Tag: Canadian Rock

Categories
Playlists

Playlist: 75 tunes from 1991

Here’s a good long Apple Music playlist that could get you through an afternoon of chores, painting, or cooking. Perhaps a road trip from Toronto to Montreal. Or keep you company on a flight from North America to Europe.

I’ve done a few playlists over the years on this blog but never any that focused on the music of a particular year in the past. I’ve chosen to start with 1991 because it was particularly pivotal year for me in terms of musical discovery. It was the year that I started to dip my toes into alternative rock, a brave new world for me, a wave of music that included a huge variety of styles, very little of which sounded like the music of my parents. So even though I wasn’t listening to all of these songs at the time, I’d say that the majority are old friends, intimate acquaintances.

There’s seventy-five great tracks, representative of how I saw 1991. It’s not a ‘best of’. I’ve already done the list of my top thirty favourite tracks on this blog here. Some of the songs in that list appear on this playlist but there’s plenty others here and some that are much deeper cuts. I know that there are those of you out there who might catch some obvious omissions. Some of these might have been because they were not to my tastes but there are others, like My Bloody Valentine’s “Soon” or The Real People’s “Open up your mind (let me in)”, that were not available to be added due to music rights and Apple Music or whatever. Still, there’s so many other gems that show the wide range of music that was coming out in those years just before Grunge exploded and changed everything for alternative rock.

For those who don’t use Apple Music, here is the entire playlist, with links to YouTube videos for each song:

  1. Primal Scream “Loaded”
  2. Vic Reeves & The Wonder Stuff “Dizzy”
  3. Blur “Sing”
  4. Teenage Fanclub “Star Sign”
  5. Lowest of the Low “Subversives”
  6. Electronic “Getting Away With It”
  7. Throwing Muses “Not Too Soon”
  8. Red Hot Chili Peppers “Under the Bridge”
  9. James “Sit Down”
  10. Chapterhouse “Mesmerise”
  11. R.E.M. “Belong”
  12. Spacemen 3 “I Love You”
  13. Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians “So You Think You’re In Love”
  14. EMF “Unbelievable”
  15. Crash Test Dummies “Androgynous”
  16. The Mighty Mighty Bosstones “Where’d You Go”
  17. Pixies “Alec Eiffel”
  18. Levellers “Liberty Song”
  19. Big Audio Dynamite II “The Globe”
  20. Spin Doctors “Two Princes”
  21. Depeche Mode “Death’s Door”
  22. Slowdive “Catch The Breeze”
  23. Rheostatics “Record Body Count”
  24. Siouxsie & The Banshees “Kiss Them For Me”
  25. Jesus Jones “Right Here, Right Now”
  26. Northside “My Rising Star”
  27. Primus “Tommy the Cat”
  28. Morrissey “Sing Your Life”
  29. Pearl Jam “Jeremy”
  30. Ned’s Atomic Dustbin “Grey Cell Green”
  31. Big Audio Dynamite II “Rush”
  32. Ministry “Jesus Built My Hotrod”
  33. Paris Angels “Perfume (Loved Up)”
  34. Barenaked Ladies “Lovers In A Dangerous Time”
  35. Saint Etienne “Only Love Can Break Your Heart”
  36. Primal Scream “Come Together”
  37. Teenage Fanclub “The Concept”
  38. Billy Bragg “Everywhere”
  39. The Farm “All Together Now”
  40. Crash Test Dummies “The Ghosts That Haunt Me”
  41. Inspiral Carpets “Caravan”
  42. Morrissey “Mute Witness”
  43. The Tragically Hip “Little Bones”
  44. R.E.M. “Me In Honey”
  45. Meat Puppets “Sam”
  46. The Wonder Stuff “Welcome To The Cheap Seats”
  47. U2 “One”
  48. The Charlatans “Over Rising”
  49. Erasure “Chorus”
  50. Lowest of the Low “Henry Needs a New Pair of Shoes”
  51. Violent Femmes “American Music”
  52. Spirit of the West “D For Democracy”
  53. Blur “She’s So High”
  54. Spirea X “Chlorine Dream”
  55. Chapterhouse “Pearl”
  56. The Grapes Of Wrath “You May Be Right”
  57. The Dylans “Godlike”
  58. Lenny Kravitz “It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over”
  59. Levellers “One Way”
  60. Revolver “Heaven Sent an Angel”
  61. Barenaked Ladies “If I Had $1,000,000”
  62. Swervedriver “Rave Down”
  63. Rheostatics “Aliens (Christmas 1988)”
  64. Billy Bragg “Accident Waiting To Happen”
  65. The Farm “Hearts & Minds”
  66. Spirit Of The West “Far Too Canadian”
  67. Ned’s Atomic Dustbin “Kill Your Television”
  68. Odds “Love Is The Subject”
  69. R.E.M. “Losing My Religion”
  70. Pixies “Head On”
  71. Northside “Take Five”
  72. U2 “Until the End of the World”
  73. Blur “There’s No Other Way”
  74. Lowest of the Low “Rosy and Grey”
  75. Nirvana “Smells Like Teen Spirit”

And here is the promised link to the Apple Music playlist. I hope you enjoy.

If you’re interested in checking out any of the other playlists I’ve created and shared on these pages, you can peruse them here.

Categories
Playlists

Playlist: O Canada – 45 indie and alternative Canadian anthems

Happy Canada Day everyone!

This is one of those holidays that I love and have always appreciated but have even more so in recent years. I am blessed to live in a beautiful country and one that is relatively safe and free. And though I haven’t gotten downtown to take in the festivities that our nation’s capital puts on for quite some time, I do try to observe the birthdate of my country in my own way, usually by spending time outside, hiking or biking, tending the bbq, enjoying a brew or two or three, and taking in a closer (to me) fireworks display. The weather forecast is looking a bit rough to start today so I’m not sure yet what we’ll get up to but I plan to enjoy the holiday nonetheless.

I often try to do a post on these pages to observe the return of Canada Day in some way, so I’m actually surprised I haven’t done a playlist yet, something I am remedying this year. And honestly, I slapped this one together pretty quickly and it was really easy to do so because there’s lots of great material to pull from. These 45 songs represent some of my favourite tunes by some of my favourite Canadian artists from the last four or five decades. I start the almost three hours of great tunes with the “alternate” Canadian anthem by North Vancouver’s Spirit of the West and end it with my favourite song by Kingston’s The Tragically Hip, the band that for nearly twenty years was indisputably Canada’s band and its frontman Gord Downey, our poet laureate. In between those two tunes, you’ll find alt rock classics from the 80s and 90s (Grapes of Wrath, 54.40, Sloan, Northern Pikes), as well as a slew of tunes from the Canadian indie rock renaissance from the mid-2000s (Stars, Metric, Dears, Arcade Fire) when the ears from around the world seemed to be turned in our direction, and of course, more recent stuff as well (Alvvays, Elliott Brood, Nap Eyes, Tallies). There are bands and artists here representing almost all of the ten provinces but unfortunately, none from the three territories.

So this is mostly for all of my fellow Canadians out there but like my home country, I would welcome anyone from around the world to come and enjoy our riches. I invite you all to put this playlist on, along with your red and white clothes and maple leaf temporary tattoos, and enjoy the music, whether you’re out barbecuing, enjoying a cold one, out for a swim in your pool, sitting on your porch, out for a hike, camping out, or looking for a parking spot close to a Canada Day celebration somewheres.

Cheers!

For those who don’t use Apple Music, here is the entire playlist, with links to YouTube videos:

  1. “Home for a rest” Spirit Of The West (North Vancouver, British Columbia)
  2. “Archie, marry me” Alvvays (Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island)
  3. “Stay out” Elliott Brood (Toronto, Ontario)
  4. “Ageless beauty” Stars (Montreal, Quebec)
  5. “Rosy and grey” The Lowest Of The Low (Toronto, Ontario)
  6. “When the night feels my song” Bedouin Soundclash (Kingston, Ontario)
  7. “Don’t haunt this place” The Rural Alberta Advantage (Toronto, Ontario)
  8. “Everything you’ve done wrong” Sloan (Halifax, Nova Scotia)
  9. “The safety dance” Men Without Hats (Montreal, Quebec)
  10. “Follow me down” Nap Eyes (Halifax, Nova Scotia)
  11. “I go blind” 54-40 (Tsawwassen, British Columbia)
  12. “Mari-Mac” Great Big Sea (St John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador)
  13. “Hare tarot lies” No Joy (Montreal, Quebec)
  14. “Red” Treble Charger (Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario)
  15. “Weighty ghost” Wintersleep (Halifax, Nova Scotia)
  16. “I’m an adult now” The Pursuit of Happiness (Toronto, Ontario)
  17. “I wanna be in the cavalry” Corb Lund (Taber, Alberta)
  18. “Teenland” The Northern Pikes (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan)
  19. “Sprawl II (Mountains beyond mountains)” Arcade Fire (Montreal, Quebec)
  20. “Claire” Rheostatics (Etobicoke, Ontario)
  21. “Still” Great Lake Swimmers (Wainfleet, Ontario)
  22. “Don’t walk away, Eileen” Sam Roberts (Westmount, Quebec)
  23. “Temptation” The Tea Party (Windsor, Ontario)
  24. “Tournament of hearts” The Weakerthans (Winnipeg, Manitoba)
  25. “Lost in the plot” The Dears (Montreal, Quebec)
  26. “All the things I wasn’t” The Grapes of Wrath (Kelowna, British Columbia)
  27. “Infamous” Basia Bulat (Toronto, Ontario)
  28. “Spiritual pollution” Pure (Vancouver, British Columbia)
  29. “Greater than consequence” Amos the Transparent (Ottawa, Ontario)
  30. “Ordinary people” The Box (Montreal, Quebec)
  31. “Memorize the city” The Organ (Vancouver, British Columbia)
  32. “Walking with a ghost” Tegan and Sara (Calgary, Alberta)
  33. “Breathing underwater” Metric (Toronto, Ontario)
  34. “Made for TV” King Apparatus (London, Ontario)
  35. “Use it” The New Pornographers (Vancouver, British Columbia)
  36. “Rossland Square” Cuff The Duke (Oshawa, Ontario)
  37. “Eat my brain” Odds (Vancouver, British Columbia)
  38. “Goodnight goodnight” Hot Hot Heat (Victoria, British Columbia)
  39. “The ghosts that haunt me” Crash Test Dummies (Winnipeg, Manitoba)
  40. “Paper girl” July Talk (Toronto, Ontario)
  41. “Don’t you know” Elephant Stone (Montreal, Quebec)
  42. “Brian Wilson” Barenaked Ladies (Scarborough, Ontario)
  43. “Mother” Tallies (Toronto, Ontario)
  44. “Swing your heartache” Young Galaxy (Montreal, Quebec)
  45. “Courage (for Hugh MacLennan)” The Tragically Hip (Kingston, Ontario)

And here is the promised link to the Apple Music playlist.

If you’re interested in checking out any of the other playlists I’ve created and shared on these pages, you can peruse them here.

Categories
Albums

Best albums of 2010: Albums #10 through #6

So it feels like just yesterday that I wrapped up one of these series counting down my favourite albums of a select year, long past. In reality, it was only about a month ago but that one that I did for the year 2000 took almost two years to complete! Given this, you might think I would be reticent to start up another of these series, at least not right away, but not so. It’s almost like it feels like there’s something missing without one of these Best Albums series on the go.

This time around I am jumping ahead a decade to revisit 2010, a year that was actually quite amazing musically. I counted down my thirty favourite tunes of the year on these pages just over five years ago and I already did a similar countdown of my favourite albums for the year on my old music blog a bunch of years before that. Thus, it’s familiar territory we’re treading here (but not too familiar), many of the albums that will grace this list have a place in my vinyl collection, and those that aren’t there already are definitely on my wish list.

If you’ve followed me through one of these series before, you’ll recognize today’s post as the tease, introducing the five albums that round out the latter part of my top ten. From here, I used to out my five favourite albums for the year on a weekly basis and then, I tried stretching that to a bi-weekly basis. For this series, I make no promises but I am aiming to wrap this up in three to four months so maybe we’ll see a post every two to three weeks?

But before we go further, I’d like do a bit of a spoiler and a bit of indulgence and share a handful of albums (in no particular order) that didn’t quite make the list but are still worth your while:

  • Steve Mason “Boys outside” – the solo debut by the ex-Beta Band frontman is all kinds of psychedelic groove
  • Delphic “Acolyte” – another debut, this one the first of only two albums from the enigmatic, alternative dance group from Manchester
  • The Like “Release me” – the all-female quartet led by Z Berg went from alt rock to retro girl group, beach blanket bingo on their sophomore record
  • Frightened Rabbit “The winter of mixed drinks” – with their third record, the Scottish indie rock sextet continued a string of amazing albums that didn’t end until frontman Scott Hutchison’s death in 2018
  • Beach House “Teen dream” – the Baltimore-based dream pop duo found their footing with their third record and never looked back

With those out of the way, let’s delve into my top ten for reals. And of course, as we do, I’d love to hear your thoughts, both on my picks and what your own would be, if you had to rank your top ten albums for 2010, in the comments section provided with each post.

#10 Diamond Rings “Special affections”

John O’Regan made two records under the moniker Diamond Rings back in the early part of the previous decade. I remember seeing the album cover of the first of these, “Special affections”, for the first time and thinking that the image portrayed by Diamond Rings on it was an amalgam of Morrissey, David Bowie, and David Gahan of Depeche Mode. It’s no surprise, then, that there’s a definite 80s edge to the record. Its ten tracks ran the gamut, creating an expansive play school for O’Regan’s inner frontman to let loose in and laid down a solid base for his astonishing voice. The most obvious comparison point for his vocal work might’ve been Ian Curtis with his deep hued baritone timbre but there was more swagger here, invoking the glam of, say, Jarvis Cocker, Brett Anderson, and yes, David Bowie. For me, “Special affections” was a blast of pure oxygen the first time I listened to it, energizing my every fibre. Oh… and it sounded great on the dance floor.

Gateway tune: “Wait & see”

#9 Bedouin Soundclash “Light the horizon”

Kingston, Ontario-based Bedouin Soundclash’s fourth record, “Light the horizon”, was easily my favourite of the ska/reggae band’s albums. It is a solid ten tracks that leave it all on the floor, as opposed to the previous two albums that had as many forgettable moments as they did memorable ones. From the opening number, “Mountain top”, you can hear a subtle difference in their sound. I had always tended to attribute it to the addition of the incredibly talented Sekou Lumumba on drums here but perhaps it is more than that. There really is plenty of exuberance to go around, in not just with the drumbeats but also in Eon Sinclair’s bass lines, which you can feel dancing up and down your spine. Frontman Jay Malinowski, too, riffs along as if newly inspired and his pseudo edgy vocals keeping things real.

Gateway tune: “Brutal hearts (feat. Coeur de Pirate)”

#8 LCD Soundsystem “This is happening”

There was very little dispute that LCD Soundsystem’s third album, “This is happening”, belonged on the multiple end of year lists that it appeared on for 2010, given its pretty much universal acclaim and the belief at the time that it would be James Murphy’s final album under that moniker. Of course, hindsight being 20/20, we now know that the group reunited a few years after that “final” 2011 show at Madison Square Garden, released a studio album and another live album and continue to tour these days, but we won’t hold that against “This is happening”. The dance punk album is only nine tracks long but it clocks in at well over an hour, every song save for one is longer than five minutes. It’s like Murphy enjoyed playing with these songs so much that he couldn’t let go of them or perhaps decided that the remixes were much more fun than the original recordings. I, for one, trust his judgement on this point. The songs on “This is happening” end exactly when they should, like perfect guests at the wildest of house parties, they never overstay their welcome.

Gateway tune: “I can change”

#7 The Drums “The Drums”

The Drums’ self-titled, debut album and their last as a proper four-piece was like an extended ode to all music that is considered retro. If I were to reduce my thoughts on “The Drums” to three words, they would have to be “energy”, “energy”, and “energy”. Each song is bursting with (and pardon the oxymoron here) fresh sounding retro vitality. Channelling and blending the sounds of their influences in the post-punk of the eighties and the free and easy pop of the sixties, The Drums take peppy doowop rhythms, speed them up to double time and blast it all with synthesizer melodies that climb and slide down all kinds of staccato scales. I’ve heard them compared to The Smiths, Joy Division, and The Cure and I’d have to say: “yes, yes, and yes”. So if you’re a fan of these bands, as I am, the chances are good that you might enjoy more than a couple of the twelve tracks on the album.

Gateway tune: “Best friend”

#6 The New Pornographers “Together”

The fifth album by the supergroup/indie rock collective based out of Vancouver, British Columbia is complex and simple, quiet and bombastic, raw and fey, earthy and alien. And I’m not purposely being contradictory here. A lot of people have bemoaned the fact that The New Pornographers have gotten away from the punchy edge that coursed through their first two or three records but that has never bothered me. Even though I also enjoy their early work, right up until this year’s release, “Challengers” and “Together” were my two favourite New Porno albums. It is here that their sound has grown, either Newman had given in a bit to Bejar’s bizarre ideas or he himself had lost some of his marbles. The band has never sounded typical but on “Together” they felt like they were exploring the periphery of their own boundaries and the results are slightly darker (if that’s possible) and more cohesive but not. I know. Contradictory.

Gateway tune: “Crash years”

Stay tuned for album #5 on this list. In the meantime, you can check out my Best Albums page here if you’re interested in my other favourite albums lists.