the Big Shiny late-90s/early-00s CanCon poll

We do get some good French radio in Ottawa. In my more enlightened middle age, I really enjoy listening to trad French country on CHUO every Thursday morning to get into a French headspace for that day's teaching.

(Portentous, Live 88.5 and Rebel 101.7 are both also happy to dip into the 90s alt vaults.)

Sund4r I was at that OLP show, ha

I’m think a lot of it might have been that those band played Buffalo/Upstate New York a ton, and felt like “big” bands, when other touring bands from farther away in the US hardly ever came through, so the fan bases got huge. Like I remember going to see BNL play the hockey arena before “one week” was a thing.

Heh, you're definitely more Québécois than I am if you can listen to country in French. I'll get there some day.

xp

weirdest bit of trivia related to this poll that I've dug up so far: MGB's "Omissions of the Omean" ('95) supposedly contains the first recorded use of the expression "first-world problems"

!

(Sorry for your loss, btw, portentous.)

Pomenitul, it helps a lot that the words are p much always crystal clear, and that it makes it harder to fall asleep on a longish morning drive, but I'm also somewhat fascinated by this show: I didn't think a French twang was possible beforehand, and the host of this show manages to come up with four new hours of music in a fairly specific vein every week.

Thanks, I'll check it out.

Prob goes without saying that it's super hokey.

(no idea what the PGMG connection is?)

― Simon H., Wednesday, April 3, 2019 9:08 AM (two days ago)

None, other than both were Matador labelmates at the same time for a brief moment.

That's alright, being abroad has a way of making even such things appear exotically palatable.

xp

not really poll-relevant but this is my fave pre-NPs AC Newman tune

https://youtu.be/TvTltNhTy-E

― Simon H., Wednesday, April 3, 2019 11:24 AM (two days ago)

Same, might even be my favorite of his including NPs.

This is probably way too under the radar for Big Shiny but this was one of my fave Canadian songs of the specified era:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrWq4J4GzLA

That's an interesting list. Always annoys me that "I'm an Adult Now" is the TPOH song people remember since it's so monotonous and says nothing to me. Much prefer "She's So Young" or "Beautiful White".

Yes! I thought I was alone on this. I'm an Adult Now drags so much compared to the rest of the album.

Also - is this the place where we can discuss how awesome the first Lowest of the Low album is?

im an adult now is a shitty song.

I like those Doiron records a lot

I don't know that I've ever consciously heard Lowest of the Low.

this is the LotL song that got much music play...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-t06Kg3LwyE

I love it and the rest of the album, Ron Hawkins is one of my favourite songwriters.

ah now I see why you just referred to it as "the first LotL album" and not by name lol

I'll check it out!

haha, yeah brutal album name.

Heh, I just put on Radio-Canada in the van and they were playing Jean Leloup's "Joue de la Guitare".

Yeah that album is loaded with hits, top 10 Canadian albums ever for sure

*LotL that is

Fuck the system, do it, do it, do it, do it, yeah!

ugh i relistened to a bunch of olp records today and now i have to change my vote to them

happiness... is pretty perfect

I definitely bought Moist's Mercedes Five and Dime as a #teen for....some reason. Relistening now I have no idea what prompted that, but it's not bad. There's a certain lightness / airiness to the sound that's not very typical of the era.

Went with Odds. Their albums are consistently good, their live show fun and hilarious, and they are also my second CD purchase.

Though Pluto almost made it on the strength of "Paste" alone. Likewise The Killjoys on the strength of "Today I Hate Everyone"

My principal conclusions after going back through the MGB discography afresh is a) man, that guy wrote a lot of good songs that are more melodically clever than I remembered and b) Warne Livesey is a very dull producer who did them no favors. Loser Anthems is their most distinctive-sounding record and it's the only one he wasn't involved with. (OTOH he has a songwriting credit on the Mark Hollis solo album so he can't be all bad.)

I need to admit that I cannot remember how a single MGB song sounds. I'm not sure I consciously knew one at the time.

I'd be surprised if you put on "Load Me Up" or "Apparitions" and didn't have at least the slightest twinge of recognition.

Gob

I revisited a bunch of MGB singles the other day and while his songwriting does tend to surpass his contemporaries', the intervening decades haven't helped me warm up to his voice at all. And the production does indeed suck, although MGB are hardly alone on this one (I'd love me some Albinized CanCon).

I remember OLP working with THE Bob Rock was an actual talking point when Gravity came out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2KJDl-T-y4

JENNI
KILLED HER DAD WITH HER CAR
NOW SHE'S A MILLIONAIRE

idk i love the sound of those mgb records. they definitely sound like the '90s though

I tried to listen to Limblifter this morning but I just get nothing out of that guy's voice.

holy shit this thread is too much

keep clicking songs and having intense flashbacks to childhood

fucking i mother earth lmao

Def the most ridiculous of these bands

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

re the convo upthread, as a rural boy in 90s ontario i can tell you with absolute confidence that leloup, colocs, etc had zero penetration in my tiny circle, and in fact i did not really hear any of these artists/bands until the past couple of years bc of dating francophone person. like, even living in mtl and largely hanging out w/ anglos i still didn't get any exposure. but all of these BST bands i was at least very intimately familiar with their heavy rotation muchmusic/bst offerings.

still really split on who to vote for, OLP or Moist prob the most honest to me at the time (in that order chronologically, i think?), kinda wanna vote bran van for the most interesting career to me retrospectively, and kinda wanna vote holly mcnarland because numb just fuckin bangs

BV3000 had that one wild song where the video was just people making out for like 4 minutes. i think i liked the song but i was far too repressed to not feel deeply uncomfortable watching the video. maybe that was the point!

UHH matthew good covered cloudbusting in 2015, feat. holly mcnarland????????????????? ok im voting for her

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Next to no discussion about the Odds and they sneak in for second place. Good band, occasionally great, and there's nothing embarrassing in their catalogue (even "Wendy Under The Stars" holds up) like any of the other acts that I was familiar with in this poll , so that's why they got my vote.

The only song I remember by them is "Heterosexual Man" tbh, which I do think of as a bit embarrassing.

It did have Kids in the Hall in the video tbf.

I guess it's a bit embarrassing, but I never took it as anything more than Gen X irony, and the video reflected that.

It was definitely ironic. I just don't think the by-the-numbers rock track or the joke have held up that great. Tbf, though, I doubt they were going for timelessness. It did give me a smile at 14.