Arcade Fire extinguished
Amid the many disappointments and commercial flops the music industry saw this year, perhaps the most egregious was the complete failure of Arcade Fire’s album Pink Elephant. The failure represents not merely the probable end of the band, but also the death of Obama-era rock. Pink Elephant received dismal reviews and didn’t even chart on the Billboard 200. Given that their last album, We, reached #6 as recently as 2022, and their previous LPs, Reflektor and Everything Now, topped the charts, this is a near-unparalleled fall from grace for a once-mighty act. That the married pair who compose the nucleus of the band, Win Butler and Régine Chassagne, announced their separation a few months later was
