Best of 2000, 20 years later

My friend Aaron Brophy likes to revisit his year-end lists from at least a decade back, and alternately either boast about his amazing, timeless taste, or wonder what the heck he was thinking.

20 years ago I was hired by Philip Bast at the Kitchener-Waterloo Record to write a weekly CD review column. I did that until 2019, reviewing three to six albums a week.

In 2000, I was living in Guelph, working at Exclaim, writing for Eye Weekly, and working on a book called Have Not Been the Same. 

In 2020, I'm writing a book about events 20 years ago, so I've been living in a bit of a time warp.

Here’s the 10 albums I submitted to Eye Weekly’s year-end poll in 2000. Commentary is new.


1. Sarah Harmer – You Were Here (Cold Snap)
A classic record, to this day. I knew that the day I heard it, after buying a copy from her after a show at Ted’s Wrecking Yard on College Street, a copy that was a CD-R with a hand-drawn cover. I was a huge Weeping Tile fan and was thrilled that Harmer finally got her due. Is it the best album of 2000? It’s one of my favourite albums of all time, so there’s that. Will have a lot more to say about this in the book.


2. The Weakerthans – Left and Leaving (G7). O hell yes. I first saw this band a couple of months before this album came out, at Exclaim’s anniversary party, and these songs blew me away. So did songs from 1997’s Fallow, which everyone in the room but me seemed to know by heart. I bought a copy from Soundscapes before my own band played a show at… Ted’s Wrecking Yard. The year 2000 was very much about Ted’s Wrecking Yard for me. I wrote an essay about this album’s anniversary here.


3. Yo La Tengo – And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out (Matador). I listened to this album more in 2020 than I had since the year it came out. That had nothing to do with its anniversary, and everything to do with therapeutic listening during enforced isolation. 

4. Bettie Serveert – Private Suit (Parasol). I have a lot to say about this, one of the most underrated rock records of the last 30 years, and one I revisit annually. I’m pretty sure I’m the only person in the world who feels that way. Wrote about this here.


5. Sleater-Kinney – All Hands on the Bad One (Kill Rock Stars). This isn’t even among my top three favourite S-K records now, but it sure sounded great in 2000—in part because so much other rock music was terrible. “You’re No Rock’n’Roll Fun” still gives me chills. I have never seen this video!

6. PJ Harvey – Stories From the City, Stories From The Sea (Island). I had some kind of hipster hang-up at the time about whether this was the best PJ Harvey record to date or whether it was just the PJ Harvey record you were most likely to put on when other people come over for dinner. Does it matter? Still sounds amazing, top to bottom.


7. Neko Case – Furnace Room Lullaby; Carolyn Mark – Party Girl; The Corn Sisters – The Other Women (Mint). It’s amazing to me that these three albums came out the same year as New Pornographers’ Mass Romantic. I still know every lyric to each of these songs. In the political climate of 2020, I re-latched on to Neko’s “Mood to Burn Bridges.” Feeling disconnected, I found solace in “someone singing my life back to me” in “Guided by Wire.” For 20 years leading up to my midlife crisis, I’ve had a Corn Sisters lyric by Mark in my head: “Is it a groove? Or is it a rut?” In April, I watched an online hootenanny hosted in isolation by the incredibly social Carolyn Mark, during which she played Party Girl’s “Don’t Come Over, Baby.” It was perfect.


8. Crooked Fingers – s/t (Sonic Unyon). Much like Sleater-Kinney, this is nowhere near my favourite album by one of my favourite artists of all time. But again, like Yo La Tengo, this one sounded particularly good in 2020: “Crowned in Chrome,” “New Drink for the Old Drunk,” “Broken Man,” “Black Black Ocean,” “Under Sad Stars”—because it was just that kind of year.

9. Jess Klein – Draw Them Near (Slow River/Ryko). This is the one album on this list where I thought: really? I remember liking it, but I don’t remember loving it and I definitely haven’t listened to it in 20 years. But guess what? It’s pretty great. Really solid songs, great voice, great band. In the same vein as Harmer, but American. 2000 might have been the last year I listened to a lot of roots rock, which is why Klein would have fallen off my radar. She’s still active, and new stuff sounds pretty good.


10. The Gruesomes – Cave In (Tyrant). This might have been the first of my favourite bands from my high school years to reunite and not suck, and so the surprise element no doubt vaulted this onto my top 10. Listening to it now for likely the first time in 20 years, it is a great record, and probably even the Gruesomes’ best. The songs and performances are all killer (and there’s finally a studio version of “You Were Not Using Your Head”). I just don’t listen to garage rock anymore; I barely did in 2000, either. But if you do, and/or if you were ever a Gruesomes fan and have somehow never heard this, I highly recommend it.



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Other favourites I wrote about in my year-end column for the K-W Record:


Asian Dub Foundation – Community Music (London/Polygram). I’d totally forgot this band until two years ago when I wrote a book about the Tragically Hip—which is a weird connection, but I read an article where drummer Johnny Fay talks about rocking this record on the tour bus. It also came to mind when I dug the Melt Yourself Down record this year. In many ways this record sounds either of the moment or incredibly dated, depending on your POV. I still think it sounds great. I had no idea they were still active; they put out a new record this year, and haven’t changed a bit. If Rage Against the Machine can have a revival, this band sure as hell can—and should. It’s not like what they were singing about has improved one iota. 

 

 

Bjork – Selmasongs (Warner). I was in a deep Bjork period of my life. Does this oft-forgotten soundtrack to Dancer in the Dark hold up? Probably much better than the movie, I’m guessing. After hearing about the antagonistic working relationship she had with notorious sadist Lars Von Trier, I reconsidered all portrayals of extreme suffering on film (not the first or last time in my life Bjork changed my worldview). The production is a delightful blend of the digital clicks and cuts she’d soon dive into and the orchestration heard on much of Post. I often forget that in the same year Kid A came out, Thom Yorke duetted with both PJ Harvey and Bjork on their albums, both of which are better than Kid A.

Blue Rodeo – The Days in Between (Warner). I loved this band for about 10 years of my life (1987-97), but have followed only from a respectful distance since. This album was probably the last one I enjoyed—or listened to more than thrice—and revisiting now I can see why. Was this the last time Keelor and Cuddy brought their best work to the band instead of their solo records? Trina Shoemaker’s production brings just the right amount of atmospherics. It sounds great today. Still: best of 2020? This was a nostalgia vote for me.


Deltron 3030 – s/t (75 Ark). The sound of the future? Nope, but definitely the sound of 2000, when Dan the Automator seemed to be everywhere (Gorillaz, Primal Scream, Handsome Boy Modeling School). Del the Funky Homosapien has great flow as always, though I don’t know about this as a concept album: the main appeal for me, then and now, is the music. (And yet: I’ve never listened to the accompanying instrumental album.) Kid Koala features prominently. His own Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is not on this list; it baffled me at the time. Now it’s clear he was charting his own path. I don’t think I’ve listened to a new Dan the Automator record since 2001, though I had a soft spot for his 2006 Mike Patton collab Peeping Tom (which I haven’t listened to since).


DJ Serious – Dim Sum (Sound King). This was a Toronto DJ whose debut featured MCs Brass Munk, D-Sisive, Arcee, Asicks and Lil Jaz. This being Canada, with a woeful hip-hop infrastructure, it came out on the same label that put out rock bands Danko Jones and Bionic and promptly got lost. Musically, it’s on the same wavelength as California’s Quannum crew, a mix of ’80s electro funk and early ’90s jazz-influenced tracks. It was definitely out of step with the Choclair and Kardinal crowd, and is now out of print and unavailable to stream except on this YouTube rip. I’m sure I haven’t listened to this in 20 years; it totally holds up. DJ Serious released a follow-up, Cold Tea, in 2005; I’ve never heard it. His studio output has been silent since.


Steve Earle – Transcendental Blues (Artemis). I don’t think Steve Earle gets enough credit for his five-album run between 1995-2000: Train a Comin’, I Feel Alright, El Corazon, The Mountain and finally this one. It’s flawless. Dozens of killer songs in that run. Where’s the box set? It should be mentioned in the same breath as the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Stevie Wonder, Prince, you name it. He’s released at least nine albums of original material since, but I’ve only paid sporadic attention—maybe because it’s hard to measure up to this, which still sounds fabulous, especially loud. “All of My Life”—what a goddam anthem. “Another Town” is the greatest song the Pogues never wrote (see also: “The Galway Girl”). There’s too many more here to list. I’m not sure Earle’s production skills have ever sounded better. No idea why this wasn’t in my top 10.


International Noise Conspiracy – Survival Sickness (Epitaph). I put “Smash It Up” on so many mix CDs for years, but did I ever like this whole record? None of these other songs sound remotely familiar—although the title track certainly hits home these days. Garage rock was not my thing; I was posing, craving a political rock band so much that I imagined this was this one for me. It wasn’t. Little did I know at the time that this band’s predecessor, Refused, would prove to be so influential on a lot of the aughts’ aggressive music. 

Jurassic 5 – Quality Control (Interscope). I saw this band open for Femi Kuti’s North American debut at the Roxy in New York City in 1999: one of the most unforgettable nights of music in my life. This band was maligned at the time, considered some kind of retro hip-hop Sha Na Na or some bullshit, at the time of Timbaland and Jay-Z, but I loved it. Still do: I’m a sucker for genuine interplay between MCs, which is all but unheard of in this day of one-off collabs. (Quick: try to name one modern rap act with more than two MCs and not named Migos.) Related: Cut Chemist put out a good record a couple of years ago that I only just discovered.


King Cobb Steelie – Mayday (Ryko). One of my favourite bands of the ’90s, for both musical and personal reasons. This was a final bid for glory on Rykodisc, with pop songs and guest vocalists (Michelle McAdorey, Tamara Williamson), before they resurfaced four years later with an indie instrumental album before fading away. Produced by Laika’s Guy Fixsen, Mayday sounds amazing—though definitely dated. There’s something textbook turn-of-the-millenium in the drum machine sounds here, as heard on the title track; it’s a post-triphop groove that was ubiquitous for a while with the KCRW crowd and then vanished. There’s an entirely unnecessary scratch solo (by DJ Serious! see above) on “Below the Stars”—remember when rock bands felt they needed turntable solos to be somehow relevant? “Home” is still a great single, with a synth bass squiggle that now reminds me of Charanjit Singh’s Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat. Weirder moments like “Fast Money Blessing” have aged very well. This is an album ripe for rediscovery—or at least half of it. This band’s discography would be served well by a collection of greatest non-hits. And there have been rumours of a reunion.


Paul Macleod – Close and Play (independent). This one hurts. Paul Macleod was one of the most brilliant performers and songwriters I’ve ever known; he was a staple in the Kitchener-Waterloo and Guelph area, where he was never short a weekly gig. He performed often with Danny Michel, collaborated with the Rheostatics, and joined the Skydiggers as a sideman (at a time when he was writing better songs than they were). He always seemed poised for great things, which never materialized—a common story for hometown heroes everywhere, but I truly believe Macleod was exceptional. This was his first of only three proper studio records that I’m aware of (2007’s Bright Eyes Fade came out on Busted Flat; I’ve never heard 2014’s Gauge). He made it with Hawksley Workman, and it’s full of the same energy Workman brought to his own material as well as early records by John Southworth, Serena Ryder and Tegan and Sara. The songs are perfect Beatle-y pop. Macleod was an amazing singer. But no one heard this record unless you bought it from Macleod at a show. That’s not as big a tragedy as the fact that the Macleod I knew is no longer with us. I only knew him as an acquaintance and have very fond memories; I didn’t know his demons, which eventually took hold of him, hurt someone else, and landed him in court shortly before he died by suicide in 2016. It’s an awful story. I wish I could listen to his music now without thinking about it. I can’t. Hopefully someone can.

Listen to “Cruelty.” I mean, holy shit, what a song. 

 

Or “Giants.” 




New Pornographers – Mass Romantic (Mint). Kind of shocked this didn’t make my top 10, though it was released in November so maybe hadn’t fully sunk in. I was definitely in love with “Letter From an Occupant,” because who wasn’t? I wrote about this anniversary here.

Outkast – Stankonia (BMG). 2000 might have been the last year I felt remotely connected to mainstream hip-hop. I do love Outkast because they’re genre-busters, game-changers and genuinely odd. I also can’t love Outkast because I’m too much of a white Toronto prude. But this album is bloated: way too long, populated by skits, and dragged down by tracks like “We Luv Deez Hoez.” And as much as “B.O.B.” still slams (musically), the chorus is downright gross: “bombs over Baghdad” is not a great metaphor in any context, least of all as a pre-9/11 sentiment for not finishing a fight or not following through on a challenge.

Radiohead – Kid A (EMI). I don’t know that I ever loved this album—but not for the reasons people hated it. I like it just fine. If anything, it wasn’t weird enough. The fact that it was remotely divisive speaks to the intense conservatism of the time. (I’m debating whether I even care enough to read Steven Hyden’s new book about it.) I probably put it on my list so that I wouldn’t seem out of touch. Total posturing on my part.

The Salteens – Short Term Memories (Endearing). This was when I still had great affection for peppy indie pop populated by handclaps, trumpets and bop-ba-da’s. Come to think of it, I was in a band not unlike this one at the time. This Vancouver band had really catchy songs, heavily influenced by Sloan, and a really strong rhythm section. This is a really good record, better than most of its peers other than the New Pornographers. Not one I’d listen to today, though given the chance I’d probably join a band like this in a heartbeat.


Amon Tobin – Supermodified (Ninja Tune). Pretty sure I was a complete poser when I put this on my year-end list. Some of it is great and totally holds up—sexy, even; some of it sounds like a dial-up connection.


Travis – The Man Who (Sony). Woof. Really? I’m glad working for Brave New Waves saved me from becoming a guy who likes Travis.



Records that should be on this list that I got into shortly afterwards:

Belle and Sebastian – Fold Your Hands…

Destroyer – Thief

Be Good Tanyas – Blue Horse

Gonzales – Uber Alles

White Stripes – De Stijl


And Royal City’s At Rush Hour the Cars, made by some good friends of mine, and which I might have left off the list for nepotistic reasons.

Albums I should have appreciated more at the time, relevant to current research:

Dears – End of a Hollywood Bedtime Story

Godspeed You Black Emperor – Lift Your Skinny Fists...

Peaches – The Teaches Of 

 
Album all my friends loved and I still don’t get: 

Blonde Redhead – Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons.

Bettie Serveert's Private Suit

“Little works of wonder in a nostalgic mood”


I’m not a betting man, but I’d wager my life savings that this will be the only piece celebrating the 20th anniversary of Bettie Serveert’s Private Suit. It came out the same year as the Weakerthans' Left and Leaving and PJ Harvey’s Stories from the City Stories from the Sea; its aesthetic is somewhere in between and, to me, it’s as strong as either of those records. It’s a record about which I became evangelical, playing it for anyone who entered my house or my car. I’m pretty sure I played a track from it every week for a year on my campus radio show.

Unlike a lot of records from 20 years ago, even ones I adore, I pull this out and play it at least three times a year—usually during a long drive alone. Carol van Dijk’s voice is as comforting as the face of an old, dear friend. Peter Visser is one of my favourite guitarists of all time: capable of subtlety and squall, generous in his textures and acutely melodic in his solos. The rhythm section is perfectly complementary, either playing it straight or weaving in and around the vocal and guitar melodies. But the songs: sweet Jesus, the songs. More on that later.

If this Dutch band—the greatest since Shocking Blue!—is known to North American audiences at all, it’s because of their 1993 debut Palomine, which came out on Matador and fit in perfectly beside records by Pavement and Yo La Tengo. (I first saw them tour with the latter, in 1997, on a bill in Toronto where the opening band featured a very young Leslie Feist on bass.) Two more records on Matador followed, their evolving brilliance in sadly inverse proportion to general interest. This was nerdcore indie rock for people who watched mediocre Hollywood films hoping that Janeane Garofalo would magically make them better.

I don’t even like Palomine; it’s fine, but it’s baby steps. I fell in love with 1995’s Lamprey, and not just because one song features a passage that sounds like it directly samples the Rheostatics’ “Self-Serve Gas Station”—not just the melody, but the entire recording. (It’s a really weird coincidence, as I’m pretty sure there’s no way they heard that record—despite van Dijk’s Canadian citizenship, because she left Vancouver Island at age 7. Listen to “Crutches” at the 2.25 mark, and compare it to the Rheos at 4.23). The next album, 1997’s Dust Bunnies, was straight-up brilliant, shedding a lot of the straight-up grunginess of the first two and focusing on songcraft. I became so obsessed with the melodies and chord progressions that I sat down and learned the entire record on the piano by ear—not a normal habit of mine.

But by that point, no one cared. People still cheered loudest for the songs from Palomine. They were dropped by Matador. The drummer split. Private Suit was released to no fanfare, was barely reviewed, and wasn’t easy to find in stores (though it did have distribution here). Hence my lonely evangelical crusade. They didn’t tour North America to promote it, outside of one show in New York City at the CMJ Festival. I drove 10 hours there to see it.

How’s this for an opening line: “I took a Tylenol and an hour’s drive / and somehow found a reason why I’m still alive.” The chorus to that song is, “It’s good to be unsound.” Yeeeeeeah—let’s just say I come back to that song often. Throughout, van Dijk’s lyrics slay me. “Callous on the sore where you hurt before / are you happy now that you don’t feel it anymore? / Placid are the skies when you dream at night / are you satisfied? … Tell me what are we looking for, if all we really want is each other?” “Auf Wiedersehen” is one of the greatest breakup songs I’ve heard, a nonchalant acknowledgment of frozen stares and lost passion. Every song here is just as great.

This is all set to van Dijk’s magical melodies and Visser’s glorious countermelodies, with bassist Herman Bunskoeke an essential part of the glue. Van Dijk is also underrated as a rhythm guitarist. This is the only Bettie Serveert album with drummer Reinier Veldman, but he fits perfectly—not surprising, as he played in a band called De Artsen with them in the late ’80s. He adds jazzy textures to the string-laden swinging 6/8 time of the title track. PJ Harvey sideman and producer John Parish is the producer here, at a time when he was starting to branch out and work with Goldfrapp, Giant Sand, Sparklehorse and others. 

Private Suit has a definite Euro feel to it in ways that are hard to articulate, other than to say it’s definitely not from an English-speaking country. Yes, there are nods to the Velvet Underground (a comparison that the band embraces, having released a live album of VU covers, which was the first record I ever ordered online), but there is an outsiders’ lens on North American indie rock that’s refreshing; they spent a long time trying to ape it, and now they’d successfully moved on while retaining the best bits. Private Suit is also easy to like: it’s a pop record with a down-to-earth singer and an unusually great guitarist. “Recall” is the kind of song I kept hoping the Cardigans would one day evolve into writing but never did.

Most music fans have a record or a band like this in their lives: something intensely important to them that seems like a lost cause to the larger world. Sometimes it’s the artist who lives around the corner, sometimes it’s a band on the other side of the world. Bettie Serveert must do well enough in their native Netherlands, because they’re still together and have released six albums since Private Suit, some of which are better than others (the follow-up, 2003’s Log 22, might be the weakest). I saw them in Montreal in 2004, touring the solid release Attagirl; they were fantastic, unbelievably good. (Reviewed here.) I have a vague memory of seeing them at the Drake in Toronto in 2010, touring a just-okay new record and being bummed out that the crowd didn’t seem to be listening until they played Palomine’s “Kids Allright.”

I’m just as bad as that audience of disinterested douchebags, because I’ll be honest: I lost the plot and stopped paying attention over the years, perhaps because this one record burned so brightly for me. That just means I have more Bettie Serveert records to explore, now that I’m in this wormhole. Maybe I’ll even learn them on piano. I’ve got the time. Better late than never. 

Also: happy belated birthday to my old friend James Rocchi, who in the '90s told me he once woke from a dream about living above an Amsterdam coffee shop where he would meet Carol Van Dijk and smoke cigarettes and talk philosophy. One can dream.

Hey, but don't worry about me,
I'll be sitting by the seashore,
Laughing at the lifeforms,
Whistling down the breeze.
So don't worry about me,
'Cause you can't please everyone.
And I'm thinking to myself,
And I'm not the only one,
We all gotta learn
To give some in return,
Like little works of wonder.

The album is streaming everywhere. They're not on Bandcamp. I can't find video footage of any songs from Private Suit (lots of Palomine, though) other than some not-great ones of the title track. But, oh, look, here they are a couple of weeks ago, gorgeous and sounding great as always, Peter rocking a Chapel Hill T-shirt, playing a Cure song in a garden:

Apr '10 reviews

The following reviews appeared in the Kitchener-Waterloo Record and Guelph Mercury in April 2010.

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Erykah Badu – New Amerykah Part Two: Return of the Ankh (Universal)

In 2008, Erykah Badu dropped one of the most mindbending, exciting slabs of soul music of the last decade with this album’s predecessor. But where New Amerykah Part One was subtitled 4th World War and filled with paranoid tension, Return of the Ankh sounds like a huge sigh of relief, with Badu returning to the seductive neo-soul sound that first launched her career in the late ’90s, yet no less psychedelic than her more recent forays.

Lead single "Window Seat" is the breeziest Badu has been in years, and easily the most accessible. But she’s still deliciously weird, such as when guest producer Madlib creates a hazy gauze on "Incense," offering her only a trippy bass line, simple drums, and a florid harp to decorate an already sparse melody. The rest of Ankh lies somewhere between those extremes, with some subtle but serious funk ensuring that Badu doesn’t drift away entirely. As with 4th World War, Ankh is a producer’s album, with some of the most outré names in neo-soul enlisted to provide tiny details that make all the difference in the world. (April 8)

Download (iTunes, puretracks.com, amazon.com): "Window Seat," "Incense," "Turn Me Away"

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Bettie Serveert – Pharmacy of Love (Sound of Pop)

Dutch band Bettie Serveert put out three albums of loud, grungy and melodic albums in the mid-’90s that made a small dent on this continent’s indie rock scene—and then seemingly disappeared. They didn’t, of course: they continued to play for faithful fans and refine their sound to reflect their age (i.e. less grunge, more space), and, in the case of 2000’s Private Suit, released some of the most underrated pop of the past decade.

Pharmacy of Love—despite the terrible title—might be the album to put them back on the radar. Not only because it’s their finest collection of songs since Private Suit, but because they’ve decided to turn up their amps again and revisit the raucous elements of their ’90s sound, without eschewing the keyboards and delicacy they’ve acquired over time. As a result—with the possible exception of the barn-burning opening track, "Deny All"—it doesn’t sound like an obvious ploy to their ’90s fans who gave up on them a long time ago (or would only cheer older songs at live shows).

In other words, Pharmacy of Love is everything that Bettie Serveert has ever done well. Peter Visser is an astounding guitarist who alternates between squalls of feedback, crushing guitar chords and emotionally charged countermelodies and solos—all played with tasteful restraint. Carol Van Dijk’s slacker drawl has matured into a wise yet world-weary confidence, and her subtly complex and catchy melodies fall somewhere between Neil Young and Burt Bacharach. The rhythm section rarely falls back on the obvious, whether they’re driving a 6/8 ballad or a straight-up rock song.

“I hope you never change for me,” sings Van Dijk. And though her band has definitely evolved, they haven’t lost a bit of their original spark. (April 29)

Download (iTunes, amazon.com): "Deny All," "Mossie," "Souls Travel"

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Bjork – Voltaic (Warner)

Six years ago, Bjork opened up her vaults and released live albums representing every major tour she’d done. Now we have a document of the 2007-2008 Volta tour—though it’s a “live” album only in the sense that it was recorded live, in a studio, as a rehearsal before her set at the U.K.’s Glastonbury Festival.

So there are no exhilarating crowd noises, no sign that the unflappable Bjork is letting loose at all. But worst of all—for a performer known to radically reinvent her recorded work for various live set-ups—these are incredibly faithful renderings, making this all but redundant; even the most acute listener would be hard pressed to hear any difference between the studio and “live” version of Volta’s Timbaland-produced single, Innocence.

Perhaps that’s a mixed blessing: Volta was Bjork’s most wildly uneven album, balancing some of her most joyous work in years with tedium that didn’t even qualify as interesting failures. Voltaic cherrypicks the album’s top five tracks and pads it out with some older staples—which still makes it a curiosity at best, and one that even diehard fans will probably skip. (April 15)

Download (iTunes, amazon.com): "All is Full of Love," "Wanderlust," "Declare Independence"

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V V Brown – Travelling Like the Light (Universal)

V V Brown may dress like it’s the mid-’80s, but there’s no telling which era she’s plucked from. While the sound of her debut album is decidedly modern, there are direct links to an eclectic list of influences from the past 55 years of pop music. One minute she’s Buddy Holly, the next she’s Pat Benatar; some songs sound like ELO, some like Rihanna; many channel ’60s girl group exuberance. There’s very little original here—one song even cops the beginner-piano standard "Heart and Soul"—except for the way Brown mashes it all up with glee. She’s already scored hits writing for other people, and there are more than a few worthy chart-toppers here; don’t be surprised if she’s penning Broadway musicals sometime in the next 10 years. Combine that with her charisma as a performer and her fashion sense—and, compared to Amy Winehouse, her stability—and you have Britain’s next soul sensation. (April 8)

Download (iTunes, puretracks.com, amazon.com): "Game Over," "Leave," "Everybody"

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David Byrne and Fatboy Slim – Here Lies Love (Nonesuch/Warner)

There is no précis paragraph that could make David Byrne’s new album sound like a good idea. And yet it’s easily his finest achievement since his days in the Talking Heads.

Here’s the gist: Here Lies Love is a two-CD, 22-song pop opera about former Filipino first lady Imelda Marcos, set primarily to a disco pulse, and in collaboration with big-beat electronica producer Fatboy Slim (Norman Cook), who arguably passed his prime 10 years ago. About the only thing to stop most people from fleeing in terror is the guest list of female vocalists, which range from almost forgotten ’80s icons (the B-52’s Kate Pierson, Cyndi Lauper, Natalie Merchant) to current artists (Santigold, Martha Wainwright, Sharon Jones) to complete unknowns to, uh, Steve Earle (whom, it should be said, performs admirably in such vocally superior company).

When writing a modern musical, most writers forget about the music, hoping the concept will sell itself. In Byrne’s case, every track is first and foremost a perfectly composed pop song, with a melody that maintains independence from the narrative theme. His seamless amalgam of classic Broadway elegance, funk, disco and bossa nova is telegraphed in the opening title track, where Florence Welch (of new act Florence + the Machine) reaches for the rafters. There are few stylistic variations—a couple of ’70s soft rock tracks slow the tempo slightly, and only four tracks would stop the dance floor entirely. Most importantly, there is no sense of repetition, no sign that Byrne and Cook treated any of this material lightly.

That extends to the lyrics, which take the tale of someone who many people know only as a shoe-obsessed dictator’s wife and transforms it into a rags-to-riches, princess-to-pariah story by using some of Imelda Marcos’s actual quotes. She was born in poverty, became a beauty queen, and charmed not one but two rising politicians: one became president, the other the opposition leader; the latter is eventually assassinated, and years later his widow ousts the Marcoses from power. She was raised by a nanny, Estrella Cumpas, not much older than herself, whom she abandons when she becomes successful. She jets around the world practising “handbag diplomacy,” enjoying the ear of world leaders while her ailing husband stayed home and tightened his clench on power. And, most curious to Byrne, Imelda kept a residence in Manhattan where she built a disco on the sixth floor; hence, Here Lies Love is the imaginary soundtrack to a very private party.

Here Lies Love succeeds on a level that all great musicals do: each song is tailored with specifics of the story, and yet functions universally as well. The one incongruity—"American Troglodyte," sung by Byrne, which uses pop culture references well outside the time frame of the story—works well enough on its own. Besides, unless you’re reading the detailed and incredibly fascinating liner notes while listening (recommended: springing for the deluxe edition), you’re unlikely to appreciate the narrative.

But it’s all there if you want it: the charming beauty who betrays her oldest friend; the philanthropist who steals from her countrymen; the jet-setting star who made the Philippines glamorous and then became the country’s biggest disgrace. Here Lies Love ends with Cyndi Lauper and Tori Amos duetting on "Why Don’t You Love Me?," sung by Cumpas to Marcos, and Marcos to her country. Byrne doesn’t ask you to love Marcos, but he ensures she’s more than just a punchline. (April 15)

Download (iTunes, amazon.com, puretracks.com): "Here Lies Love," "Eleven Days," "Dancing Together"

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Caribou – Swim (Merge)

What once was small became big; and now what once was big is small again. Caribou’s Dan Snaith was once a bedroom producer making subtle, melodic and slightly jazzy electronic records; he soon evolved into thundering psychedelia that took 15 people to reproduce on stage (the Caribou Vibration Ensemble, which featured Four Tet and members of Junior Boys, Born Ruffians, and K-W’s Pick a Piper), including an avalanche of drummers. While never short of stunning, much of Caribou’s music in recent years has been a tad overwhelming.

On Swim, Snaith scales back to his more minimal beginnings, but with all the lessons learned from his excursions into ’60s pop still on full display. Opening track "Odessa" is driven by an aquatic and hypnotic bass line, which sits underneath one of Snaith’s finest melodies, while cowbells and what sounds like wild monkeys frolic around in the background. Throughout Swim, he’s judicious with his electronic trickery and psychedelic palette, setting up deep grooves and then brushing them lightly with vivid yet minimal colours, including his fragile Arthur Russell-like vocals.

With the exception of "Odessa," he doesn’t score any big pop songs like he did on 2008’s Polaris Prize-winning album Andorra ("Melody Day," "Andorra"), but that’s not the point. Swim aims for transcendence in repetition—either on the dance floor, or (as on the drumless track "Kaili") entirely in your headphones—but that doesn’t mean Snaith is treading water. (April 22)

Download (iTunes, amazon.com, puretracks.com): "Odessa," "Leave House," "Bowls"

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Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings – I Learned the Hard Way (Daptone)

In retro soul circles, Sharon Jones is queen. While the likes of Erykah Badu were reaching back to soul music’s roots and retrofitting it for the digital era, Jones was going back to the source and staying there. On her fourth album, Jones is singing less like she has something to prove—the 52-year-old singer struggled in obscurity for decades before becoming a word-of-mouth sensation in the last five years. Here, she sinks her teeth in at slower tempos, and gives the songs more space to breathe. A string section and backing vocalists enhance the Dap-Kings’ impeccable arrangements, which once again supersede the actual songs—but whereas before the songwriting was the Dap-Kings’ Achilles heel, this time out it matters less because Jones owns every note. (April 8)

Download (iTunes, amazon.com): "I Learned the Hard Way," "She Ain’t a Child No More," "Window Shopping"

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Jónsi – Go (XL)

Jónsi Birgisson has spent more than 10 years fronting the Icelandic band Sigur Rós while warbling incoherently—on purpose, to great effect, in an invented dialect. Now he’s launching his solo career by singing in English for the first time. Not that it makes a bit of difference: this eunuch’s enunciation isn’t much better. That’s never been the point, of course, but he sounds best here when he steers closest to Sigur Rós territory: sparse yet grandiose, cinematic opera that is as mysterious as it is magical. That band’s template can be understandably suffocating, yet its developments on recent albums into sunnier territory aren’t that much different than what Jónsi is doing here—so instead of being a liberating revelation, Go sounds unmistakably like a Sigur Rós album, with or without Jónsi’s instantly identifable vocals. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, and with the band on indefinite hiatus, Jónsi is shooting for bigger and brighter things. (April 15)

Download (iTunes, amazon.com, eMusic, puretracks.com): "Go Do," "Around Us," "Boy Lilikoi"

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Andy Kim – Happen Again (Koch)
Barenaked Ladies – All in Good Time (EMI)

In 1995, the Barenaked Ladies appeared at the Molson Ampitheatre in Toronto, and invited a very special guest, a Canadian legend, to the stage. “Ladies and gentlemen, Andy Kim!” It’s safe to say that most of the audience had no idea who Andy Kim was, even though he had written a long series of hits in the ’60s and ’70s, notably "Rock Me Gently" and the Archies’ "Sugar Sugar. "In 2004, the Ladies’ Ed Robertson co-wrote a new Andy Kim single, "I Forgot to Mention," which was a Top 10 hit in Canada, even though there was no accompanying album—until now, where the single leads off Kim’s comeback bid.

Andy Kim is well steeped in classic pop songwriting of the Brill Building variety, but he’s by no means stuck in the past. Happen Again doesn’t go for a retro vibe, but rather shoots for stadium status, rich with stirring, sweet anthems that would give Coldplay a run for their money. Kim surrounds himself with L.A. studio pros, and puts his Neil Diamond-ish voice to work asking all of life’s important questions, i.e. “Do you believe in love?”

Because this album has been so long in the making (it’s Kim’s first album in 20 years), every song could easily be a hit and there isn’t a single wasted moment—except perhaps "Without You," a dated synth-heavy ballad that, for all we know, may well back date to the ’80s itself. Otherwise, when Kim and his backup singers promise “We’re going to make it happen again,” you’d better believe them.

While it may look like Ed Robertson did Kim a favour by co-writing "I Forgot to Mention," one wishes that they teamed up again to co-write the Barenaked Ladies’ new album, their first without founding songwriter Steven Page. To say that there’s a lot of pressure on Robertson and the remaining Ladies is a gross understatement. There are some fine moments here where they appear to step up to the challenge—but then you realize that’s just because Robertson was always the underrated member of the songwriting duo; he’s always carried half of a Barenaked Ladies album. The question is whether he can carry an album on his own.

Opening track "You Run Away" is a promising start; it stands among the Ladies’ finest singles, even if it’s a thinly veiled dig at Page. The hot-jazz freestyle romp "Four Seconds" is the lone light moment, and succeeds even if it seems strained in the overall context. Keyboardist Kevin Hearn steps up with a couple of gems that don’t sound that different from his underrated solo work; Robertson would do well to cede him more space, even if Hearn’s low-key, fragile vocals are nowhere near a substitute for Page’s bluster.

Or they could just invite Andy Kim to join the band. (April 8)

For Andy Kim, download (iTunes): "I Forgot to Mention," "Love Is," "Happen Again"

For Barenaked Ladies, download (iTunes, puretracks.com, amazon.com): "You Run Away," "Another Heartbreak," "Four Seconds"

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Natalie Merchant – Leave Your Sleep (Nonesuch/Warner)

The former 10,000 Maniacs vocalist and Lilith Fair-era solo artist hasn’t had a major label release in almost 10 years (she put out a low-profile indie release in 2003), which is likely why she’s bouncing back with an ambitious double album.

Perhaps part of Merchant’s absence was a lyrical writer’s block; the concept here was to set some of her favourite poets’ work to music, from Ogden Nash and e.e. cummings to contemporary writers and anonymous nursery rhymes. With the pressure off to write lyrics, Merchant threw herself into an ambitious musical journey, where she effortlessly touches on not just the rich history of American music—gospel, jazz, folk songs, Cajun country, Aboriginal music—but also the sounds of cultures that have been at the centre of the American immigrant experience: Chinese, Celtic, Yiddish, Jamaican, European chamber music and others.

It might as well be a soundtrack to one of Ken Burns’s sweeping PBS miniseries—not that there’s anything wrong with that. There are certainly times—mostly on the uptempo material—when Merchant sounds like a dispassionate librarian, but she’s largely successful as a chameleon bringing a consistency to all the material, while working with all-star collaborators such as Wynton Marsalis, Medeski Martin and Wood, and the Klezmatics. No matter what he genre she’s plundering, it’s obvious she’s invested all the energy she saved by not writing lyrics into a strong set of songs that’s almost an embarrassment of riches. The main fault with this album is that it’s too long, though it rarely dips in quality; Merchant could easily have strung this concept into a series of releases. (April 22)

Download (iTunes, amazon.com, puretracks.com): "It Makes a Change," "Topsyturvey World," "The King of China’s Daughter"

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Plants and Animals – La La Land (Secret City)

The phrase “la-la land,” according to the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, refers to “a fanciful state or dream world”—a descriptor that could apply any number of boundary-busting, exploratory and mind-bending musical works. Unfortunately, this is not one of them.

Montreal’s Plants and Animals announced their arrival on the international stage with their 2008 album Parc Avenue, a curious blend of anthemic indie rock, jam-band looseness, prog twists, a bit of Neil Young’s Crazy Horse, and even some West African guitar stylings. Here, they still sound suitably restless—but without any kind of anchor. They’re all fine players, yet the songwriting is limp and they seem incapable of conjuring any chemistry—which is downright shocking considering the highs of Parc Avenue. By the time a Vocoder voice starts intoning the title of the barely-there song "Future From the ’80s," it’s safe to say that this once-promising band has completely run out of ideas. (April 22)

Download (zunior.com, iTunes, amazon.com): "Kon Tiki," "The Mama Papa," "Fake It"

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Poirier – Running High (Ninja Tune)

Slowly but surely, all the great global dance music has gone digital: there is digital dub, digital cumbia, digital Brazilian baile funk, and digital dancehall. Ghislain Poirier is determined to bring Caribbean soca into the mix. It’s part of a natural evolution for the Montreal producer, whose distinctive brand of electro hip-hop has been voraciously absorbing all sorts of cross-cultural influences over the past five years. Because of the diversity of his work—heard on 2007’s underrated No Ground Under and 2005’s Breakupdown—Running High could stand to include some more eclecticism, even though he’s included a second disc of remixes to sweeten the package. Much of this material is better absorbed in small doses—like on the EPs that he quietly released leading up to Running High— but with both discs being sold at a bargain price, there’s no point complaining about an embarrassment of riches—and it’s a worthy introduction to an artist charting new courses for Canadian dance music and bringing it to the world. (April 29)

Download (iTunes, amazon.com, eMusic): "Immigrant Visa" (featuring MC Zulu), "Marathon," "Que Viva" (featuring Boogat)

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The Runaways OST – Various Artists (Warner)

The legendary mid-’70s all-girl glam punk band were more famous for what they were—one of the first all-female rock bands, and the only good one before the Go-Go’s—than their recorded legacy. The soundtrack to their eponymous biopic sticks to the essential tracks, and rounds it out with pitch-perfect period pieces like the epochal David Bowie single "Rebel Rebel," the Sex Pistols’ "Pretty Vacant," Canadian classic "Roxy Roller," and tracks by Suzi Quatro, the Stooges and the MC5.

Most soundtracks to rock’n’roll biopics either feature the original tracks or the actors’ renditions; usually the latter are pale imitations of the former. Yet The Runaways does both. And it’s to the credit of stars Dakota Fanning and Kristen Stewart that they hold their own competing with the rock’n’roll swagger of Cherie Currie and Joan Jett (respectively) on the original tracks, especially the ultra-campy teens-gone-bad epic "Dead End Justice." Much like the movie itself, their tracks capture the time and place and teenage abandon perfectly.

This is the rock’n’roll—the sex and drugs and depressing downfall stay on the screen, of course. (April 1)

Download (iTunes, amazon.com): "Where the Boys Are," "Dead End Justice," "Cherry Bomb"

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Elizabeth Shepherd – Heavy Falls the Night (Do Right)

This Toronto jazz singer and keyboardist comes into her own on her third album, and as producer and sole songwriter this time out, she deserves every inch of credit. (The one cover, of Anne Murray’s "Danny’s Song," is virtually unrecognizable, as Shepherd takes complete ownership of the song.) Shepherd is no longer content to write sketches of songs to showcase her piano skills, and with vocals as an afterthought: here, she sinks her teeth into the lyrics and melodies, still has time to let loose on the piano, and allows bassist Scott Kemp to drive most of the material. The vocals are always front and centre—and side to side, as Shepherd toys with layering her own voice to great effect. Her forays onto the dance floor flow much more naturally ("Seven Bucks"), even when she slips into tricky time signatures ("The Taking," "It’s Coming"), while her melancholy moods (the title track) have greater depth than every before. (April 29)

Download (Zunior.com, iTunes, eMusic, puretracks.com, amazon.com): "Numbers," "Seven Bucks," "High"

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Souljazz Orchestra – Rising Sun (Strut)
Tony Allen – Secret Agent (World Circuit)

Ottawa’s Souljazz Orchestra made their name on Canadian stages as an Afrobeat band—an average one at that, not particularly in the league of other Afrobeat revivalists that have surfaced in the last 10 years—but here, on their third full-length, they live up to their name by delving in deeper to funk and jazz, with extended solos that show off what formidable players they’ve become—particularly keyboardist Pierre Chretien and tenor saxophonist Steve Patterson. While the African rhythms are still a large part of their sound, they’re not the only part, making Rising Sun a diverse album that doesn’t wear out its welcome by sticking to one groove.

Tony Allen is one of the greatest names in Afrobeat history: as Fela Kuti’s drummer, he is the anchor of many recordings that defined the genre; his own solo work over the last 30 years is often stellar as well. For his first major label release in North America, sadly, he offers up a merely average slice of African pop that, while admirable, doesn’t measure up to his past glories. The vocalists employed are part of the problem; they’re often distractions spouting cheesy platitudes instructing you to “celebrate your life,” while the tracks easily could work well enough on their own. Any fan of this genre should own a Tony Allen record—just not necessarily this one. (April 22)

Download Souljazz Orchestra: (iTunes, amazon.com): "Agbura," "Negus Nagast," "Serenity"

Download Tony Allen: (iTunes, amazon.com, puretracks.com): "Secret Agent," "Busybody," "Celebrate"

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Rufus Wainwright – All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu (Universal)

For the last 12 years, Rufus Wainwright has made over-the-top, orchestral studio albums full of show-stopping numbers that he’s always been able to communicate as a solo performer. Now, on his first album of original material in three years, he finds himself alone at the piano, singing sombre songs and sonnets and an excerpt from his first opera (which gets its North American debut in Toronto in June).

And yet the powerful performer appears unable to pull it off: his melodies are uninspiring and often turgid, his piano playing sounds clumsy at times ("True Loves"), and—though he’s written explicitly and expertly about his fabled family in the past—the track "Martha" is embarrassing in its naked exposition that it sounds like one of Alanis Morissette’s lesser moments.

With one or two exceptions, it all sounds like a mere off day in an otherwise excellent discography, except that Wainwright is taking this album very seriously: apparently he’s playing the entire album in sequence at solo shows, insisting the audience not clap between songs as if they were movements in a larger piece. Maybe his hubris has finally caught up to him, but he probably won’t have to worry about that not clapping bit. (April 1)

Download (iTunes): "The Dream," "Give Me What I Want and Give It To Me Now!," "Sonnet 43"

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The White Stripes – Under Great White Northern Lights (Warner)

Despite having only two people in their rock band, the White Stripes don’t do anything halfway. That’s why when they decided to tour Canada to celebrate their tenth anniversary as a band, they not only hit every major city, but also three dates in the territories, a bowling alley in the Prairies, a theatre on Cape Breton Island, and a boat in the Charlottetown harbour—all with a film crew following them around to make a documentary concert film. Now you can buy the CD; you can buy the DVD; you can buy both together. You can buy the vinyl. Or you can spend a small fortune on a box set that includes all of the above with a poster, a bonus seven-inch single, a bonus live disc of the entire Cape Breton show, and a 208-page hardcover book of photographs.

Why buy it all? Well, it could possibly be the last thing the band ever does; drummer Meg White has withdrawn from the stage due to anxiety issues, and Jack White has two other bands and numerous production duties to keep him busy.

More importantly, both the album and film capture the duo at their white-hot best. Huge rock riffs, lurching blues, churning organs, mandolin hoedowns, folkie singalongs, and a scorching cover of Dolly Parton’s "Jolene" all pay testament to the odd chemistry between the frantic, overachieving Jack and the perfect foil provided by the laid-back, understated power of Meg’s drumming. Though the studio recordings have always been raw, this live document is obviously even more so, and much of the joy is hearing how unhinged and spontaneous this seemingly tightly scripted band can be. It’s not a greatest hits, either; several key singles are missing, and "Fell in Love With a Girl" is subject to reinvention. Instead, it’s a worthy snapshot of a typical set list that dips into their discography on various whims.

The film doesn’t offer much as a documentary: though there are some illuminating interview sequences, there’s nothing terribly probing; much more is revealed in moments of quiet contemplation, especially the awkward yet loving relationship between the hyperactive Jack and the silent Meg (the filmmaker actually subtitles her inaudible speaking voice). Some of the “interacting with the locals” sequences are a bit staid; Jack’s apparent Nova Scotian ancestry is unexplored, even though it was supposed to be one of the reasons they chose Canada for their tenth anniversary trip.

Needless to say, the film comes alive on the stage, watching Jack peel off the squealing solo on "Icky Thump," leap from his guitar pedals to his strategically misplaced organ on the other side of the stage, or stand facing Meg and singing to her like they’re two kids practising in a basement and still in love with every note of musical connection—not an iconic, internationally successful band in front of thousands of rowdy, chanting Canucks. (April 1)

Download (iTunes, puretracks.com, amazon.com): "Fell In Love With a Girl," "Jolene," "Blue Orchid"