How to build a buzz the Arcade Fire way

Call them what you will. Those kings of cool, the lords of lavishness and masters of mystery – Canada’s Arcade Fire have announced their highly anticipated sophomore album is finished and is to be titled Neon Bible. 2004’s Funeral awarded the world with some of the most beautiful and intense music for years. The 8+ piece band are sumptuously theatrical both musically and as a live act. Through it’s many dark moments Funeral, as a piece of work, builds to become an empowering crescendo of positivity. Its doused in melancholy but one cannot fail to feel its importance as a piece of music through every frantic, beautiful and downright beaming moment of the journey. Like the sun emerging from the clouds after a springtime rainstorm, Funeral left you with a sense of ambiguous ease that ‘all will be alright in the end’. Arcade Fire hold a phenomenal healing ability through the use of honest emotion (by its traditional definition!) in music. This album created a large worldwide following. Their songs were even being played at national sporting events in 2006 and with advocates such as U2, Chris Martin and Bowie they had a ‘commercial’ appeal too.

However, don’t think this means they will ‘do a Coldplay’ and sell out. Arcade Fire are a real cult act. They have that ever-crucial element that all successful cult acts need – an element of mystery. As we witness the buzz for Neon Bible begin to wind up and up we can see that Arcade Fire have added this trademark mystery to their marketing campaign. Here’s how...

How to build a buzz the Arcade Fire way
1. Generate an interest from day 1:
Even before Arcade Fire went into the studio to start work on Neon Bible they were defying convention opting to record the album in a Montreal church they had bought to turn into a studio. This was to capture their trademark grand sound (who needs ProTools plug-ins when you have the real thing : ) But even before the first click track was laid they were setting the project up to be big and unique from day one. This had the genius effect of portraying a sense of mystery. “What are they upto in there?” asked a local news site. The excitement began...

2. Keep people guessing:
Like all good cult acts Arcade Fire have one of the most abstract official web sites, containing little useful information (second only to Radiohead). No bio, no discography, no contact information – everything that a band would be advised to include Arcade Fire omitted. But, like Radiohead’s site, the purpose (in the same way album artwork is) is to use the official website as a continuation of the music - the art. Arcade Fire keep jonesing fans and media ‘on the hook’ through regular episodes of random blogging (as do Radiohead). Radiohead, possibly ‘the’ mainstream cult act of the last few years, are an example of a band who are able to trust their plethora of fan-run unofficial sites will keep their fan base interested with the ‘day-to-day’ information such as tours and release dates. This saves the big news such as studio updates and the unveiling of new songs to the official site’s blog. By not giving too much away a cult act can increase speculation and discussion as to what will happen next, this leads to a buzz.

Furthermore, Arcade Fire unveiled new track ‘Intervention’ releasing it to buy online for charity (see point 6) as well as it being played all over the radio but later announced that another track ‘Black Mirror’ is to be the first single. The best thing is, none of us know if one, all or none of these tracks will actually make “Neon Bible” (they have “over 100 songs” to choose from afterall!)

3. Communicate directly via the internet:
Once you’ve grown too big for guerilla gigs on public transport and grassroots street team marketing, its time to find a way of creating a buzz whilst staying connected directly with your fans. At this point it seems important not to purvey any of sort a corporate record company image. Arcade Fire appears to have broken out alone citing ‘Arcade Fire Music’ as their label (even though it is probably an offshoot of a major if even a real label), and Radioheads current hiatus is well publicised and it appears likely they will go independent with their next album.

A personal web blog is the perfect way to start. No need for press releases, just Win Butler himself telling the fans what’s happening and personally unveiling the new tracks. Accordingly, in a recent post he stated that Neon Bible has been selected through a strategy of ‘MySpace Darwinism’. “We decided to try and get a couple of songs out to people before the record leaked... that is why we leaked over 100 songs on Myspace as fake band names over the last year and then made a compilation of the 11 most popular songs and called it ‘Neon Bible’!” Even if not the first to do this, it is genius!

4. Be different:
Arcade Fire attempted to sate jonesing fans by setting up a curious toll-free phone number (1-866-NEON-BIBLE ext 7777) advertised online, where you can hear a static-y, almost unlistenable new album track. It even had Pitchfork fooled “Assuming it was some cheesy viral marketing campaign for a Christian youth movement or a car (Dodge Neon, maybe?) or something, we ignored it. Whoops!” Whilst its not exactly a revolutionarily new idea it is different, and that’s the name of the game. Being unique, standing out from the stock. (At the risk of contradicting point 3) this strategy also cleverly pulled fans off their computers. True music fans still have something to do with the real outside world like visit record stores and go to gigs, they can use phones too, I think.

5. Organise some ultra-exclusive live dates:
There is nothing like a couple of gigs that sell out in less than 5 minutes and leave fans selling their grandmothers on eBay to create a hype locally and internationally. The old: “Oh well seeing as I can’t get a ticket, I’ll just get the album and turn it up really loud, invite a load of mates around to flick the lights on and off and squash me till I’m soaked in sweat and my internal organs come dangerously close to bursting” really works! Arcade Fire announced 5 dates in a church in New York City, 5 at the Ukrainian National Federation in their hometown of Montreal and another 5 in another church in London. Obviously the venues are equally important to this overall image and campaign (see point 1). Expect a mountain of press interest at each city and feature length articles in every magazine during the month prior to and following their visit.

6. Get publicity effortlessly:
A cult act like Arcade Fire must purvey a sense of cool at all times, this includes when trying to get press attention. So release one of the new songs and give all profits to a charity like Partners in Health. That way you’ll get loads of press exposure and will be doing such a good deed. Everybody’s happy!

The first track to be made publicly available from these sessions entitled ‘Intervention’ sounds like a grandioso pop version of Sunday mass complete with that prevalent pipe organ and pounding snare drum. Its religious context doesn’t stop there as the controversial worry-ridden lyrics speak of ‘working for the church while your family dies’, as well as soldiers at war dieing. A church choir adds to the setting and emotion. Somewhat like the sound of the internal voice of the disenchanted middle-American youth forced into the weekly jaunt to visit god’s house or setting out onto the plains of Iraq as a young soldier ‘Intervention’ contains a message that many would rather ignore. The track sets the album up at be a big and bold piece of work.

As if by some stroke of fate another track ‘Rebellion/Lies’ was accidentally uploaded. According to a post from Win Butler on the band's website, someone from Merge Records mistakenly put the track on iTunes on December 26. Which is quite convenient actually, as now the media are writing news pieces about it and fans are searching frantically for it. It regrettably manages to overshadow the fact that this is all for charity.

Expect the album in March/April following a full leak.

Links:
Neon Bible: neonbible.com
Arcade Fire Scrapbook: arcadefire.com
Pitchfork’s Review of “Funeral”: pitchforkmedia.com