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You Can't Hear it on the Radio is a blog about the current golden age of music. At no time since the 1960s has there been such an output of quality music by so many varied artists. Add to that technology that makes it easier than ever for the curious to find good music today. But, like an unlimited selection at an all-you-can-eat buffet, there's no table service. You will have to seek it out. The old model is dead. Generally speaking, you can't hear it on the radio. You can learn about it here, though.

Crit Rock \krit rawk\ n 1: Music made for discerning tastes, often at the expense of broad popular appeal 2: Music that emphasizes innovation, originality, and unique creative characteristics over commercial viability

Arcade Fire is now the biggest rock band in the world. WTF is Arcade Fire?

More than anything that came out of the Grammy win and resulting agita among those meeting Win Butler and company for the first time is this riddle. How can it be both? How can Arcade Fire be unknown and huge at the same time? How did Arcade Fire, an indie darling for more than the last couple years and a successful but hardly commercially dominant enterprise, assume the title of the biggest rock band in the world from the likes of U2 (or if you think U2 is over, Coldplay)?

Firstly, remember that this is not about the Grammys. The Grammys meant nothing last year, and will mean nothing next year, so just because an indie band won Grammy's biggest trophy doesn't mean the Grammys suddenly matter. However, to the extent the Grammys are a symbol for mainstream acceptance, Arcade Fire winning a Grammy says something meaningful about Arcade Fire and indie music, even if it doesn't say something meaningful about the Grammys themselves, you dig? I mean, it's one thing for you and me to say that Arcade Fire is "good" in a critical sense, and another thing entirely for the Grammys to say it. The Grammys are a joke, but they are a self-serious joke with a big footprint. When they recognize a band like Arcade Fire and a record like The Suburbs with more than a token nomination (such as the level of recognition achieved by Radiohead's In Rainbows in 2009 or The White Stripes' Elephant in 2004), it gives a reason to evaluate the state of mainstream music and the state of independent music at the same time.

Arcade Fire's success is not based on selling records, but on making records that matter. 2004's Funeral was released on September 14th and a scant three months later was anointed by Pitchfork as the #1 album of the year. Pitchfork was ahead of the curve; six years later Funeral was on all the decade's best lists, including mainstream Rolling Stone. 2007's Neon Bible was in everyone's top five list for that year, including Blender (2), AV Club (1), Rolling Stone (4), Spin (2), and Village Voice (5). Ironically, it rated only 27th at Pitchfork, and probably kick-started the Pitchfork backlash era. Before winning a Grammy, The Suburbs was named as a top five album of the year by more than 15 organizations as diverse as MTV and Time Magazine. (Keep in mind that during this time Arcade Fire did not have a million selling album; all three albums combined would not top two million in sales to date. Strictly for comparison, Taylor Swift's Grammy winning album Fearless has more than 10 million in sales). Critics, both fringe and mainstream, have foretold and then cemented the rise of Arcade Fire. And as absurd as their win seemed to many populists, so too is the populist uproar absurd to anyone who does know Arcade Fire. What do you mean, who is Arcade Fire? They've made three of the absolute best rock albums of the last eight years. Wake the fuck up.

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