What's with the recent crop of critically lauded Canadian Indie Rock?

most of these bands suck though!

I'm a little fuzzy, but I recall the group of just-under-the-mainstream-radar bands 10 years ago consisted mostly of Moist, Our Lady Peace and I Mother Earth. Were there any good bands (I think Cowboy Junkies come to mind)?

Are you kidding me?

Compare that to the whole Constellation phenom earlier; Godspeed got the infamy so a select subset of people started to pay attention to the other bands on the label (and Alien8 too to a certain extent), but because it wasn't the type of baffling pop success that Broken Social Scene had, it didn't have quite the same impact. Now people are paying attention to Unicorns and Les Georges Leningrad and Arcade Fire and etc.

I think it's fun that a lot of these bands are from Montreal now, too. Has there ever been a time when there were so many critically-acclaimed anglo bands were from Montreal? I remember slight pockets where band like the Nils and Asexuals got attention, but never to quite this extent.

Wolf Parade don't suck.
-- Alba (albab...), November 26th, 2004.

Wolf Parade in the wrong business, apparently!

Erm, Sloan, Eric's Trip, Elevator to Hell, Jale, Hardship Post, Treble Charger, Hayden + a bunch of smaller names including the whole Sonic Unyon scene that was big around 1995-6.

Our Lady Mother Moist were big but no one really thought of them as "indie." They were "get hammered at the university pub" bands.

Overall though, I think more interesting question is why all the attention to very white, self-consciously retrograde guitar pop when there is so much else going on in Canada that's new and different? This recent indie rock craze reeks of "Brit-pop."

yes I realize they're a different breed, but just had to get that off my chest.

in a good way - it's a little mistrustful of dominant modes of thinking & razzle-dazzle; likes eccentricity and, well, for lack of a better word - independence (or at least the appearance of independence)

and in a bad way in that it's a little defeatist & insular and stuck in the mud; willing to accept & even celebrate mediocrity as long as it conforms to the rules... and most of all - a willingness to disown &/or backstab anything that gets too big or popular - a real suspicion of any sort of success

or is the USA "rock" & the UK "pop"?

This is something you hear a lot about Canadian culture but I don't think it holds up. Shania, Celine, Bryan, Neil, Joni etc are still loved as "Canadian" even when they don't live here, or even take up US citizenship. However, it seems lots of Canadian artist seem happy to be big at home. Stompin' Tom is a hero to many precisely because he made that his policy. Course, he's pretty punk overall. I loved the fact he gave up recording as a protest against the music industry failing to support Canadian artists. And he kept it up for like 18 years or something! His new album blows by the way.

OTM re. nomeansno. I regard nomeansno and the Rheostatics are the cool old fuckers of the Canadian underground.

Can someone try to explain why The Tragically Hip are so huge in Canada? I mean, they are bigger than just about anyone you could care to name. Grannies love them, mailmen whistle their tunes, the Prime Minister has to pretend to like them. That Gordie bloke is like Bono and Michael Stipe rolled into one for millions of Canucks. I'm mystified.

These days though, you may have a point.

(xpost)

An attempt by someone who's never owned a Hip album: When they came out (late 80s), they had sort of a retro-but-not-too-retro 60s hard guitar rock sound and look at a time when that was very distinctive from what was mainstream at the time. They're not mindblowing instrumentally but they can sustain a strong driving sound and the guitarists come up with solid memorable riffs. The guy has a distinctive voice (I don't have any great love for it but that strained bleating does manage to sound impassioned, sensitive, and clear at the same time and not in cliched ways) and stage presence. His lyrics are quite unique in their fixations with Canadian historical trivia (and not in a terribly sentimentalized nationalistic way) and goofy stream-of-consciousness nonsense. They've kept at it for a good 15 years, putting out a steady stream of stuff at the same level of quality. None of which means I'm rushing to buy their albums but I enjoy a lot of their songs on the radio and understand their success. (Sometimes I find it harder to understand why REM became so 'important' even though I did have all their albums up to 1996 or so.)

I think we should thank the CanCon regulations to some extent for the broad musical renaissance in Canada. I know they can be a pain in the ass for broadcasters etc and I've heard all the arguments against them but musicians are at least guaranteed a platform. On the other hand, hearing the Poppy Family for the 9,000th time on the oldies station just makes me wanna smash the radio.

for americans, wilco & uncle tupelo were pretty canadian... along with the jayhawks & a lot of that "americana"

and relatively similar craftsmanly country-rock rootsy singer-songwriter stuff was pretty much the dominant "alternative" thing in canada pre-sloan (eg blue rodao, hip, grapes of wrath, 54/40, crash vegas, etc) stemming (i think) from a bigtime Neil Young/The Band influence hanging in the air... which is all still present but maybe a little less shameless in stuff like the constantines (who have a Neil cover band in their spare time) & andre ethier's solo record, sadies stuff

and the poppy family were great.

And your statement is absurd, btw.

Ha ha! Nice one, rewind (perfect name by the way). Thanks for proving my point.

xpost

Y'know what's weird?
As far as guitar rock goes, the only stuff I listen to pretty much is Canadian. Maybe I get enough of that through CanCon that I don't need to look for it in the world and can concentrate on other things. That's flipping odd, huh?

The best thing about the C'mon album is that if you buy the vinyl, which is on bright orange vinyl, you also get the CD included as a bonus!

Caught them live a few years ago. If its the same band (from Montreal right? Female bassist or was it guitar trades singing with a guy) I'm thinking of there was hope for them, mostly the male singer needed to improve.

I would really like to enjoy Ian Blurton's new stuff but I can't sit through it. Live or on CD it's really a shame. Then again you haven't heard a peep from me about the new Rheos.

Mr. Noodles, do you hate teh goodness?

Answering myself here but yup, that was the band. They were playing with King Cob Steelie, Two Minute Miracles, NQ Arbuckle and The Sadies.

Overall, I guess I'm a little miffed about the idea that Canada is musically indie-inclined. Obviously there are good things going on in Montreal, Toronto & Vancouver, but its only the indie scene that has caught on, not more of a general mainstream desire for indie music. Mainstream radio - even in the big 3 cities - and Muchmusic seem to be led by grunge rock worshippers and unoffensive top 40 pushers.

I saw controller.controller (learn to spell it properly, people! :)) open for Tangiers once and was minimally impressed. Dance-punk/funk/Hot Hot Heat/whatever-the-kids-call-it-these-days has never been my thing, though. Tangiers rocked ass, I'm happy to say.

Spelling schmelling, are you engineer or do you care about the truth like a physicist?!?

I don't know about the hot hot heat, I just kept hearing New Order.

I like New Order.

www.mcrorie.ca

Why isn't there a Pink Mountaintops thread?! I just started a new thread the other day, so I don't want to go crazy on starting new threads.

But the new Pink Mountaintops album is pretty good.

In terms of indie stuff, the best band in Vancouver FYI is Thee Ahs. Actually they have been brilliant for a long time so it's kind of a relief to me that lots of people (locally at least) are finally starting to get it. They just brought out I think their third album which I think is quite brilliant - 9 very dark guitar-pop songs all seemingly connected lyrically. They are fronted by a young woman with a wonderfully rich, soaring voice; backing vocals by another gal, the songwriter, who has a very cool new wave voice and is a great guitarist. They're both around 21. Seen them a bunch of times over the last 3 years or so but their last gigs here have felt like big celebrations - like everyone realises they are destined for bigger things (they are touring the UK over the summer, playing Indietracks and that kind of thing.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdMjdUpAA2o

Thee Ahs are incredible! The (current) album is beautiful, reminds me of Mamas & Papas in all the harmonies, and its full bittersweet amazing songs. Not a duff one at all. Can't wait to see them in the UK, gotta wait a fortnight till Indietracks and then seeing them again a couple of days later.

Great! I would love to hear a report from Indietracks or any of the other gigs. Been tagging along with them for so long now that it's hard to believe they are actually on tour overseas! Each album has built on the previous - the second one, Future Without Her is about as good as the latest but not quite as polished. One of the best things about them is that they are always pushing forward, trying new approaches and writing new stuff. The last couple of times I saw them here they had a bunch of new songs and announced they were recording a new album when they get back from the UK.