Arcade Fire's 'Wake Up' heads to the Superbowl

Arcade Fire

Credit: Kevin Westenberg

Arcade Fire is headed to the Superbowl on Sunday (Feb. 7) -- the band's song "Wake Up," anyway.

Culled from the Montreal-based band's first album "Funeral," the track was licensed to the NFL on the condition that 100% of proceeds "from the song's airing on the live Superbowl broadcast and subsequent airings on the NFL Network" go to the Partners in Health, a charity helping in Haiti.

Arcade Fire has been vocal in encouraging fans to donate to PIH since the earthquake shook the country last month. Régine Chassagne wrote an editorial for the British newspaper The Observer making a case for care, and she and husband Win Butler put their appeal up on the band's website. Chassagne's family emigrated to Canada during the rule of dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier; she wrote and performed the track "Haiti" on "Funeral."

Arcade Fire very rarely licenses out its music (the trailer for Spike Jonze's "Where the Wild Things Are" an exception, for example) and, undoubtedly, the NFL dishes out gobs of money for Superbowl music licenses, considering the size of the audience. The fee for this particular usage is undisclosed.

Interestingly, the band went to court the last time the NFL tried to use their tunes.

Although the rock group's new album is one of our most anticipated for 2010, little else is known about its current state, though it's rumored to arrive in spring.