It’s always fun to hear what musicians have to say about their contemporaries – even when it doesn’t involve an epic smack down from Nicki Minaj.
This week, Arcade Fire were invited to rate some popular songs over the decades and had to decide whether it was a “jam” or not. Win Butler, Regine Chassagne and Tim Kingsbury weighed in on everyone from Justin Beiber to Bryan Adams with some interesting results.
It turns out that The Weeknd’s Can’t Feel My Face was barely recognised, and even then almost sent Chassagne and Kingsbury to sleep, while the chart dominating hit Uptown Funk barely fared any better. The only modern song they enjoyed was surprisingly Justin Beiber‘s Where Are You Now which got the nod of approval with Kingbury saying it was the best Justin Beiber song Diplo had ever produced. Meanwhile the B-52’s Love Shack to no surprise passed the test.
Watch their reactions below:
The game was part of the promo for their upcoming documentary The Reflektor Tapes and an expanded edition of the same album with six new songs.
Luckily for us, they have also recently stated in an interview with NME that they’re on their way to a new album, although they are relishing the lack of schedule.
“We’re all itching to play music together and start recording things. We’re basically in the demo and play together phase, and historically that’s led to realising that, surprisingly, we’re 30 per cent into a record, so we’ll see if that happens.”
“It’s a bit different this time because everyone’s older and fatter and lazier, so it might take longer, but we’re playing music together. Win and Regine got a place in New Orleans so I think we’ll spend some time there, because why wouldn’t you? But apart from that we’re in the old HQ. We’re not terribly good at schedules and luckily we’re in a position where no-one can ever tell us what to do, so it’s good.”
Butler has recently predicted the album could drop in February 2017.