Song · The Arcade Fire
“Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)” by The Arcade Fire
From the album Funeral (2004)
“Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)” by The Arcade Fire appears on 14 radio countdowns from 6 stations between 2009 and 2026. It was first released in 2004 on the album Funeral. Its best result is #100 on the WXPN 885 Greatest Songs of the New Millennium (2013). In the combined RockLists rankings it is #597 indie & aaa song of all time and #244 of the '00s.
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"Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)" opens Arcade Fire's debut album Funeral and kicks off its four-part "Neighborhood" cycle, and it was the Canadian band's first single too: a 7-inch that arrived in June 2004, months before the album, in a run of just 1500 copies. The flip side was "My Buddy" by the swing bandleader Alvino Rey, grandfather on their mother's side to Win and Will Butler.
The song starts small and builds like a snowdrift. Win Butler sings lead and plays electric guitar, Régine Chassagne drums, Tim Kingsbury holds down the bass and Richard Reed Parry adds organ and piano, while violins, cello, harp and French horn swell up behind them until the whole thing sounds like a neighborhood waking up at once. The band produced it themselves, and they reissued the single for Record Store Day's Black Friday in 2019.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Indie & Adult Alternative
All Rock Formats
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | 194 | WYEP | WYEP 913 Songs That Matter from the Last Decade | 913 |
| 2009 | 693 | WXPN | WXPN 885 Desert Island Songs (2009) | 885 |
| 2013 | 100 | WXPN | WXPN 885 Greatest Songs of the New Millennium (2013) | 885 |
| 2014 | 335 | WXPN | WXPN 885 All-Time Greatest Songs (2014) | 885 |
| 2018 | 177 | The Current | The Current's 893 Essential Songs | 892 |
| 2019 | 110 | KEXP | KEXP Listeners' Favorite Songs of All Time | 627 |
| 2020 | 1047 | WXPN | WXPN 2020 Greatest Songs of All Time | 2020 |
| 2022 | 105 | 90.9 The Bridge | 90.9 The Bridge Top 909 Songs of the 2000s | 907 |
| 2022 | 122 | KEXP | KEXP Top Songs of the Last 50 Years (1972-2022) | 491 |
| 2022 | 1007 | WYEP | WYEP Countdown to Fall 2022 | 603 |
| 2023 | 451 | The Colorado Sound | The Colorado Sound Top 800 Songs About Places | 800 |
| 2024 | 560 | The Colorado Sound | The Colorado Sound Top 1055 Songs of the 21st Century | 1055 |
| 2024 | 145 | WXPN | WXPN The 885 Greatest Songs of the 21st Century (2024) | 885 |
| 2026 | 967 | WYEP | WYEP Greatest Songs of All Time | 1180 |
Also listed as: Neighborhood #1 (tunnels); Neighborhood #1; Neighborhood # 1 (Tunnels).
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