The Arcade Fire

No band exemplifies Montreal's current heavyweight status in the music world the way Arcade Fire does. The group's Funeral is one of the most amazingly self-assured first albums by any band in recent memory, and was nominated for two Grammys and three Brit Awards. David Bowie regularly hands out copies of the album to friends, while Coldplay frontman Chris Martin says, "When we heard Funeral, we were all prepared to get day jobs."

Arcade Fire founder Win Butler, BA'04, pursued the decidedly un-rock and roll study of scriptural interpretation at the Faculty of Religious Studies. "The program was really interesting, I liked the professors and all the classes were in a really beautiful building," he told the Georgia Straight.

After spotting McGill jazz student Régine Chassagne singing at an art show, he invited her to join his fledgling group. She was reluctant, thinking he was trying to pick her up (her instincts weren't all wrong - the two are now married). Both have wide-ranging musical interests - she performed in a medieval musical troupe during her McGill days, his grandfather was big-band leader Alvino Rey - and are one of pop music's most formidable songwriting teams. The Arcade Fire is planting permanent roots in Montreal, building its own recording studio in a former church.

The High Dials

The High Dials, whose members include Trevor Anderson, BA'97, MA'99 and Robb Surridge, BA'99, haven't yet achieved the kind of breakout success that bands like the Arcade Fire and Wolf Parade have enjoyed, but there are indications that the group might not be too far off. The band recently picked up some big-name boosters - musician/ actor Steven Van Zandt (the only man to serve as a trusted lieutenant to both Bruce Springsteen and Tony Soprano) and former Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham are both fans of the High Dials' contemplative, '60s-flavoured tunes. The Washington Post and Magnet and Nuvo magazines list the band's War of the Wakening Phantoms as one of last year's best albums, while Montreal Gazette critic Jordan Zivitz declares, "At his best, Trevor Anderson is Montreal's most gifted songwriter."

Gonzales

One of the most remarkable displays of musicianship demonstrated in Montreal last year came courtesy of eclectic pop sophisticate Gonzales (also known as Jason Beck, BMus'94). During a concert last autumn, Gonzales, unaccompanied on keyboards, played only instrumental music, most of it from his recent Solo Piano CD, occasionally ripping out surprisingly textured and vibrant renditions of such typically cheesy fare as Lionel Ritchie's "Hello." Then, to cap it all off, he sped through a wry and pitch-perfect "summary" of the entire concert. The crowd was spellbound. It explains why artists as varied as Jane Birkin and Daft Punk seek him out. Gonzales co-produced (and co-wrote many of the songs for) friend Feist's recent Juno-winner, Let it Die.