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Best tunes of 2010: #12 Arcade Fire “The suburbs”

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Ah yes, Arcade Fire. I’m sure you figured that they might be on this list somewheres, given that 2010 saw them release what is arguably their biggest and most accomplished album to date.

Arcade Fire was originally formed in 2001 when Win Butler was attending school in Montreal with his friend Josh Deu and they met Régine Chassagne. Their debut album, 2004’s “Funeral”, turned the indie rock realm on its head and spearheaded a group of Canadian talent that tuned the world’s ears to this bleak piece of land north of the U.S. It was so great and so promising that nothing the band produced could have realistically followed it up and so their 2007 sophomore effort, “Neon Bible”, disappointed at first but in hindsight, was quite excellent.

Then came “The suburbs”.

Much like all of their long players, it is a sort of concept album. It is lyrically inspired by Win and his brother, Will’s early years growing up in the ‘burbs, but rather than looking at the subject nostalgically, they throw a futuristic, dystopian curveball at it. Musically, Win Butler has reportedly described it as “a mix of Depeche Mode and Neil Young”, which kind of reminds me as a joke band my friends and I made up back in high school that called themselves a mix of Eric Clapton and Jesus Jones (more on that another time perhaps). What I am guessing Butler is saying and what I am trying to get across with my comparison is that Arcade Fire is boldly mixing sounds that shouldn’t work together and in so doing, managed to carve out a piece of music that is uniquely theirs.

The title track was one of the few songs I heard as a teaser prior to the full album’s release and also one that they performed the second time I saw them live. It was headlining the main stage during the second week of Ottawa Bluesfest in 2010, almost a month before the album’s release. They were a much bigger deal in terms of popularity than the previous time I had seen them as an opening act a few years prior. There was a massive crowd queued up to see them, rather than those curious few who showed up early for U2 and were treated to a raucous performance. But success hadn’t changed their manic live set any and still hasn’t. I’d say they are probably one of the best live shows you will ever see.

Performed live, “The suburbs” is a boisterous, rollicking affair but on the album, track number one is like a stroll through the singer’s childhood neighbourhood. The drums present a lackadaisical gait and pacing that suggests we need to take everything in. The jaunty, ragtime piano is more upbeat than it should be and the strings and other otherworldly synth effects suggest a sinister, malevolent undertone. But Win Butler’s vocals are matter of fact, telling it like it is, pointing out points of interest, recounting childhood stories, and espousing dreams in a world that appears to be without hope. Doesn’t it just leave you breathless?

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2010 list, click here.

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Best tunes of 2010: #14 Diamond Rings “Wait and see”

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Number 14 on this list marks the third artist, following P.S. I Love You at #30 and Library Voices at #25, that I discovered at the 2011 edition of Ottawa Bluesfest. Like the two others, Diamond Rings, one of the many performing names for John O’Regan, hails from Canada. His set that year was part of his tour supporting his debut album, “Special affections”, and took place early on a Sunday afternoon on the festival’s smallest stage. I had heard the album in advance, which was the only reason I had made such a special effort to be there so early in the day, but I wasn’t at all prepared for the Diamond Rings experience.

I’m also reasonably sure the early, sun-baked crowd weren’t sure what to make of the skinny white dude with bleached blonde hair and a swath of rainbow coloured makeup swiped across his eyes. And the confusion likely increased when he started, using loops, drum machines, programming, and other trickery while strutting and dancing across the stage with his guitar, brimming with all the confidence of a glam rock hero performing in front of a stadium of adoring fans rather than a handful of people scattered around on the hill facing him. His performance was infectious, though, and he had the crowd, which grew substantially, by the end and it turned out to be one of my favourite sets of the year. Two years later, when he returned to the festival in support of his sophomore album, it was also on a Sunday but this time, it was the headlining set on the medium sized stage. And now, he fittingly had a full band backing him, smoke machines, cool lighting, and a bigger, more adoring crowd.

“Wait and see” is the second track from that debut album, which I went out and bought for my vinyl collection early on. It’s a phenomenal track that you really have to listen closely to in order to guess that it’s a one man show. The sensibility is post-punk revival with a touch of darkness and a whole load of glam. The guitars are like chain saws messing with the industrial beat but it’s O’Regan’s silky baritone vocals that raise this track up to the rock heavens. You can hear and almost taste his persona in the song. He’s like a time traveller from the eighties, a forgotten rebel that had fallen asleep behind a stage, waking up almost thirty years later, and decided to wreak havoc on his new reality.

I loved this song and album and even the next one but lost track of O’Regan, and his Diamond Rings persona, after hearing he was touring with OMD in 2013. It seems like I wasn’t the only one because putting his name into google resulted in a handful of articles titled “Whatever happened to…” and one by Exclaim from last year that talked about a newish, yet still mysterious, project that had nothing to do with Diamond Rings called JG Ballad.

It is a bit of an unfortunate and unfinished story, but I feel like Diamond Rings was never really meant to be anything more than an experiment for O’Regan. Whatever he had to prove, though, I’m sure he did… and then some.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2010 list, click here.

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100 best covers: #94 Rheostatics “The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”

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Here’s a cover that took many many years to appreciate and it’s because the original is oh so deeply ingrained in me.

Canadian icon Gordon Lightfoot’s original is a romantic commemoration of the sinking of the American freighter, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior in 1975. The disaster is one of the best known to happen on the Great Lakes, resulting in the deaths of all of its crewmen and improvements to shipping regulations. The song was released just over a year after the actual disaster, instantly becoming one of Lightfoot’s biggest commercial successes. These days, it is his most easily recognizable track and one of his own personal favourites. His is a haunting piece, but not because of the music. It’s a pretty straightforward if not sorrowful composition but the words really stay with you, able to easily conjure teardrops out of the corners of Canada’s collective eyes.

Rheostatics are iconic (some might say iconoclastic) in their own right and unleashed their cover as the penultimate track on the CD version of their now classic 1991 album, “Melville”. I don’t think it as widely known as the original but it is definitely accepted as part of the Canadian alt-rock canon. Yet still, it drove this particular writer/blogger nuts for years, always wanting to hear Lightfoot to sing those words: “The church bell chimed ’til it rang twenty-nine times for each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald”.

Once I accepted that Rheostatics’ cover is a different beast from the original, however, I grew to love it. They extended it from the original six minutes to well over eight, adding plenty of simmering guitars, wailing solos, and some wonderful cymbal washes, reflecting the wildness of those turbulent Lake Superior waters. And all those heartfelt words are still there but sung in a different tone, perhaps with a bit more anger than sadness.

Have a listen to both versions below (though if you’re Canadian, I’m sure you’re quite familiar with the original) and let me know what you think in the comments section.

The cover:

The original:

(And if you’re up for a third option, I can offer up the deadpan delivered drone of the Dandy Warhols rendition here.)

For the rest of the 100 best covers list, click here.