“Behind the scenes my ideas are much worse.”

It’s not the rarest of occurrences when celebrity hops onstage to karaoke one of their own songs—Lin-Manuel Miranda, for example, did it with a Hamilton cut just last year—but it isn’t often that that celebrity makes music as weighty and ominous as Win Butler. As the lead singer of the Arcade Fire, Butler has produced…

Back in February, Dirty Projectors’ David Longstreth took to his Instagram to pose an existential question: “Is it me or is the condition of indie rock in the 24½th century both bad and boujee?” “Bad,” he meant, in the sense that it was now largely a “musically underwhelming” Xerox of groups that came before. “Boujee”…

No matter how much professional rock critics and casual cultural commentators may find the Grammy-winning alt-rock act Arcade Fire exhausting, the group shows no signs of fading away. Arcade Fire’s fifth LP, Everything Now, was released a few weeks ago to some of the most negative reviews the band has yet received,…

Arcade Fire’s fifth album, Everything Now, came out July 28, and ahead of a traditional interview, we also asked the band to tackle some of our favorite questions from AVQ&As past. We called it AFQ&A, which is very clever. Here are their answers.

Arcade Fire’s fifth LP Everything Now opens with its title track, twice. The first version, logged under the name “Everything_Now (Continued),” lasts for just under one woozy minute, and it in no way prepares the listener for what’s to come. When the dirgelike intro gives way to the full five-minute “Everything Now,”…

After singles, anagrams, weird dress codes, and four whole years since Reflektor, the new Arcade Fire album is finally out. We’ll have a review up in a couple of hours, but for now, Everything Now is available to stream over on Apple Music; non-subscribers can hear samples from its dance-y, disco-influenced tracks…

Did Arcade Fire annoy some people by suggesting people dress up for shows on their 2013 North American tour, then walk it back by saying the dress code was “super not mandatory?” Yes. Is the band going for a redux of that same controversy by releasing a message to attendees of its upcoming Everything Now release show…

Last week, Kendall and Kylie Jenner—you know, the Kardashians’ lower-rated spinoff series—attracted the ire of pretty much all sentient humans (again) by selling a bunch of $100 shirts with their own faces superimposed over the images of dead rappers (also a bunch of classic rock musicians, only some of whom were…

Every Friday, dozens of new records are released into the wild. Some make big splashes, and others sink almost immediately. For most music consumers, it’s almost too much information, and save for those precious few who spend their hours glued to review sites and release calendars, it’s hard to know what’s coming out…

Arcade Fire is currently gearing up for its fifth studio album, Everything Now, dropping the album’s title single earlier this week, and revealing a July 28 release date. Now, the band has released the full set list for Everything Now, at least for fans who want to put in a little bit of work.

Earlier this week, we investigated how Arcade Fire appeared to have been building anticipation for something using a Russian website with a video titled “everything now content two.” Now evidence of an actual song titled “Everything Now” has emerged, so basically that was a whole lot of confusion for what was simply…

Not everything sent to The A.V. Club’s Twitter page is newsworthy—it turns out that a lot of people really liked Suicide Squad—but sometimes there’s no better way to stay on top of the hottest new viral marketing stunts than by looking at social media. Of course, it’s impossible to tell when something will be a viral…

The George W. Bush years were dark, no matter which side of the aisle you sat on. Less than a year into his first term came the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil, and everything thereafter was haunted by the specter of war—first in Afghanistan and then, erroneously, in Iraq. The U.S. government engaged in torture…

It’s been four years since Arcade Fire released its fourth album, Reflektor, but the band has certainly been staying busy. It’s been teasing a new album in 2017, and while there’s no proof that the song the band just released, “I Give You Power,” will be on it, it’s the first audible sign that the band’s been in the…

The Garbage Pail Kids line of goofy gross-out cards and stickers may not be as shocking as it was in the ’80s, but its latest collection might freak out cool parents even more than the original Cabbage Patch Kids parodies freaked out lame parents. Yes, the Garbage Pail Kids have set their satirical sights on the world…

Welcome back to AVQ&A, where we throw out a question for discussion among the staff and readers. Consider this a prompt to compare notes on your interface with pop culture, to reveal your embarrassing tastes and experiences, and to ponder how our diverse lives all led us to convene here together. Got a question you’d…

The East Coast is already home to several music festivals, including the Mountain Jam (featuring Wilco, Beck, and the Avett Brothers), the Newport Folk Festival (which Flight Of The Conchords will headline), and of course, the Governors Ball which, while lacking in heads of state, will feature Chvrches, Kanye West,…

It’s been over a month since the death of David Bowie, and though it still feels weird to live in a world without the musical behemoth, it’s comforting to know that his legacy will live on, with his music set to influence people for generations to come. Part of that legacy is a celebration of the way that music…