After a brief vacation, it’s the return of MP3 Monday. And it returns with a vengeance, as this week’s theme is Sloan, almighty kings of ’90s Canadian indie rock. Sloan has been one of my favorite bands for over a decade now, so it shall be honored with what I estimate to be the longest MP3 Monday in history — running you through the band’s history and all the way up to their excellent new album.

As always, MP3s will be online for one week.

“Coax Me” and “Snowsuit Sound” by Sloan. From the album Twice Removed (1994).

I first heard Sloan a little over a decade ago — the summer of 1996, when I was an intern working for the daily newspaper in Toledo, Ohio. As I tooled around the Glass City in my junker summer car (an aged green Buick with sketchy A/C, if memory serves), the only radio station to catch my attention was 89X, the “alternative” station in Windsor, Ontario, right across the river from Detroit.

Because of its location, 89X was subject to Cancon rules — government regulations that require radio (and TV) stations to fill a certain portion of their airtime playing Canadian content. (It may seem seem oddly nationalist to regulate culture that way, but Cancon has done wonders to build support for Canadian music. Hell, the great Carl Newman recorded his solo album and funded a tour with government grants. O, Canada!)

Anyway, by ‘96 Sloan was already established as tops in the indie scene of Halifax, Nova Scotia — one of a half dozen cities labeled “the next Seattle” by A&R folks hunting for what would follow grunge. The four members of Sloan (Chris, Patrick, Andrew, and Jay) each wrote and sang songs, and they had a moptop charm that made Beatles comparisons de rigueur. Their so-so first album had heavy overtones of My Bloody Valentine and the more melodic end of Sonic Youth, which piqued industry interests and got them signed to Geffen.

But their second album, Twice Removed, was more tuneful and poppy, and it got them the quick boot from their label.

Which is a shame, because it’s awesome. Chart (the Canadian analog to Spin) has twice rated it the best album in Canadian history. Take that, Gordon Lightfoot! Every song is catchy without being saccharine, and the various Sloaners all seem so damn smart and funny and charming. I wanted to be their friend! Chris’ “Coax Me” was a big radio hit, and Jay’s “Snowsuit Sound” is a uniquely cold-weather take on unrequited teenage love.

Here’s the video for another song off the album, Andrew’s “People Of The Sky.” Enjoy tracking Patrick’s series of ill-advised haircuts through this and the videos that follow:

And here’s one of my favorites from their first album, Patrick’s “500 Up”:

“Everything You’ve Done Wrong,” “G Turns To D,” and “The Lines You Amend” by Sloan. From the album One Chord To Another (1996).

Sloan’s third album, One Chord To Another, debuted in the summer in 1996 and would have been what was playing on 89X my first summer in Toledo — particularly the punky first single, “The Good In Everyone.” As good as Twice Removed was, OCTA was better — the songs are more spare and their writers take more risks. The sound is broader — more piano and horns, more varied grooves.

Quoth Stephen Thomas Erlewine: “Filled with catchy, jangling riffs and memorable melodies, the record is a tour de force of hooks and harmonies, filled with exceptionally strong songs and forceful performances, which give the record a firm, rocking foundation. Few power pop records of the ’90s are as infectious and memorable as One Chord to Another.”

Take the head-bopping “Everything You’ve Done Wrong,” which could be a mid-1970s single by Chicago, if Peter Cetera were 30 times cooler. Or the stripped-down “G Turns To D,” the sad tale of a man who taught his girlfriend how to play guitar — only to have her becomes a coffeehouse boho singing nasty songs about him. Or Jay’s puckish “The Lines You Amend,” without a doubt the poppiest song about suicide ever.

“The Lines You Amend” (Jay):

“The Good In Everyone” (Patrick):

“Everything You’ve Done Wrong” (Patrick):

“Friendship” and “Delivering Maybes” by Sloan. From the album Between the Bridges (1999).

Sloan had two more excellent albums in a row — the hard-edged Navy Blues and 1999’s Between the Bridges, a common nominee for Best Sloan Album. Just last week, The Onion AV Club announced the creation of its musical Hall of Fame, honoring the greatest rock records of all time. The first inductee? Between the Bridges.

During this period, Andrew (“Delivering Maybes”) and Jay were making some great songs, but the singles (and thus the videos) were invariably from Patrick (“Friendship”) or Chris. Some examples:

“Money City Maniacs” (Patrick/Chris, with the famous chorus “And the joke is / When he awoke his / body was covered with Coke fizz”):

“She Says What She Means” (Chris):

“Losing California” (Patrick):

Unfortunately, the next two albums (Pretty Together and Action Pact) were kinda crap. Well, Pretty Together had its moments, but on the whole, the albums were dominated by Patrick’s too-strong love for AC/DC and KISS and Chris’ devolution into a writer of sappy ballads. Action Pact was particularly offensive, not featuring a single Andrew song. (Andrew songs are the creamy nougat of any good Sloan album.)

“If It Feels Good Do It” (Patrick’s single from PT; not awful, just boring):

“The Other Man” (Chris’ sap):

“The Rest of My Life” (Chris):

I hate to say it, but I’d just about given up on Sloan. Those last couple of records were uninspiring and predictable, and there wasn’t much reason for optimism.

“Can’t You Figure It Out,” “Someone I Can Be True With,” “Love Is All Around,” and “Ill Placed Trust” by Sloan. From the album Never Hear The End Of It (2006).

So it is with quite a bit of joy that I can report that Sloan’s brand new album, Never Hear The End Of It, is kinda awesome. Every review I’ve seen has had some variant of “it’s their best since Between the Bridges,” and BTB is also the album it’s most similar to. Both albums flow from song to song with no gaps between, and both manage to juggle a variety of styles but feel like a unitary document. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, dontchaknow.

The strangest thing about NHTEOI is the track listing — it has 30 songs. The result is a 76-minute album that feels like a stretched-out Side 2 of Abbey Road — a symphony of little two-minute movements. And they all work well together; I’m normally the kind of guy who leaves iTunes on permanent shuffle, but NHTEOI works best as a start-to-finish listen.

(The album does start to lag around minute 60, but hey, so do I.)

The best tracks are Jay’s and Andrew’s — Patrick gets only four songs, and Chris has only a couple ballad clunkers. The songs links above: Andrew’s smoooove “Love Is All Around,” Chris’ choogling “Someone I Can Be True With,” Jay’s Steely Danny “Can’t You Figure It Out,” and Patrick’s obligatory big-rawk “Ill Placed Trust.”

No videos yet for the album’s singles (Jay’s T-Rexy “Who Taught You To Live Like That” and Chris’ opus “Fading Into Obscurity” — available for download here and here). But the band has been posting a series of short videos on their web site — here’s a six-minute behind-the-scenes:

Unfortunately, the new album isn’t out in the U.S. yet, and it’s unclear whether it will be. I ordered mine via Maple Music; it’s also at Amazon.ca. (It’s available at the American Amazon too, but at silly high import prices.)

If you’re interested in the back catalog, the certified classics are Twice Removed, One Chord To Another, and Between the Bridges, with Navy Blues only a half-step behind. The best-of A Sides Win is pretty good, too, although it’s too heavy on the late-period crap too. Their live album Four Nights At The Palais Royale is terrific. You can get nearly their entire collection at eMusic. And you should.

And just because there’s a .0000003 percent chance you’re not sick of Sloan by this point, a few live videos:

Here’s “Penpals,” from Twice Removed, on Halifax TV show called “Rita & Friends” — check out the bizarro early-’90s clothes:

An awkward morning-show interview followed by “Nothing Left To Make Me Want To Stay” from OCTA:

Chris’ “Try To Make It” (one of the better late-period songs) and, as a bonus, a cover of the Ramones’ “Judy Is A Punk”:

09 October 2006

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