Top 40 Above 49

Top of the charts one day, bottom of the bargain bin the next.
A celebration of Canadian pop.

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Maren Ord - Sarah (listen)

I’ve done pseudo-boybands for my first two posts, so I thought I’d head in a different, more feminine direction for number three. While in the United States N*Sync and the Backstreet Boys had female counterparts in the form of Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, Canada never produced much in the way of the female teen-pop diva. Instead, while the SoulDecisions and Waves of our great country rose up in the wake of their more successful American cousins, aspiring young female musicians took their cue from other Canadian singer-songwriters in the vein of Alanis Morisette and Sarah McLachlan.

Maren Ord is a fine, though obscure, example of this. Born in Edmonton, Alberta, Ord got her big break at an audition for Lilith Fair, the female musician festival showcase founded by McLachlan with help from some others, including Terry McBride of Netwerk Records. McBride signed her, and the first single she released was “Sarah,” a song that I believe is an ode to being yourself and/or believing in yourself. Although this song definitely got rotation on pop radio here, it apparently never produced a video, hence this mp3 offering.

Notes:

  • The only real note I have on this song is that I find the lyrics as infuriatingly indecipherable now as I did back then. The chorus:

“Sarah doesn’t care anymore/You know what they say/at the back door/But it’s not that way.”

I assume this is about gossip, but what is ‘the back door’? Is that where the cool kids hang out in Edmonton? Do schools even have back doors? Elsewhere the lyrics allude to her Mama never being home and her being alone, so maybe it’s social services, but why are they going to the back door as opposed to the front? Not a single definition of “back door” on Urban Dictionary sheds any light on this matter, either.

  • I felt kind of bad writing this post at first, because all the links on the Wikipedia entry were dead and I though she had really faded into obscurity (I like to imagine all former pop stars are eking out a living as session musicians or coffee house performers or songwriters). But fortunately the MySpace still works, and from there I discovered via Facebook that Ord now calls Utah home. Lateral move?

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Wave - California

You know what one of my pet peeves is? Canadian bands singing about the United States. Somehow it just comes off as one of the worst forms of self-imposed cultural alienation as laid out by Antonio Gramsci. It makes sense that US bands would sing about the US— it’s where they’re from and what they know. But Canadian bands, having grown up hearing songs about the United States, believe that not only is it natural for US citizens to sing about the United States, they believe its natural that all people should sing about the United States, as if it is home to the only locales worth honouring in song. The people who control culture have created the idea that all people should aspire to live in these places, and rather than focusing on what we have nearby everyone just starts fantasizing about how much better life would be somewhere else. The same criticism could be leveled at people wanting to move to Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, or whatever other regional center, but today’s post is about Wave, and Wave want to move to California.

Well, guess what Wave? There’s nothing in Niagara Falls preventing you from getting whatever sort of car you want to fantasize about driving (a 1987 Corolla, apparently). Nor will California make it easier for you to sip on tequila every night— as a matter of fact, given your ages at the time you wrote this song, things would have been quite a bit more difficult. Although I will grant that it’s a lot more likely no one will know your name there.

NOTES:

  • These guys still look as much like Kewpie dolls as I remember.
  • Like soulDecision, Wave spend a fair amount of time singing into the camera, but since they wear sunglasses, it comes off as less disorienting. Good move.
  • At the 3:18 mark, when the singer is obviously meant to have found his soul mate sitting at one of the many beach fires that are constantly happening in California (can anyone verify if this is true?), could he possibly look more disinterested?
  • Those “wee-ooh-wee” vocals in the chorus are pretty good.
  • Every news article I can find about this band makes sure to mention that unlike American boy-bands, these guys write their own songs and play their own instruments. That really was an issue back then, wasn’t it?
  • It’s interesting to note that the less relevant you are, the more fans can get away with hyperbolic statements on your Wikipedia entry, since according to the “Current Projects” section of Wave’s page, Paul Gigliotti is producing the “hottest band” in Niagra Falls, known by their all-caps name ATHENA FLASHING. No link is provided.

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soulDecision - Faded

For the inaugural post, I’m going with one of the few Canadian pop singles of the boy-band era that probably isn’t forgotten by everyone: “Faded” by soulDecision. I remember hearing this on Rick Dees top 40 or something like that and having my mind blown because I didn’t think a band from Canada could get on American shows.

Apparently, lead singer Trevor Guthrie wasn’t too happy with how the band was branded in the video (to boy-bandish for a group who actually wrote songs and played instruments. Remember when that was an issue?) Too be fair, there ARE clips showing them holding guitars and stuff. Here’s his MySpace.

NOTES:

Man, this guy uses his eyebrows to convey his feelings. I can just hear the director: “Sexier! Lick those lips!”

On a similar note, which one of the three do you think was chosen by the label to be the heartthrob? Hint: it’s not the one with the goatee. It never is.

WTF is going on in this apartment? There’s a guy in a cage, some girl hanging up (counterfeit?) money, and some sort of purple basketball court. I don’t even want to go back and see what was going on with that old lady and the camera.

1:37. He’s feeling it.

This song gets bonus points for reminding everyone of Thrust for a second. Then he went back to being unknown.

Videos where the singer looks directly into the camera: yes or no?


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Choose Your Flavour

In case you hadn’t notice, the guy who made this theme gives you the ability to choose your own colour scheme. Just click on one of the rows in the palette in the top right. It makes things much more personal.


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About

Canadians are good at celebrating their music. And why not? Over the last decade or so, the Canadian music scene has produced a dazzling array of talent, with artists and albums winning over critics and fans around the world. Operating mostly underground, Canada’s indie music scene is second to none and the envy of many.

But every yin must have its yang. For many of us, the introduction to homegrown talent came not through respected blogs and online radio, but through the MuchMusic Countdown and top 40 radio stations attempting to fill their 35% Canadian content quotas without deviating too far from the bubblegum pop dominating the airwaves at the time. This created a parallel world operating somewhere between the DIY ethos of the independents and the aesthetics of the marketing juggernauts coming from the south. When the boy band era came to an end, Canadian pop musicians, lacking credibility, large budgets, or even much in the way of name recognition, could neither retreat into the underground nor propel themselves forward as “adult” artists à la the Backstreet Boys and Justin Timberlake. Yes, the end of this era had casualties worldwide, but in Canada, almost no one was left standing.

This blog is an attempt to rectify that.


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Author

The author of this blog didn’t have the ability to download songs until the Napster era was over, and instead spent time making mixtapes by hooking up a cassette recorder to the sound output of his television while MuchMusic was on. This blog is possibly an attempt to justify the number of times he heard SoulDecision as a result of this tragic lack of technology that today’s youth take for granted.


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