Arcade Fire

Arcade Fire came to prominence with Funeral, their 2004 debut, an album widely regarded by critics as one of the 2000s' greatest. Formed in Montreal in 2001 by friends and classmates Win Butler and Josh Deu, the Canadian group built its music around a large, shifting instrumental palette rather than a fixed rock-band setup. Their recordings and concerts have drawn on strings, piano, accordion, French horn, harp, mandolin, hurdy-gurdy, synthesizers and percussion alongside guitars, bass and drums.

The band’s core line-up consists of multi-instrumentalists Win Butler, Régine Chassagne, Richard Reed Parry, Tim Kingsbury and Jeremy Gara. Composer and violinist Owen Pallett has contributed to most of Arcade Fire’s studio albums and has also toured with the group. Former core member Sarah Neufeld remains part of the touring line-up, alongside multi-instrumentalists Paul Beaubrun and Dan Boeckner. Onstage, members regularly change instruments and duties, reflecting the orchestral scope of the songs.

After Funeral, Arcade Fire released Neon Bible in 2007. It won the 2008 Meteor Music Award for Best International Album and the 2008 Juno Award for Alternative Album of the Year. Their third album, The Suburbs, arrived in 2010 and brought both critical and commercial success, receiving the 2011 Grammy Award for Album of the Year, the 2011 Juno Award for Album of the Year and the 2011 Brit Award for Best International Album. Every studio album from Funeral through We received a Grammy nomination for Best Alternative Music Album.

The group followed The Suburbs with Reflektor in 2013 and released Everything Now in 2017. Arcade Fire also scored the film Her; Pallett and then-member Will Butler were nominated for Best Original Score at the 86th Academy Awards for that work. Neon Bible, The Suburbs and Reflektor were each shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize. The band released We in 2022, followed by its seventh studio album, Pink Elephant, in 2025.