Illustration by Jillian
Tamaki
Summer means many things. Bare skin. The scent of sunscreen. Backyard barbecues. Tall drinks with umbrellas. Lolling near a body of water. Oh, and reacquainting yourself with your record collection, as you plan various road trips in the coming months. To celebrate our country’s 139th birthday, we’ve imagined an eclectic mix CD to commemorate Canada’s contribution to pop (and pop culture).
1. Wicked and Weird, Buck 65
Halifax’s Rich Terfry, a.k.a. Buck 65, is filed under hip hop in your local record store, but only because there’s no section for modern troubadours. Wicked and Weird is his Kerouac moment, a lament from the road lots travelled: “Don’t bother looking, you’ll never find me / I’m starting from scratch and leaving trouble behind me ...”
2. Dandelion, Boards of Canada
The electronic duo Boards of Canada isn’t actually homegrown (they’re Scottish), but they show much Canuck love. They’re named after the National Film Board of Canada and this woozy track features a sample of Saskatchewan native Leslie Nielsen, narrating a documentary on volcanoes.
3. All the Things I Wasn’t, Grapes of Wrath
It’s hard to conceive of another Canadian pop song as perfect as this folk ballad from the forgotten Kelowna, B.C., duo. All the Things I Wasn’t features a gorgeous verse and a richly harmonic chorus — and after its 2:17 running time, it begs to be replayed again and again and again.
4. Astounded, Bran Van 3000
Montreal beatsmith Jamie Di Salvio, leader of Bran Van’s 20-member alt-pop collective, spent years calling Curtis Mayfield, begging for a collaboration. By the time the soul-funk master agreed, he was too ill to record new music. Instead, Mayfield dug up an unused a capella track from his younger days. Those vocals became the centrepiece of Astounded — inarguably the greatest disco anthem of the young 21st century.
5. Steal My Sunshine, LEN
“One-hit wonder” is a dubious compliment, so let’s try a different perspective: in 1999, LEN, a Toronto quartet that was called Canada’s answer to the Beastie Boys, caught lightning in a recording booth and cut Steal My Sunshine. It’s an absolute smash of a summer anthem, built on a head-nodding sample from former porn star Andrea True’s decadent More, More, More (1976).Members of the band Len. (CP Photo/Kevin Frayer)
6. Northern Touch, Rascalz featuring Kardinal Offishall, Choclair, Thrust and Checkmate
Many Canucks recall Maestro Fresh-Wes’s Let Your Backbone Slide as this country’s seminal hip hop hit, but 1998’s Northern Touch was the posse banger that proved our domestic rap game’s growing maturity. Homegrown hip hop has been a serious business ever since.
7. Who Is It (Carry My Joy on the Left, Carry My Pain on the Right), Bjork
Full of ghostly voices and skittering beats, Who Is It is taken from Bjork’s 2004 album, Medulla. The Canadian connection? It features the otherworldly vocals of Inuit throat singer Tanya Tagaq, a native of Cambridge Bay, Nunavut.
8. Promiscuous, Nelly Furtado
After years of producing anodyne up-with-people pop, Vancouver’s Nelly Furtado re-emerges as a savvy seductress. Featuring the inimitable beats and raunchy call-and-response of producer/rapper Timbaland, Promiscuous is hot and hedonistic.
9. Count Souvenirs, Junior Boys
Hamilton’s Jeremy Greenspan and Matt Didemus create intricate electro-pop that gratifies both music snobs and simple fans of melody. This haunting track, from their upcoming second album, So This Is Goodbye, channels both the Pet Shop Boys and the Miami Vice soundtrack.
10. Pate Filo, Malajube
Montreal’s Malajube cultivate punk-pop that’s alternately thrashing and melodic, but never less than thrilling. This track opens like a music-box hymn before swelling into Arcade Fire-like drama.Malajube. Courtesy Outside Music
11. Eyes of a Stranger, Payola$
Paul Hyde is no hipster icon, but this 1982 single, recorded with his then-band the Payola$, makes a case for retroactive cool. With its dub-like pulse, echoey guitars and generally paranoid mood, Eyes of a Stranger is eerie, foreboding — and eternal.
12. Slave, Michie Mee featuring Esthero
By 2000, Canada’s first lady of hip hop was perhaps better known as an actress (she had a prominent role on CBC-TV’s Drop the Beat) than rapper, but she reaffirmed her microphone control with this boombastic reimagining of the Rolling Stones’ Slave. Trip-hop chanteuse Esthero does good work on the hook, but make no mistake: this is Michie’s moment in the sun.
13. My Way, Sid Vicious
Paul Anka would surely prefer that we big up his Way — i.e., the original English-language version — but, well, it’s Sid freakin’ Vicious. The infamously inept Sex Pistols bassist was plunging towards rock bottom when he arrived in Paris to perform My Way for Julien Temple’s The Great Rock ’n’ Roll Swindle (1980); he wound up creating a premature eulogy for the death that he must have known was coming soon.
14. Underwhelmed, Sloan
For male Canadians of a certain age, Underwhelmed — the best song by the East Coast’s best band of the ’90s — is a cruel reminder of long moments passed in dark closets, struggling to solve the timeless challenge of the brassiere clasp: “She was underwhelmed / If that’s a word / I know it’s not / ’Cause I looked it up.” So of course we love it.
15. Gore Veil, Deadly Snakes
Toronto’s Deadly Snakes are a first-rate, bare-knuckles rock ’n’ roll band. Gore Veil — a play on Gore Vale Avenue, a charming sidestreet that borders downtown Toronto's Trinity Bellwoods Park — is the band’s most melodic pop song. It’s a minor departure from the Snakes’ standard fare, but a delightful addition to their canon. All together now: “Bap-ba-dap-ba, bap-ba-dap-ba...”
16. Dis-Moi, Mitsou
Although the Quebecois singer is best known for the frothy single Bye-Bye Mon Cowboy, this 1991 track captures Mitsou’s pouty, bad-girl allure. The beat sounds like it was factory-produced, but the chorus is dead sexy.
17. Work on You, MSTRKRFT
No doubt influenced by French disco mavens Daft Punk, this Toronto electronic duo releases its debut album, The Looks, later this month; this, the leadoff track, should augur lascivious dancing in finer clubs and rooftop patios.
18. All We Are, Kim Mitchell
Most of this Toronto native’s oeuvre is characterized by self-deprecating silliness and allusions to ale; what this song has, however, is gravitas. From the iconic opening synth line to the soaring chorus to Mitchell’s feverish guitar solo, All We Are was built to last.
19. One Evening, Feist
Even if you didn’t enjoy the ’70s — the era Calgary-born singer Leslie Feist seems most enamoured of — this slinky ode to the one-night stand is sure to burrow into your cortex.
20. A Case of You, Joni Mitchell
And to finish, an elegiac, patriotic tune from the Grand Dame of Canadian folk. The tone of the lyrics is enough to bring your hand to your heart: “On the back of a cartoon coaster / In the blue TV screen light / I drew a map of Canada / Oh Canada / with your face sketched on it twice.”Joni Mitchell (CP)
