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With that, we see the Kids leave and setup the championship round.
Eliminated Round 1
Pretend
Last Night I Dreamed You Didn't Love Me
In View
Eliminated Round 2
Fly
Luv(sic)
Eliminated Round 3
World Container
Eliminated Round 4
Yer Not The Ocean
Eliminated Round 5
The Lonely End Of The Rink
Eliminated Round 6
The Kids Don't Get It
Vote for the song you believe to be the weakest on World Container and after 72 hours, we will remove the song that has the most votes and the other will be the champion.
The poll will end Tuesday at 10:23am Eastern.
Happy voting!
Shane
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Drop Off is great, but Family Band is a classic Hip tune; I love the line about loading up the kick drum.
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Finally an easy decision. I love the Drop-Off, but Family Band is the best thing on the album, hands down. I love everything about it.
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I can never vote for 'A shade shy of true wickedness' as weakest.
2004-12-03 - Saint John/2005-09-03 - Moncton/2006-06-30 - Charlottetown/2006-11-09/10 - Montreal/2007-09-11 - Fredericton/2007-09-13 - Halifax/2007-09-14 - Sydney/2007-09-15 - Charlottetown/2008-06-30 - Charlottetown/2009-05-01/02 - Montreal/2011-06-28 - Moncton/2011-06-30 - Charlottetown/2012-06-30 - Niagara-on-the-Lake/2013-02-01 - Moncton/2013-02-02 - Halifax/2015-01-10 - Toronto/2015-02-20 - Montreal/2015-07-17 - Ottawa/2016-08-18 - Ottawa/2016-08-20 - Kingston
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Sad to see this poll come to an end. Love this record and lots of tough choices throughout...including this last one. As crazy and badass as The Drop Off is, I gotta go with Family Band as my top pick.
Sing it, Gord! "What's gripping the city ain't hitting the town!" /full stop
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It's an interesting song in that it seems to be about failure - i.e., failing to make an impact on the scene, and also failing to really love what you're doing. :what For a key song on an album that was apparently purpose-built to reclaim lost commercial territory, it seems a perverse lyric. I love the word play )('annihilate a little later' is the kind of line I like, for sure).
One thing about this cut is that Gord really *sounds* like his old self on it. The voice had been thinning, really, with IVL and after, but he's in commanding, full-throated DFN-era Gord mode here. (By contrast, 'Kids' is an absolutely savage vocal, but definitely of the later-era Gord variety). That's one of the things that makes it an excellent listen.
I voted against 'Drop Off,' of course, for the opposite reason - the horrible vocal stylings.
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Good posts.
I'm not a huge fan of art about art, or artists making art about being artists, in principle. The epitome of this is hip hop, where guys rap about being rappers, which always struck me as absurdly circular. If you're a rapper, you should have something to *rap about,* not just the business of being a rapper. It just seems like a failure of craft and imagination to me.
I do think Gord indulged in this theme rather too frequently from, say, M@W to WATS. But I wouldn't want to push the point too far. One of the things that always tickled me about 'Summer is Killing Us' is precisely its demented glee in complaining about his job. 'The Kids Don't Get It' is an example of taking this theme and elevating it to the level of agitated tragedy:
I'll stop to cry into the curtain
And like the greats before me go on stage
And if half true, it's good enough for this
THE KIDS DON'T GET IT!!
Just how hard it is...
That goes way beyond self-indulgent writing about one's writing. It becomes a rather unnerving documentation of a dread reality of life - basically, the truth of human decline. 'Tired as Fuck' revisits this territory but in a much more world-weary, poignant way.
May and June, this lake of gin
I only had to tilt the paddle toward my chin
May and June, the sweet sea
It's so easy when you don't know what you're doing
These songs easily overcome any reservation I might have about the perils of 'art about art.' The song's premise becomes a pathway to much more universal human truths.
I rate the lyrics of 'Family Band' as a definite notch under these two songs: they're sardonic fun more than they are poignant or really moving, and are a little too rooted in the specifics of being in a rock band to fully ascend to that universal level I'm talking about. But they show, for Gord, an unusually high level of wordplay, and it's a case of the entire band pulling together to make the song work - whether it's GS's grinding rhythm or Gord's darned catchy tune, amplified by Rob's leads guitar line. It's a fine Hip track, no doubt.
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I'm really happy to read these thoughts on Family Band -- it was oddly quiet while it was cruising to victory with very few votes against it in the entire poll. Reading some of your thoughts above has helped me think about why it has always just matter-of-factly been the thing that I think is best on the album (although, Kids Don't Get It would be my personal favourite). A deserving soon to be champion.
ct
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I voted for "Family Band," because I knew it'd win (or lose, I guess...) and didn't want "The Drop-Off" to feel bad. Because they're both monsters that don't deserve shade.
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The DropOff is about to feel sorry for itself.
Jeff
June 21, 2003 Toronto, ON: SkyDome
July 1, 2004 Toronto, ON: Molson Amphitheatre
November 26, 2004 Toronto, ON: Air Canada Centre
June 24, 2006 Toronto, ON: Historic Fort York
May 10, 2007 Indianapolis, IN: The Vogue
July 14, 2011 Edmonton, AB: Northlands Festival Site
June 30, 2012 Niagara-on-the-Lake, ON: The Commons at Butler's Barracks
January 23, 2013 Edmonton, AB: Rexall Place
July 28, 2016 Edmonton, AB: Rexall Place
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The dropoff is my favourite on this album. Although I figured family band would win, I wasn't expecting this domination. yikes.
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Hey where's the WATS Thoughts and Insights thread? Has it been started yet?
