The over-produced female vocalist mor-pop to art-pop continuum of the 80s and sometimes early 90s, often but not necessarily from Canada

I finally listened to that Heather Nova album and it is brilliant, really astonishing how much her output went right over a cliff and kept falling after it.

I'd still defend a good two thirds of the second album - "Heal" and "Island" are both beautiful.

But yes the first album is an unacknowledged masterpiece. You could imagine it having come out on 4AD and really blowing up amongst the kind of people into I dunno Lisa Germano and His Name Is Alive and etc.

Oyster is actually a better album than I remember it being, just from refreshing the tracklist in my head by skimming Wikipedia.

This has also helped me figure out exactly what the Emma Ruth Rundle album from last year has been reminding me of that I couldn't quite put my finger on initially.

i have never heard of Emma Ruth Rundle, would i like.

Now we're getting quite off-topic, but:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEjzLtDFmk0

Hugo Largo must have really tanked not to have been mentioned yet.

I don't think of this band as "overproduced" but rather produced just right, 1987 (hope this ridiculously long url works):

https://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play;_ylt=AwrT6VrlUMRUSwsAqc8nnIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTB0c2puYm1xBHNlYwNzYwRjb2xvA2dxMQR2dGlkA1lIUzAwM18x?p=miaou+did+she&tnr=21&vid=C5B80D5D9E7D76F28E99C5B80D5D9E7D76F28E99&l=225&turl=http%3A%2F%2Fts1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DUN.608020520324630804%26pid%3D15.1&sigi=11r0qg311&rurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DvsIk7Lo0ooM&sigr=11bl2li2k&tt=b&tit=Miaow+~+Did+She&sigt=10fnkpaf5&back=https%3A%2F%2Fsearch.yahoo.com%2Fyhs%2Fsearch%3Fp%3Dmiaou%2Bdid%2Bshe%26ei%3DUTF-8%26hsimp%3Dyhs-001%26hspart%3Dmozilla&sigb=12poatchk&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-001

No of course it didn't glug glug. Maiow doing "Did She".

Hugo Largo way too indie to belong in this thread - e.g. also why there's no actual 4AD in this thread.

Okay. Opal Records was distributed by Warner Brothers, but maybe it was still "indie" anyway.

I typo'd the name: it's Miaow, who failed to reach the public on Factory Records.

Does Mary Margaret O'Hara fit?

By "indie" i really mean "presaged a lot of mid-90s alterna-sonics sensibilities that washed everything else in this thread away."

I mean Hugo Largo are their own thing obv but they never sound late eighties except in the sense that they literally are from that period.

In a certain sense they are "too good" for this thread.

what about these cats?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAdNpx8bl5Q

an MOR-tinged hugo largo with a margo timmins soundalike on vocals?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1o5eRr_HWw

This is suddenly my very favourite genre of music again this week, during which I've had in heavy rotation: Stretch Princess' Fun with Humans, Emm Gryner's Asianblue and K's Choice's Almost Happy. The latter might e a little too alt.rock to qualify, and only Emm is actually from Canada, but whatever. Tried putting Martika's Kitchen into the mix, but not melancholic enough. Will probably go with something by Jane Siberry next. Some recommended listening:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZtVuunFpAo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs4E-ZJWRyw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wz2b8c7gXg

Thank you for reminding me about Stretch Princess!

I think people might really love this stuff from Suse Millemann who was brought to light after she got included on a Numero comp a couple of years back ('Switched On Eugene'):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lw2Bfo6_47Q
Suse Millemann - Patterns

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liXrdZQ-Pcg
Suse Millemann - Walk In The Fire

^ listening to this stuff again and the closest point of comparison i can think of is Anna Domino who made some amazing tracks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8wTNLTb08I
Anna Domino - Caught

(i'm probably going too indie here aren't i?)