Perhaps the biggest surprise at last night’s Grammy Awards was the Arcade Fire’s triumph in the Album of the Year category. The Montreal band beat out superstars like Eminem and Lady Gaga to win for their third album, The Suburbs. Perhaps this turn of events should not have been so astonishing, since the band’s high-energy, anthemic rock is, in many ways, old fashioned enough to appeal to Grammy voters who grew up on Bruce Springsteen and U2. Pop music is a young person’s game, but the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences seems to be largely populated by people at least quadruple the age of Justin Beiber.

Fans, new and old, of The Arcade Fire should check out a recent book on the band’s record label: Our Noise: The Story of Merge Records, the Indie Label That Got Big and Stayed Small. The book focuses on the story of the label and of Superchunk (the band whose members started Merge in Chapel Hill, NC in 1989), but alternating chapters also focus on various important label bands such as Spoon, The Magnetic Fields, Neutral Milk Hotel and, of course, The Arcade Fire. Our Noise is especially of interest to fans of music of this ilk, but it’s a fun read for anyone who likes to see an underdog win big (and still maintain the values it started with).

-Eric