The New Pornographers is a Canadian indie rock band formed in 1999 in Vancouver, British Columbia. The band's first four albums each placed in the top 40 on The Village Voice's Pazz & Jop year-end poll of hundreds of music reviewers. From 2000 to 2006, either a New Pornographers' album or a solo album from one of the band's members ranked in the top 40 on the list each year. In 2007, Blender magazine ranked The New Pornographers' first album, Mas ... See more [+] s Romantic, the 24th best indie album of all time. It is the second-highest Canadian album on the list, behind Arcade Fire's Funeral (which came in sixth). In 2009, Rolling Stone magazine ranked the band's second studio album, Electric Version, No. 79 in the "100 Best Albums of the Decade". The name of the band was chosen by Carl Newman, who has said that he came up with it after watching a Japanese film called The Pornographers. Many writers have assumed that the name was a reference to Jimmy Swaggart's claim that rock and roll was "the new pornography."The band has released five albums to date: Mass Romantic (2000), Electric Version (2003), Twin Cinema (2005), Challengers (2007), and Together (2010). A live album recorded on their 2006 tour is available only at concerts and on the band's website.
