Just released: The new Arcade Fire video, directed by Spike Jonze.

Full credits: Taken from the short film: "Scenes From The Suburbs"

Director: Spike Jonze
DP: Greig Fraser
Editor: Jeff Buchanan
Additional Video Editing: Patrick Colman
Producer: Vince Landay
Producer: Arcade Fire
Production Company: MJZ
Sound Design/Mix - T. Terressa Tate @ The Royal T Room

-- Randall Roberts

Twitter: @liledit

The Grammy Awards went young -- and pop -- in 2010, awarding crossover teen star Taylor Swift the show's top crown -- album of the year. For such a seemingly wholesome and beloved artist, it was seen as a somewhat controversial pick.

The Grammys have typically skewed older -- Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, Herbie Hancock, U2, etc. -- and rarely award an artist without a lengthy body of work. Unlike Norah Jones and Lauryn Hill, Swift's detailed tales of teenage life seemed aimed at a direct audience, and when she gave a wobbly vocal performance with Stevie Nicks, Team Swift was on the defensive. 

The Grammys can't win. Even when they gift its top prize to America's pop sweetheart, complaints pour in. But the Swift win did hint that Grammy voters are willing to go more mainstream than ever, and she competed in a field that also included the Black Eyed Peas, Lady Gaga, the Dave Matthews Band and Beyoncé.

One could argue that such a field represented the genre-hopping tastes of the iPod generation, or one could note that the choices were almost stubbornly old school. Voters went with all major label artists, all major stars and carefully spread the picks amid pop, rock, country and R&B fields. A year for the unexpected it was not.

Whether the trend continues, or voters throw in a Radiohead, Hancock or White Stripes-like surprise, will be answered soon enough. Grammy ballots are due Nov. 3, and nominations will be revealed in early December. Before voters put down their pencils, here's a look at some of the likely nominations -- and perhaps some deserving ones. 

(This is Part 1. Stay tuned to Pop & Hiss for a continued look at album of the year front-runners.)

Eminem, "Recovery" (Aftermath/Interscope)

Grammy potential: Despite his sometimes penchant for shock-and-awe rap, Eminem has been one of the rare hip-hop artists to graphically explore violence and sex and still earn Grammy recognition in the major categories. Twice Eminem has been nominated for Grammy's top prize. Sales, of course, have helped his cause, and Eminem has a trail of critical accolades behind him. "Recovery" is seen as a more a serious turn than 2009's "Relapse," and little makes an artist more appealing to Grammy voters than getting older.

Grammy deserving: When Eminem released "Relapse," it was his first album of new material in five years, and it captured an artist who had become a cartoon. As rapid and clever as his rhymes were, the drugged-up serial killer shtick was just that, and its appeal was based on whether or not one could see it as humor or some sort of metaphor. "Recovery" is full of anger, but it's largely directed at Eminem himself. It's a moody, lacerating examination, and one that has sold close to 3 million copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The fact that it's perceived as a more thoughtful album than "Relapse" should make it Grammy bait. 

On Friday night at the second of two sold-out shows that Arcade Fire played at the Shrine Auditorium, a group of anxious journalists and bloggers stood around a primitive-looking contraption called the Wilderness Machine. Beside them in the Shrine's lobby was the machine's creator, director Chris Milk of Radical Media, appearing a little nervous.

The Wilderness Machine is an art piece and serves as the physical sequel to the digital masterwork that is Milk's interactive Arcade Fire video, called "The Wilderness Downtown." Friday night was to mark the official unveiling of the machine to the world. Only the machine wasn't working.

A group of tech guys from World Power Systems, which helped build it, buzzed around its 1,000-pound Plexiglas shell. Despite their efforts, it remained motionless, a sullen relic seemingly plucked from Thomas Edison's basement.

"Two days ago, its claw arm attacked its suction arm," said Milk, adjusting his thick, black-framed glasses on the bridge of his nose. "When that happened, it destroyed a servo motor. Although I personally think it was an attempt at robot suicide."

[Update, 11:47 a.m.: A previous version of this post referred to the "servo motor" as a "server modem."]

There isn't a working band that has more fun playing live. The energy created is healing.

 
In the middle of Arcade Fire's set at the Shrine Auditorium on Thursday night, during its disco-dripping song “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains), the group's lead singer Win Butler ran offstage and into the crowd. This isn't unusual for the band — onstage the eight-member (and counting) ensemble batters the fourth wall as hard as it thwacks its dozens of drums, keyboards, violins and other sundry noisemakers.

What was strange was what Butler did when he made it to the back aisles. He gathered some new friends among the legion of iPhone picture-snappers, brushed his sweaty southern-goth haircut to the side and stopped to watch his band play.

Even if his jaunt was a bit of lead-singer peacocking, Butler still must have felt what the many hundreds of thousands of Arcade Fire fans have suspected since the arrival of its 2004 debut album “Funeral” — that we're watching a rambling cast of accordion-playing Canadians grow into the defining rock band of the 21st century.

The group has played some of the biggest stages the world can offer, licensed a song to the Super Bowl and topped album charts while releasing its music through the scruffy indie label Merge. Arcade Fire's best songs, like the gang-chorus rapture of “Wake Up” and call-and-response burner “Rebellion (Lies),” will be on our oldies stations in 40 years.

And after three albums, including the latest “The Suburbs,” the band members have finally written enough of them that their Shrine show could even make their singer take a step back and revel in the grandeur.

It took only 21 years, but Merge Records finally accomplished something label co-founder Laura Ballance never thought was possible: A No. 1 record on the U.S. pop charts. Yet after a modest, do-it-yourself beginning in the late '80s in Chapel Hill, N.C. -- running the label while performing to nearly empty clubs with her band Superchunk -- Ballance is definitely not one who's going to gloat.

"The whole chart thing is kind of like sports," she said Wednesday. "The need to have a ranking is kind of meaningless. I’m more like, ‘It did good? That’s great.’ "

The third effort from orchestral pop outfit the Arcade Fire sold 156,000 copies to debut at No. 1 on Billboard's pop chart, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The figure builds upon the start of the band's last effort, 2007's "Neon Bible," which bowed at No. 2 with 92,000 sold. At a time when the close of each year brings another double-digit decline in CD sales, the Arcade Fire is one of the rare bands that continues to expand its audience, and is doing so with complex and thematic albums. 

Yet the Arcade Fire is also a band that tours rarely, and has little interest in self-promotion. For instance, Merge and the band are selling a download of "The Suburbs," bundling the digital release with an interactive digital picture book. Artwork and lyrics were synchronized to each individual song, and clicking on the images will take users to links connected to each track, be it the Wikipedia pages of suburban Texas towns or YouTube music videos. Users can learn, for instance, which Arcade Fire song was influenced by Foreigner.  

With labels and artists trying to find inventive ways to bolster album sales, such an unique approach to packaging a digital album would seem tailor-made for a marketing campaign. Merge, however, made zero attempt to promote the innovation outside its website. 

"Nobody knew about it," Ballance admits."The band are fans of doing things under the radar and letting people discover it. We did not promote it as a feature. I think it’s cool. It’s even awesome for a little karaoke."

But "The Suburbs" certainly raked in the digital sales. Although SoundScan doesn't break down digital sales by retailer, a whopping 97,000 digital copies of "The Suburbs" were purchased. Many will certainly draw the same conclusion as Billboard, noting that "The Suburbs" surely benefited from a week-long promotion at Amazon.com, which sold the album for $3.99. Such low-priced offers are nothing new for Amazon, and acts as big as U2 have been sold by the online retailer at that price point. 

"Unfortunately, that’s not up to us," Ballance said of Amazon's decision to lowball the price of "The Suburbs." Yet it certainly raises concerns about the value of the album, and what consumers will view as a reasonable price. 

As first reported last night by indie rockers Spoon, the Arcade Fire's "The Suburbs" has debuted at No. 1 atop Billboard's charts. In its first week of release, the latest from the Canadian orchestral pop outfit sold 156,000 copies in the U.S., according to Nielsen SoundScan, narrowly edging out Eminem's "Recovery," at No. 2 with 152,000 copies sold. 

The achievement is the first-ever No. 1 album for a Merge Records release on the U.S. pop chart. Founded in the late '80s by Laura Ballance and Mac McCaughan of indie band Superchunk, Merge has won a reputation for releasing quality, left-of-center pop acts. In addition to the Arcade Fire, the label has had solid sales successes with minimalist art-rockers Spoon, Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward's vintage pop project She & Him and the more eccentric Magnetic Fields -- but never a No. 1 album.

The Arcade Fire came close to the top spot with 2007's "Neon Bible," an album that opened at No. 2 with 92,000 copies sold. The top-selling album that week was Notorious B.I.G.'s "Greatest Hits," which opened with 99,000 copies sold. 

Though interest in the band continues to grow, sales of "The Suburbs" were helped no doubt by Amazon.com discounting the album to $3.99 for its entire first week of release. Comparatively, the album was selling for the typical $9.99 on Apple's iTunes store. Although SoundScan doesn't break down digital sales by retailer, a whopping 97,000 digital copies of "The Suburbs" were purchased, according to Billboard. 

For some perspective, only 59,000 physical copies of "The Suburbs" were sold, less than the total first week sales of the band's "Neon Bible." Digital sales accounted for 62% of first-week purchases of "The Suburbs." Though digital album sales continue to grow, that's way ahead of the industry pace. Last month, Nielsen SoundScan reported that digital sales account for 27.4% of all album purchases, with the bulk of sales still coming from the declining CD market. 

The weekly numbers from Nielsen SoundScan aren't given the official unveiling until Wednesday morning, but perhaps Chapel Hill, N.C.'s Merge Records can be forgiven for not being totally hip to music industry embargoes. After all, it's not often the indie label founded by Superchunk's Laura Ballance and Mac McCaughan has the No. 1 album in the U.S. Heck, never mind often -- the label has never topped the U.S. pop charts before. 

But despite a valiant effort from Eminem, the adventurous orchestral pop act Arcade Fire will find itself at No. 1 first thing Wednesday morning -- errrr, probably, and most assuredly definitely, but Nielsen SoundScan isn't talking. 

Yet if Merge and its close-knit family of bands is to be believed, the Arcade Fire's "The Suburbs" sold 156,000 copies in the U.S., according to Spoon's official Twitter page. Yes, Spoon, the Austin, Texas-bred minimalist art-rockers, are the ones who broke the news of Arcade Fire's first-week sales. 

The 156,000 number -- should it hold -- rockets passed the first-week sales of the band's "Neon Bible," which bowed with 92,000 copies sold back in March of 2007. "Neon Bible" missed the No. 1 spot, albeit narrowly. The top-selling album that week was Notorious B.I.G.'s "Greatest Hits," which opened with 99,000 copies sold. 

"The Suburbs" has been one of the year's most hotly anticipated indie releases, and tracks began hitting the Web back in May. The album received three-and-a-half (out of four) stars from the Times, and sales were no doubt helped by an extremely low digital price from Amazon.com. The retailer sold a full download of the album for $3.99.

Such fire sales are not new for Amazon. U2's "No Line on the Horizon," for instance, was discounted to $3.99 during its first week of release, and Grizzly Bear's "Veckatimest" posted high digital sales numbers after being given the nice price of $3.99 in its first week, with 13,000 of its debut-week sales of 33,000 coming from the digital marketplace. Yet it was rare to see the retailer carry the low price for the entire first week of release, as Amazon's $3.99 promos more typically last for 24 hours. The album is now selling for $7.99.

Also of note, the Arcade Fire were selling the download for $7.99. The download edition from the band came complete with "synchronized artwork." The visuals are synced to the songs, creating a sort of moving picture book for computers and portable devices. 

-- Todd Martens

Photos: Top, the Arcade Fire perform at Lollapalooza in Chicago, 2010. Credit: Associated Press. Middle: A screenshot of Spoon's official Twitter page. 

In “We Used to Wait,” a restlessly mutating song deep in the recesses of the Arcade Fire’s ambitious new album, “The Suburbs,” Win Butler sings about a time when handwritten letters were the norm, and we waited for correspondences to wend their way through the postal system.

But Butler, the lead singer and principal lyricist for the Quebecois band, isn’t nostalgic by practice. “By the time we met,” he admits, “the times had already changed. So I never wrote a letter. I never took my true heart. I never wrote it down.” Later he says he will do these things, but it’s safe to file that under “the broken promises we make to ourselves in the instant gratification age.” Sure, and less time on Facebook as well, right?

One promise that the Arcade Fire keeps is crafting an old-fashioned, back-to-front exploration of one topic. In this case, it’s suburbia, the album’s most immediate symbol of complacency. But Arcade Fire’s third album doesn’t seek to condemn; the band knows that whether in a city — its Montreal or here in Los Angeles — or a subdivision outside Houston, (where Butler grew up), we’re all grasping for meaning. We’re searching in the shadows of the shopping malls that singer and multi-instrumentalist Régine Chassagne observes endlessly rising in “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains).”

Claiming seven members, though often swelling to more in a live setting, Arcade Fire first gained recognition in indie circles with its 2004 debut, “Funeral,” which established its talent for combining the symphonic with a certain wiry punk agility. By the time its follow-up, “Neon Bible,” landed in 2007, Arcade Fire was headlining venues such as the Hollywood Bowl, where it first played in 2005 with admirer David Byrne.

Arcade Fire tends to cleave to singular concepts, wrenching elaborate but intimate orchestrations from both the big strokes and nuances, but on its previous efforts, the results were sometimes too pristinely chilled on art-rock ice.

Occasionally, the band gets trapped in the same frost on “The Suburbs,” but the moments when it strikes warmth are some of the best of its career. Arcade Fire seems to have borrowed ideas from such bards of the wasteland as Bruce Springsteen. And while they don’t fashion songs with the immediate hit potency as “Dancing in the Dark,” the band members find a way to tap into the same approachable frustration and tenderness.

“Modern Man” is an impeccable showcase, a mature, controlled song that features a vision of the so-called Modern Man waiting in line, going nowhere, bothered by some ineffable sense of opportunity unfulfilled. It’s underscored by rough, cottony guitars that almost occlude the song’s chillier synth effects.

In one of the record’s many wonders of sequencing — a lost art in the download age resurrected on “The Suburbs” — “Modern Man” is followed by “Rococo,” a resplendent epic wound up by near-hysterical strings that encases one of the album’s trickiest sentiments: Making fun of the modern kids. It’s hard to tell if Butler was once one of them or not. Is it a swipe at what he knows all too well, or is he simply casting disparagements? Either way, Butler sounds angry. He nearly spits out the word “rococo,” as if the fanciful living rooms of old — picture the Draper household in “Mad Men” — will explode into flames from his very force.

The Arcade Fire's 2004 debut "Funeral" careened the band out of Canada's then-burgeoning indie scene with an orchestral-pop grandeur. On record, the songs were ornate, and hinted at the near relentless instrument-swapping theatricality that has marked the act's live shows.

A follow-up, 2007's "Neon Bible," took a turn for the somber, dialing down some of the act's momentum. While there were stand-out moments, such as the hymn-like "Intervention," a slow-building anthem driven by church organs, the act's skepticism toward big ideas such as faith, consumerism and suburbia weren't always matched with the requisite drama.

An early peek at the band's third album, "The Suburbs," which won't be released until Aug. 3, may on first listen present an image of a band that's taking a more inward focus. "Gonna make a record in the month of May," singer Win Butler snarls in the opening moments of "Month of May," one of two new tracks the band officially unveiled on its Web site today. It's loud, fast and shockingly direct, built around a punk rock beat and tersely fuzzed-up guitars. Butler sounds a bit like Neil Young, and the riffs come off like a nod to early Queens of the Stone Age.

Yet for a band that hasn't yet shied away from tackling weighty issues, is one to be a little underwhelmed that the Arcade Fire now appear to be singing about rock 'n' roll? Pair it, however, with "The Suburbs," the album's title track that was made available for purchase today, and a bigger vision starts to take shape.