Are they the best band in the world? There's no such thing! I love this band enough to ask the question though. But it's rhetorical!

The band is good, but are the Springsteen and U2 comparisons premature?

I don't know but what's puzzling to me is the assumption that Springsteen and U2 represent the gold standard for rock music such that any comparison to them immediately smacks of overstatement.

Springsteen and U2 certainly had their moments, but it's odd to see everyone arguing over who is going to be named their proper heirs. Even the best work of these two acts is flawed in significant ways. For instance, "Born in the U.S.A." is a great song, with socially conscious lyrics, but the production is for shit. I mean, what's with that awful synth?

I don't mean to bash them. But I think it's a bit of an overstatement itself to suggest that any comparison to them is in danger of being premature or over-the-top.

Arcade Fire aren't the best band in the world. They aren't even the best band in Montreal. (That would be Godspeed You Black Emperor.) AF admittedly has a lot of passion for what they do -- even if the end result merely sounds like they've spent a lot of time listening to the Flaming Lips -- and that passion is somewhat infectious. But calling Arcade Fire the best band in the world says very little about them -- and a lot about how pathetic modern rock music is.

Now I'm going to run off and listen to my Nik Bartsch/Ronin CD. Now *that's* a good band.

State-of-the-art eighties production on an eighties album.

Tunnel of Love is the great forgotten Springsteen album. Check the use of synths on it.

Springsteen became an icon a few years before BitUSA, with his third album and the ballyhoo attending it.

Marchese: Italicize album titles. Put song titles in quotation marks.

Is Arcade Fire the best rock band in the world? I suppose that's a question worth asking. But only if you've never seen Drive-by Truckers.

Dude, they're not that good. :)

Crowning bands as the next savior of rawk is a time honored tradition and trick of slow news days. Sadly, the only measure worth considering is time. Arcade Fire have issued two terrific records in a row just as The Shins have done three and Modest Mouse many. Let's just enjoy it all as it comes and stop being so interested in crowning people and arts, it's just empty silliness.

Not "rawk."

Just not.

Seeing as how I've always felt that "Born to Run" was a rather overblown arrangement without much of a song, (seriously, take away the glockenspiel and Clarence's sax and you have pretty much a tuneless piece with silly lyrics about teenage redemption -or something), and that U2 are a series of anthems wrapped around the same 3 or 4 songs, that leaves Radiohead for The Arcade Fire to do battle with. Seeing as how I've never listened to "O.K. Computer" from beginning to end, I guess that pretty much excludes me from being able to have any kind of valuable opinion on this otherwise deeply serious matter...never mind.

A tired trick of desperate critics is to label BLANK "the best band in the world?" over and over...

this is why music criticism is boring and unedifying.

wait six months and salon will run this headline again, except this time for BLANK...

I'm not a rock critic, just an unabashed fan. I can't go into the technical details about exactly why I found a particular arrangement of musical notes pleasing or want to delve into the history of rock to compare one band's sound against another. All I can say is that the other day, as I was listening to Neon Bible on my Ipod on my way to another dreary day at the office, I felt a increasing lightness -- an uplift of my spirit -- as a huge smile spread across my face. You can sense the enthusiasm and sheer love of making music in Arcade Fire's songs. Naysayers needing empirical evidence should go hear them perform live. Whether in a small church or an arena, it's an intense and joyful experience.

Never listened to all of OK Computer all the way through? Dude, what the hell? Why are you posting anything here, since you clearly have not even a modicum of musical history or taste? Why not enter i<3hairbands chat room and write some blather there?

Arcade Fire bore me.

For the time being, I'll go ahead and say they're pretty good. But give it time. As far as I'm concerned, I'm looking forward to the next White Stripes album. In my opinion they're currently the greatest band in the world. And I don't think I'll ever get over the Libertines imploding so quickly.

I don't know -- I only heard them once and that was on SNL.

They were awful.

Perhaps they were simply overwhelmed by network TV -- but maybe talk about them being the greatest is a bit premature.

Or, perhaps that was just a bad performance.

While I love Arcade Fire, I am really surprised at the the critical and popular response to them. When I heard their first EP back in 2004 my immediate response was to call them a more polished version of The Shaggs.

Understand, I don't mean that as an insult; I've bought both albums and the EP. I am a of fan of enthusiastic but shambling outsider music, which is what Arcade Fire still sounds like to me.

They are not "the next Rock Gods", nor do I think they want to be. Besides, I thought we killed those already.

Nirvana was the last great band of the rock era, which ended well over a decade ago. We're now so far into the postrock era that I'm not sure the "best band in the world" tag actually means much. That said, AF is certainly a solid candidate. But don't forget The Wolf's warning from "Pulp Fiction".

You took the words out of my mouth.

After being raised on The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and Bob Dylan (just to name a few) I still to this day think Bruce Springstein and U2 (while admitedly very nice guys) are rediculously overrated. Musically, Springstein is a rock and roll version of Andrew Loyd Webber, painfully repetitive and over the top. U2's "I still haven't found what I'm looking for" is soooo boring! MTV in the 80's loward our standards.

Bands better than Springstein and U2... How about Tom Petty, or The Police, or Billy Joel (before Christy) or Arosmith (before sobrety) or Neil Young or Pearl Jam etc. etc. etc....