No, you didn’t read that headline incorrectly.
Rounding out a phenomenal two weeks that included a live concert stream from Madison Square Garden directed by Terry Gilliam, the Arcade Fire have done it. The Canadian indie wonders booted Eminem out of the Billboard top spot to make “The Suburbs” the #1 record in the country.
The news came via their label Merge‘s Twitter. They tweeted:
As for the numbers, they aren’t entirely clear yet. But the band’s tour mates and label mates Spoon estimated via Twitter that AF sold around 156,000 copies. Spoon also gave a rousing shout out to the label—”Let the record reflect that Merge Records is the NUMBER ONE LABEL IN THE USA! Here’s to Arcade Fire and Merge: #1.”
Arcade Fire’s last album “Neon Bible” debuted at #2 on the Billboard charts, and the news of the chart-topping comes after “The Suburbs” hit #1 in the UK. Way to go Arcade Fire for making decent music popular once again.
August 19, 2010 at 3:59 pm, Arcade Fire Release Video for “Ready To Start” | Death and Taxes said:
[...] right, we admit it—we’re disappointed by “The Suburbs.” We were hoping that Arcade Fire would be another Radiohead, releasing one record better [...]