November 9th, 2006
Oh, Canada
Various reasons for this post include:
a) Canadian band Metric play Spirit tonight. Rather liked their second album Live it Out which was released over the summer. Emily Haines has an amazing voice and chips in occasional vocals to Broken Social Scene, finding time to release a very fine solo album, Knives Don’t Have Your Back in September. I’m off to the Divine Comedy instead but Anna is looking for folk to go to this.
b) A recently received friend request via myspace from this band. Anyone who claims they came together out of a shared love of “Talking Heads, XTC, The Flaming Lips and The Notwist” is fine by me.
c) Kicking myself for not going along to see Final Fantasy in Whelan’s a couple of weeks back - anyone I know who went couldn’t spit out superlatives fast enough to describe how brilliant it was. Grrr.
d) and finally… the main reason for this post: Matt over at I Heart Music recently compiled a numerically atypical ‘Hottest (33) bands in Canada’, which was collated by asking various Canadian music bloggers, writers and radio people to rate and rank bands. As expected, MSTRKRFT are there (no. 23), as are The Dears (no. 19), Junior Boys (no. 18), The Hidden Cameras (no. 14), Metric/Emily Haines (No. 12), Wolf Parade (No. 9) and Broken Social Scene (No. 6). There seems to be a bit of Arcade Fire fatique as they only shuffle in at number 26. Recommended acts include Spiral Beach, Laura Barrett, Think About Life, Swan Lake, Land of Talk, Tokyo Police Club and Sunset Rubdown. Unsurprisingly, Number 1 goes to Owen Pallett aka Final Fantasty. The best bit? There’s a mp3 for most of the bands mentioned. Like all lists it will divide by its inclusions and omissions, but at least it proves there’s more to Canadian bands than acts on Arts and Crafts.
Links:
Laura Barrett
Think About Life
Swan Lake
Land of Talk
Tokyo Police Club
Sunset Rubdown
Final Fantasy
November 9th, 2006 at 10:22 am
I can’t believe toronto act, Crystal Castles, aren’t on that list. Possibly the most interesting new act anywhere in the world…
Check out magic spells on their myspace.
http://www.myspace.com/crystalcastles
November 9th, 2006 at 10:26 am
You know how these lists go…
If you read the comments there are lots of names mentioned (including Crystal Castles) that didn’t make the list.
November 9th, 2006 at 10:32 am
Owen Pallett = Ride. Music is fantastic too.
November 9th, 2006 at 11:54 am
Owen Pallett is great (especially live) and all but he’s no Andrew Bird (I know not canadian! But i’m just saying!). I saw this list too, I found out about a lot of bands i’d never heard of through it.
I thought Live it Out was pretty weak compared to Old World Underground…. I just didn’t feel Emily’s heart was completely into those vocals. So it made perfect sense to me that she goes out and makes that brilliant solo record.
November 9th, 2006 at 12:54 pm
I’m really glad you enjoyed the poll! Thanks for the link.
November 9th, 2006 at 11:04 pm
Can’t believe there’s no mention of Stars on that poll. Disgraceful!
November 10th, 2006 at 12:27 am
According to a few of my less musically fussy friends, Metric were poor. I know this because they left early enough for me to get a bus home with them. To be fair to Metric though, Spirit is a fairly poor venue.
November 10th, 2006 at 3:53 pm
On all things Canadian: I think Neko Case is playing tonight.
November 10th, 2006 at 7:15 pm
Metric were pretty rubbish. well rehearsed and all that but she is an annoying wand and they’re really like the indie rock garbage or something - pretty avant front woman, old men in shirts in the band. Nul points.