Is It Live?: Grammy Performers Announced

Arcade Fire might want to make a record in the month of May, but they'll be performing it in front of the entire nation at the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards.

The Grammys announced the first line of its performances this morning. Those taking the stage at the Staples Center on Sunday, Feb. 13 will be Arcade Fire, Eminem, Cee-Lo Green, Lady Gaga, Miranda Lambert, and Katy Perry.

I don't really get excited about the Grammys. Actually, scratch that; I despise the Grammys. As the highest award of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, the Grammys have rarely lived up to its promise, generally considered by critics as a staple within the industry's top professionals to execute a self-aggrandizing event, as well as systematically ignoring the major efforts of many independent labels and/or non-established genres of music.

BUT, I'm going to see where this goes. Arcade Fire — who are nominated for Album of the Year, Best Alternative Music Album and Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocals ("Ready to Start") — are coming off the high of critically acclaimed The Suburbs, which was consistently on many critics' top 10 albums of 2010, including mine.

Eminem is carrying a whopping ten nominations for various ventures in his new album Recovery, including Album of the Year, Best Rap Album and Record of the Year ("Love the Way You Lie"). Cee-Lo is still reeling from the soul knockout "Fuck You,"which is instantly recognizable at any decent party, Miranda Lambert's Revolution was a critical, Nashville sensation, Lady Gaga's always a fun, hot mess to watch on television, and Katy Perry was ... well, she was on Sesame Street. Remember that?

Easy there, Elmo. Her eyes are higher up.

But if Arcade Fire's first Grammy performance is anything nearly as electrifying as the beautiful shitshow that was their YouTube Madison Square Garden concert, it'll be one hell of a gig.

Arcade Fire — "The Suburbs"

9.1/10

2010, Merge Records

If you thought that planned communities were just an aesthetic annoyance in your brooding, Holden Caulfield-esque adolescence, apparently you didn’t get Arcade Fire’s memo.

The suburban war’s battle lines are drawn in the Montreal band’s third studio release, aptly titled The Suburbs. Here, Win Butler with his wife Reginé Chassagne and his brother William, lead their baroque-rock ensemble of just about everyone and their grandmother across 16 tracks detailing the trials and tribulations of the repressive lifestyle in Anytown, USA.

The band’s nature is just shy of what Cirque du Soleil might call “subtle”: it’s just not in their vocabulary. The grandiose texture of Arcade Fire constitutes their grievances with society in such a boisterous manner that usually resembles a middle finger. In short, imagine a symphony parked in your garage.

It’s because of this loaded orchestration that Arcade Fire’s deepest, most sentimental release so far seems ironic. All the dirty confessions on tracks like “Half Light II (No Celebration)” are wailed at the top of their lungs. Win’s shaky voice sings with vexed authority, “Oh, this city’s changed so much, Since I was a little child / Pray to God I won’t live to see, The death of everything that’s wild.” The listener gets the feeling Butler is talking about their dirt-town he or she wanted so badly to leave. That’s because he is.

Not many songs will provide an eye-welling catharsis like “Wake Up” and “No Cars Go”. In fact, some gems like “We Used to Wait” will leave you on the tip of your coccyx, only to leave you at the… wait for it! Climax... However, “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)” allows the listener release their frustration in a thrilling, synth-pop finale that pits itself toe-to-toe with MGMT’s work, and wins with a hand tied behind its back.

Arcade Fire additionally uses half of the record to, putting it lightly, comment on our generation’s mistreatment of music as an art form in the digital age. Songs like the lightly seething “Rococo” and the gospel-rock anthem “Month of May” expose today’s American culture of commodities, such as acquiring ridiculous amounts of music, or taking stock in a bunch of people you think are your friends (Facebook, anyone?) It’s hard not to sing along and wave your hands like a goon when Butler commands through the query, “How you gonna lift it with your arms folded tight?”

Maybe it’s poetic injustice, but Arcade Fire’s most personal, expressive release will also be their most ignored by the crowd that became so enthralled with the same group that gave us Funeral. After the 2007 release of "Neon Bible," it suddenly became uncool for PBR-swilling hipsters to listen to the band. While Arcade Fire definitely has something important to say, the sweeping nature will probably alienate those Butler is trying to reach.

At the end of the fifth act, the album ends with Butler crooning, “If I could have it back, all the time that we wasted / I’d only waste it again,” the listener will probably get the message that they really aren’t supposed to be wasting anything as precious as this record. I can only pray that someone else is also listening.