade Fire and they get to muse on a few things that are close to my heart.

They talk about how they realised that they wanted to go their own way rather than be signed to a record label.

But, the thing that makes Arcade Fire great is that they have ambition and they have worked hard at their talent. And, for them, the music comes first. They want to be great and they work at it. The clever ideas that they and their team have come up with are innovative and since they license their music to a label rather than being signed, the choices are made together and aren't restricted by outdated major label models.

I particularly like what they say about the quality of songs on the radio when they were groing up as opposed to now - this is a band that care about quality.

If we were around in the 60s, who would we rip off? Glenn Miller? [laughs] We have some nostalgia about how music and radio used to be, but it's not a deep nostalgia. When you get into it, it was all pretty screwed up the whole time. Then again, there's an AM station in Montreal that re-broadcasts Casey Kasem shows from 30 years ago. I was listening to one from 1972 and the top 10 songs included John Lennon, Aretha Franklin, the Rolling Stones-- like, nine of the 10 were classic, and #2 was some horrible schmaltzy 70s song. I don't think I'll be excited about nine of the top 10 songs on the radio today 35 years from now, partly because I'm an old fogey.

Read the whole piece here - it's worth it.