The Buffalo News- Choosing the best music of Canada

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The Buffalo News- Choosing the best music of Canada - NegPhil - 12-17-2007

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Northern lights
AS A NEW BOOK CELEBRATES THE FINEST CANADIAN ALBUMS, WE CONSIDER OUR MUSICAL CONNECTION TO THE COUNTRY

By Jeff Miers / NEWS POP MUSIC CRITIC

* Choosing the best music of Canada: The sound of a nation

Well, we got more than hockey from them, didn’t we? We Americans like to think we invented most things, and we certainly can lay claim to some worthwhile cultural exports – the blues, jazz, rock ’n’ roll, hip-hop.

In Buffalo, however, we are unique. We remain a suburb of Toronto in many ways.

We still get skipped over on many highprofile concert tours. We still lack both the growing, bustling population and the vibrant club scene that comes along with it. But we have a real fascination with Canadian music on this side of the Peace Bridge.

In a sense, the regional music of the Toronto area is our regional music, as well. We’re separated by some readily apparent cultural differences – a body of water, a bridge and a border. But Toronto is only 100 miles from here.

In fact, there are Canadian groups – the Tea Party, Tragically Hip and Sloan, for example – who are huge in Canada, massive in Buffalo, but have trouble getting arrested anywhere south of here. They sell out large venues in Buffalo and play small-to-medium- sized clubs in the rest of the country.

So when Bob Mersereau’s impressive tome, “The Top 100 Canadian Albums,” was released recently, we were seriously intrigued.

Mersereau compiled an authoritative panel of Canadian musicians and music industry folks to vote in this definitive sweepstakes. On the one hand, some of the results were expected: Neil Young not only claimed the No. 1 spot, he managed to place no less than 8 albums in the top 100. On the other hand, there were a few surprises: Canadian punkers Teenage Head placed two records in the list.

The book is a reminder of just how much we in Western New York share with our Canadian neighbors, musically speaking. We also feel lucky – a lot of the artists on the list at one time or another played in our city, or we were able to take a ride up the QEW to hear them. Take that, Charlotte and Tampa.

This book speaks to us, or at least we are intrigued by the talent, and the fact that someone actually took the time to compile the list.

The popular conception is that Canadians are a tolerant lot, except when it comes to hockey and cross-border shopping sprees. Mersereau’s book speaks to their diversity of opinion as well. How else to explain a list that places jazz giant Oscar Peterson smack up against alt-rockers the Joel Plaskett Emergency? The Band. Neil Young. Joni Mitchell. Rush.

These are some of the biggest names in popular music history. Yet, they have become so much a part of our culture that it’s easy to forget they are all Canadian artists, despite the fact that all of them celebrate their heritage in one fashion or another.

The Band reflected the wide-open spaces and sense of possibility of the Canadian landscape in their music. Young has never shied away from representing in song the sense of wind-blown wistfulness he experienced as a kid growing up amidst the valleys and plains of Manitoba. Mitchell has written extensively about Canada, perhaps most movingly in her evergreen piece, “A Case of You.”

Rush celebrated the open-minded playlist policies of Toronto’s CFNY FM during its late ’70s/’80s heyday with their song “The Spirit of Radio.” The Tragically Hip, a massive draw in Buffalo, have quite possibly penned more Canada-specific tunes than any other artist.

Still, it’s hard to whittle any of this down to a sound that is distinctly Canadian, just as there is no one American sound. It’s a testament to the depth of a culture that so much music of widely divergent stylings can fit neatly beneath a nationalistic umbrella.

So hats off to our northern neighbors. They’ve given us some timeless music.

<a href="mailto:jmiers@buffnews.com">jmiers@buffnews.com</a>

- Tthip - 12-18-2007

Jeff Miers:

My Canadian Top 100
A panel of experts put together the list for the book, "The Top 100 Canadian Albums." Just to
be annoying, I put together this list of my own favorite Canadian albums. Please write with
some of your own favorites.

1) "Music From Big Pink," The Band

2) "Mingus," Joni Mitchell

3) "Harvest," Neil Young

4) "Snakes & Arrows," Rush

5) "Funeral," Arcade Fire

6) "World Container," The Tragically Hip

7) "Poses," Rufus Wainwright

8) "Crash and Burn," The Pat Travers Band

9) "For the Beauty of Wynona," Daniel Lanois

10) "Whereabouts," Ron Sexsmith

11) "You Forgot It In People," Broken Social Scene

12) "Set Yourself on Fire," Stars

13) "One Chord to Another," Sloan

14) "The Philosopher Kings," The Philosopher Kings

15) "Vostok 6," Kurt Swinghammer

16) "Coney Hatch," Coney Hatch

17) "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere," Neil Young

18) "The Future," Leonard Cohen

19) "Hemi-Vision," Big Sugar

20) "August Everywhere," Blinker the Star

21) "Transmission," The Tea Party

22) "Gord's Gold," Gordon Lightfoot

23) "You've Never Seen Everything," Bruce Cockburn

24) "Moving Pictures," Rush

25) "Live in Paris," Diana Krall

26) "Let it Die," Feist

27) "Chemical City," The Sam Roberts Band

28) "Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven," Godspeed You! Black Emperor

29) "Neon Bible," Arcade Fire

30) "Chemical Sounds," Ron Hawkins

31) "Ingenue," k.d. lang

32) "City of Fear," FM

33) "Permanent Waves," Rush

34) "In Violet Light," The Tragically Hip

35) "Mahogany Rush Live," Frank Marino & Mahogany Rush

36) "Zuma," Neil Young

37) "Temptation," Holly Cole Trio

38) "Night Ride Home," Joni Mitchell

39) "The Trinity Sessions," Cowboy Junkies

40) "Love Junk," The Pursuit of Happiness

41) "Live! Go For What You Know," The Pat Travers Band

42) "Shine," Joni Mitchell

43) "Storyville," Robbie Robertson

44) "Dirt Farmer," Levon Helm

45) "Stage Fright," The Band

46) "On the Beach," Neil Young

47) "Navy Blues," Sloan

48) "Heavy Duty," Crowbar

49) "No Cities Left," the Dears

50) "Live Rust," Neil Young

51) "Signals," Rush

52) "God Shuffled His Feet," Crash Test Dummies

53) "Strange Universe," Frank Marino & Mahogany Rush

54) "Raids On the Unspeakable," Gregory Hoskins & the Stickpeople

55) "Sundown," Gordon Lightfoot

56) "Fumbling Towards Ecstasy," Sarah McLachlan

57) "Now and Again," the Grapes Of Wrath

58) "Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada," Godspeed You! Black Emperor

59) "Day For Night," the Tragically Hip

60) "Coke Machine Glow," Gordon Downie

61) "Wheatfield Soul," the Guess Who

62) "Matt Mays & El Torpedo," Matt Mays & El Torpedo

63) "2112," Rush

64) "The Marble Index," the Marble Index

65) "The McGarrigle Hour," Kate & Anna McGarrigle

66) "Twin Cinema," the New Pornographers

67) "Bedbugs," the Odds

68) "Snow In June," the Northern Pikes

69) "A Million Vacations," Max Webster

70) "Caught By the Window," Pilot Speed

71) "American Woman," the Guess Who

72) "Melville," the Rheostatics

73) "Road Apples," the Tragically Hip

74) "Triptych," the Tea Party

75) "Putting It Straight", Pat Travers

76) "Satin Chickens," Rhinoceros

77) "Tremendous Efforts," the Sadies

78) "Death of A Ladies Man," Leonard Cohen

79) "Heijira," Joni Mitchell

80) "Worlds Apart," Saga

81) "Monster," Steppenwolf

82) "Too Dark Park," Skinny Puppy

83) "All the World's A Stage," Rush

84) "Broken Arrow," Neil Young & Crazy Horse

85) "The Last Waltz," the Band

86) "Faithlift," Spirit Of the West

87) "Comes A Time," Neil Young

88) "Dig," I Mother Earth

89) "Phantom Power," the Tragically Hip

90) "Tonight's the Night," Neil Young

91) "In A Coma," Matthew Good

92) "Contact from the Underworld of Red Boy," Robbie Robertson

93) "Turbulent Indigo," Joni Mitchell

94) "Retriever," Ron Sexsmith

95) "Beautiful: A Tribute to Gordon Lightfoot," Various Artists

96) "Live it Out," Metric

97) "Grace Under Pressure," Rush

98) "High Class In Borrowed Shoes," Max Webster

99) "Action Pact," Sloan

100) "Frantic City," Teenage Head

- Corpse - 12-18-2007

Was this Jeff's list or yours Dana. I was talking to him at the Friday Ballroom (3-9) show and he seemed like a cool guy for the 5 minutes he spent with us.

- Tthip - 12-18-2007

Corpse Wrote:Was this Jeff's list or yours Dana. I was talking to him at the Friday Ballroom (3-9) show and he seemed like a cool guy for the 5 minutes he spent with us.

Jeff's list.
He likes alot of the music I like - and he usually hears what I hear.
That is why I enjoy and usually trust his reviews.
Even though when you see him in person he is totally stuck in the 80's hair band outfits. Besides the "black" of all his outfits kind of reminds me of Rob Baker with the outfits he picks
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