Tag: The Grapes Of Wrath

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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 1989: The honourable mentions (aka #10 through #6)

Happy Monday all!

(I know what you’re thinking: is it really Monday?! Well, the answer to that is: “YES!!!” )

And if that wasn’t enough of a good reason to kick off a new series this morning, it’s also June 1st. That’s right. We’re five months into this train wreck of a year called 2020 and I haven’t done one of these throwback Best Albums series for a while so I thought I’d throw down for you one of the greatest years for alternative rock. That’s right: 1989.

If you’ve been around these pages before, you might remember that I typically do these Best Album throwbacks on Thursdays (for the #tbt thing, of course) and though I’ve changed up the day this time around, I’ll be keeping the rest of my usual format intact. Today’s post is just the tease, introducing the five albums that round out the latter part of my top ten, and then, over the course of the next five Mondays, I’ll lay out my five favourite albums of the year, one by one. And as I said above, it’s a great one. Many of the albums are classics, catching the bands who released them at their peaks, whether at the beginning or the end of their careers, and are considered some of the most influential albums to the alternative rock artists that followed, through the 90s and beyond.

I’ve already done my top ten favourites for both 1987 and 1988 and though I talked up both of those years at the time, 1989 was the real deal. And I’m not just saying that because I say that about all the years. I was by then firmly into high school and my teen years when the final year of the eighties came around and I was finally forming some musical tastes beyond the normal AM radio fare. And though I didn’t catch on to all of these albums at the time, I can at least say I was aware of most of them, if not right away, then at least within a year or two of their release date. Indeed, I have been listening to these ten albums for so long, they are like close friends.

Are you excited? I am. So let’s do this. And of course, as we do, I’d love to hear your thoughts, both on my picks and what your own would be for 1989…

#10 The Jesus And Mary Chain “Automatic”

With “Automatic”, the Reid brothers, Jim and William, picked up right where they left off with 1987’s “Darklands”, which, incidentally, appeared at #8 on my list for that year. The Jesus And Mary Chain were effectively just the two of them at this point, though you wouldn’t know it by listening to the tunes. They filled every ounce of soundscape using electronics, employing a drum machine and synthesizers to imitate bass guitars and to wash out the rest. And though they were criticized for this at the time, attitudes have changed over time, and the album is nowadays considered amongst The JAMC’s best work. The music is dark, raging, and roaring stuff, like a loud motorcycle racing through high and violent winds, the hair of its leather-jacketed rider, whipping about wildly, but being kept on course by the ever-present cool sunglasses. Yeah.

Gateway tune: “Head on”

#9 Galaxie 500 “On fire”

I didn’t listen to this album until well over a decade after its release. I finally decided to investigate Galaxie 500 a few years after frontman Dean Wareham’s second band, Luna, broke up and I had exhausted their catalogue. I started with “On fire” because it was the only one of their three of which I had previously heard, which makes sense because it is widely considered the trio’s high watermark. Together with Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang, Wareham found his voice out of a love for lo-fi soundscapes, understated guitar brilliance, and The Velvet Underground. “On fire” is definitely rougher hewn than anything in the Luna catalogue but that doesn’t make it any less the underrated dream pop classic that it is.

Gateway tune: “Tell me”

#8 The Beautiful South “Welcome to The Beautiful South”

After The Housemartins called it quits in 1988, frontman Paul Heaton and drummer Dave Hemingway immediately formed The Beautiful South, the moniker a tongue-in-cheek jab at the fact that they were from Northern England. The five-piece’s debut “Welcome to The Beautiful South” expanded on the jangle pop sound of The Housemartins but happily, the biting and outspoken lyrics continued, as it did throughout their career. The controversial cover (the Canadian version of the cover pictured above omits the image of a woman with a gun in her mouth) didn’t seem to hurt album sales any and really, this album was just the beginning for a band that would go on to sell millions of units. So many great tracks on this one, including the one below.

Gateway tune: “Song for whoever”

#7 The Grapes of Wrath “Now and again”

The Grapes of Wrath’s fourth album, “Now and again”, was also their most commercially successful. Partially because of Canadian content (CanCon) rules imposed on Canadian radio and television stations but also because this album’s folk rock sound with impeccable harmonies had mass appeal. I definitely remember having the album’s singles recorded to cassette tape from AM radio at the time, but it was years before I would hear this album in full, long after the band had broken up and re-formed again. And though sometimes when I come to an album late, I find I can’t get into the time and place headspace of when it was released, this album is not an example of this. Timeless would be the right word here.

Gateway tune: “All the things I wasn’t”

#6 New Model Army “Thunder and consolation”

New Model Army’s fourth record is still their most successful to date and is likely one of my own personal faves. Justin Sullivan’s excellent, politically and socially-conscious lyrics and the group’s punk and post-punk informed sound received a bit of facelift when they were joined by violinist, Ed Alleyne-Johnson for this album. The infusion of folk and traditional music started the band to trend towards constantly tweaking their sound over the years and has likely aided in their longevity. And amazingly, they still haven’t lost any amount of edge or sense of urgency, especially here. This album is full of stomping great tracks, like the haunting one below.

Gateway tune: “Green and grey”

Check back next Monday 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.