Funeral is the debut studio album by Canadian indie rock band Arcade Fire, released on September 14, 2004 by Merge Records. 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 all in an analogue recording format.
The album produced five singles, with "Rebellion (Lies)" being the most successful, having 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 widespread critical acclaim and topped many year-end and decade-end lists, now being often considered one of the greatest albums of all time. According to the website Metacritic, the album had the second most appearances on end-of-decade Top 10 lists, only behind Radiohead's Kid A. In the 2020 updated version of Rolling Stones 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, it was ranked at number 500.
Background
Funeral was largely recorded over the course of a week at the Hotel2Tango in Montreal, Quebec in August 2003. Additional recording also took place at Régine Chassagne and Win Butler's apartment, and the album was completed in 2004. The production cost of the album was estimated to be around $10,000.
The album 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 February 2004, and Richard Reed Parry's aunts in April 2004.
Artwork
The artwork for Funeral was designed by artist and photographer Tracy Maurice, depicting a scrawling quill with foliage growing from its feathers, painted onto a piece of a wooden planter. Maurice, then a Montreal-based artist, had been introduced by a mutual friend to Win Butler, who was looking for the artwork of the band's debut album. Chassagne and Butler took a liking to Maurice's drawings and commissioned her for the task. The design was inspired by Maurice's own collection of antique photographs and early 20th-century illustrated books, as well as the aesthetics of Japanese woodblock prints and Donovan's album Barabajagal.
Release
Funeral was released in Canada and the US on September 14, 2004, and in the UK on February 28, 2005. A highly positive review from Pitchfork, which gave the album a 9.7 out of 10 rating, was frequently cited as a key factor that propelled Funeral into widespread recognition and commercial success. The album entered the Billboard 200 chart, a first for Merge Records; it was also the fastest-seller in the label's history. By November 2005, the album had sold over half a million copies worldwide, and by March 2007 it had sold nearly 750,000 copies worldwide.
The album is certified Gold by the Record Industry Association of America for over 500,000 copies sold in the US.
Critical reception
Funeral received universal acclaim from music critics and is commonly hailed as a modern classic. At Metacritic, the album has received an average score of 90, based on 33 reviews. It is put at one of the top 100 albums on Metacritic's list of highest scored albums of all time. AllMusic reviewer James Christopher Monger gave the album a rating of five stars out of five. He described it as "brave, empowering, and dusted with something that many of the indie-rock genre's more contrived acts desperately lack: an element of real danger." Rock critic Robert Christgau gave the album an A−, saying that Funeral was "...too fond of drama, but aware of its small place in the big world, and usually beautiful." Pitchfork gave the album a 9.7 out of 10 rating, and ultimately ranked the album #1 on their Top 50 Albums of 2004 list, as well as #2 on their Top 200 Albums of the 2000s list, after Radiohead's Kid A. Kludge called it a "glorious" debut album, in which Arcade Fire spins "elaborate art-rock full of passion and atmosphere."