7 Things Better Than an Arcade Fire Song

Oh, Arcade Fire, Canada's most frustrating six-piece indie rock group. Sure, The Suburbs was solid, and I'm more than a little obsessed with the song they did for the Six Feet Under soundtrack, "Cold Wind" — but then along came Reflektor, the band's latest release, and, oof. In short, my feelings about it were pretty well summed up by Chris Richards's Washington Post review, "Arcade Fire's Reflektor : Still devoid of wit, subtlety and danger, now with bongos." (Even David Bowie's vocal cameo couldn't save that bloated 7-minute title track.) Still, by far the most eye-roll-worthy thing to come from the band to date occurred during their most recent Coachella set, when lead singer Win Butler chose to make the following remark: "Shout out to all the bands playing actual instruments at this festival." While everyone in the audience who owns a banjo surely gave a sage nod and adjusted his or her ironic porkpie hat, EDM artist Deadmau5 took umbrage, and on Wednesday, took to Twitter with his objections.

In the midst of firing off truths about how "a computer is a tool, not an instrument" and just how freakin' old this non-rivalry between bands and electronica has become, Deadmau5 also dropped a pretty excellent burn:

While I feel it's important to take second to appreciate 1) the fact that Deadmau5 appears to genuinely love the opera and 2) the phrase "cesspool of pure skill," in the spirit of online high-fivery, I'd also like to give the man a hand by offering up a few more things that are better to listen to than latter day Arcade Fire:

• Your cousin's band covering Rage Against the Machine.
• Gilbert Gottfried trying to seduce you.
• A Furby that's been left out in the rain.
• The seagulls from Finding Nemo on a 45 minute loop.
• A 19-year-old girl's indecisive Starbucks order.
• The door-closing sound as you're running for the subway.
• John Cage's "4'33"."

But there's no fun in just being a hater. Or, well, there's plenty of fun, but not too much righteousness, and given Deadmau5's very real indignation, it seems appropriate to offer up an actual rebuttal to Butler's concern that not enough "real" music was being made this year at Coachella. So, in the interest of righteously shoving those comments directly back into the singer's face, here is some intricate, interesting, and absolutely worthwhile music made with computers — if not "better" than Arcade Fire (in their heyday), then surely at least equal, no matter from whence they came.

Matmos

TEPR

The Avalanches

TNGHT

Rusko

Proxy

Diplo

... and that's barely scraping the top of my iTunes, let alone the vast depths of the Internet. Can someone please forward those to Win Butler post haste? And, lest we forget, let's give one last salute to Deadmau5 by closing out with something from his oeuvre: