''Set Yourself on Fire'' is the third studio album by Canadian

indie rock Indie rock is a Music subgenre, subgenre of rock music that originated in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand from the 1970s to the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the mu ...

band

Stars A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by its gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked ...

. It was released on September 14, 2004 on the Arts & Crafts International record label in Canada and the United Kingdom, and on March 8, 2005 in the United States. The album's most notable single was " Ageless Beauty", the band's breakthrough hit in Canada. " Your Ex-Lover Is Dead" has also garnered significant play in the United States. It was featured on the soundtrack of ''

The O.C. ''The O.C. '' is an American teen drama television series created by Josh Schwartz that originally aired on the Fox network in the United States from August 5, 2003, to February 22, 2007, running a total of four seasons. "O.C." is an initialis ...

'' On November 17, 2009, " Your Ex-Lover Is Dead" was featured on Fox network's ''

So You Think You Can Dance ''So You Think You Can Dance'' is a franchise of reality television shows in which contestants compete in dance. The first series of the franchise, created by '' Idols'' producers Simon Fuller and Nigel Lythgoe, premiered in July 2005 and has ...

'',

season 6 A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and ...

. Former show contestant and current choreographer Travis Wall chose it as the track for his piece danced by Ellenore Scott and Ryan Di Lello. In 2005 ''Set Yourself on Fire'' was a

Juno Award The Juno Awards, more popularly known as the JUNOS, are awards presented annually to Canadian musical artists and bands to acknowledge their artistic and technical achievements in all aspects of music. New members of the Canadian Music Hall o ...

nominee for Alternative Album of the Year."2005 Juno Awards Nominees Announced"
Soulshine. Published February 8, 2005. It lost to the album '' Let It Die'' by Feist, who is an occasional bandmate of Stars'

Amy Millan Amy Millan (born December 3, 1973) is a Canadian indie rock singer and guitarist. She records and performs with the bands Stars and Broken Social Scene as well as having a successful solo career. Her second solo album, '' Masters of the Burial'' ...

Torquil Campbell Torquil Campbell (born 17 March 1972) is the co-lead singer and a songwriter for the Montreal-based indie rock band Stars. In addition to singing, he also plays the melodica, trumpet, synthesizer, and tambourine. Campbell is also an actor a ...

, and

Evan Cranley Evan Cranley is a Canadian musician based in Montreal, Quebec. He records with the bands Stars and Broken Social Scene, although he considered joining the band Metric before finally joining Stars. Musical career Early on, Cranley was in th ...

in the indie rock band

Broken Social Scene Broken Social Scene is a Canadian indie rock band, a musical collective including as few as six and as many as nineteen members, formed by Kevin Drew (vocals, guitar) and Brendan Canning (vocals, bass) in 1999. Alongside Drew and Canning, the othe ...

. The novelist

Ibi Kaslik Ibolya "Ibi" Kaslik (born August 20, 1973) is a Canadian novelist, freelance journalist, and professor of creative writing at the University of Toronto. Early life Born in Toronto, Ontario, Kaslik attended high school at Etobicoke School of the ...

is quoted on the jacket of the album. The album features string arrangements from Bulgarian composer

Todor Kobakov Todor Kobakov (born September 19, 1978) is a Bulgarian-Canadian composer, producer, arranger and pianist based in Toronto, Ontario. He is best known for his solo piano album Pop Music, his commercial and film scores and for his collaborations wit ...

Cover art

The cover art varies from North America to Europe. The Canadian and U.S. releases have the same artwork. The European edition, along with the Canadian and U.S. vinyl version, have alternative cover art.

Critical reception

''Set Yourself on Fire'' was widely acclaimed by music critics and holds a score of 81 out of 100 on the online review aggregator

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, indicating "universal acclaim".

Track listing

Certifications

References

{{Authority control 2004 albums Stars (Canadian band) albums Arts & Crafts Productions albums