Arcade Fire have hit back in a lengthy letter responding to criticism about their Grammy Awards win last week. The band denied allegations that their performance at the end of the ceremony, directly after picking up the ‘Album Of The Year’ award, was pre-arranged with knowledge of the win.
The band were criticised in two separate articles by Steve Stoute and music industry veteran Bob Lefsetz, who both suggested that the band’s performance directly after picking up the award was not coincidental.
However, Arcade Fire’s manager Scott Rodger responded to Lefsetz through a letter snet to his blog, the Lefsetz Letter Blog.
He said: “Arcade Fire had the final slot on the Grammys as the ratings are low at the end of the broadcast. It really is that simple. We were one of the least known acts on the bill for a network audience. Don’t you think I wanted a better slot for the band?”
“The reason we got a second song was also simple. No big plot. We had no guarantee of air time, but it was simply to play out the end credits of the show, if we’re even had that much. The show never runs like clockwork to an exact time so the end is always loose. As it happened, the broadcast was covered by sponsors messages and the end credits.”
Rodger Continued: “Arcade Fire deserved the win this year. They made the best album. If the award was names "Album Sales Of The Year" award, there would be no discussion. Stoutes letter was nice piece of self publicity. Did he see Kanye’s tweets when we won and the praise he gave us?? He needs to tune in. Eminem made a big selling album but it was far from being his best work. Katy Perry made a big pop record that simply didn’t have weight or credibility. Gaga’s repackage, great album but it was a repackage of the main release. I think everyone felt it was going to be Lady Antebellum’s moment having won 5 out of 6 awards to that point. We all felt that way too.”
“I’m proud of this band and what they have achieved. We didn’t lobby any organisation for this nor did the band play the game. We paid our own overhead to do the event, thus the lack of on stage gimmicks. No label picked up the tab.”
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