Skip to main content

The Sound Bites Canada 150 (Part 12 of 15)

To commemorate my homeland's 150th birthday, I wracked my brain for a while and came up with a long, long list of Canadian rock artists with the intention of doing a playlist of some kind. Well, because I seem to have too much time on my hands and a nagging tendency to rank things, I decided to take this to the next logical step of making a Top 150 Canadian Rock Songs of All Time. What have I done?

Before we get into this chart, allow me to set a couple of ground rules. First, there are no repeats, by which I mean I've limited it to one song per artist (there may be a teensy bit of overlap here and there in terms of solo artists vs. their bands, but no more than one song by the same solo artist or band). Secondly, I didn't get hung up on technicalities, by which I mean it doesn't matter if the artist wrote the song themselves, if they recorded it in Canada or if they currently live in Canada; my only prerequisite is that the artist performing the song is or has been a Canadian citizen. Lastly, as much debate as to what song should go where is bound to ensue in our minds, keep in mind that the point isn't so much ranking "worst to best" as it is celebrating all of the diverse and awesome music that our nation has helped produce over the years. It's all love here.

The Sound Bites Canada 150 is being presented ten at a time every weekday between June 12-30. Feel free to follow along, scoff in disapproval at the rankings and, most importantly, get patriotic and loud!

Here are songs 40 to 31:

40 THE NORTHERN PIKES Teenland (1987)


39 GOB I Hear You Calling (2000)


38 GOWAN A Criminal Mind (1985)


37 THE WEAKERTHANS The Reasons (2003)


36 RUSTY Wake Me (1994)


35 BIG WRECK The Oaf (My Luck is Wasted) (1997)


34 I MOTHER EARTH Not Quite Sonic (1993)


33 THE TREWS Not Ready To Go (2003)


32 TREBLE CHARGER American Psycho (2000)


31 BARENAKED LADIES Brian Wilson (1992)


Only 30 to go; the next ten go up tomorrow!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Year in Rock 2025

  Alright, I've got some explaining to do.   By now anyone who's visited this blog is well aware of how infrequently I've used this space in recent years; aside from the occasional fertile year of content, I really haven't posted all that often over the last five years or so. There are many reasons for this, which have already been outlined in previous apology posts; but, essentially, it boils down to my own laziness and the cold reality that blogs are, like Refused (again), fucking dead. So, I wouldn't hold my breath for a triumphant return to reviews, or even semi-regular posts, but:   a) I feel like Year in Rock posts have always belonged here and, even though I've experimented with different methods of presentation recently and been satisfied, the "blink and you missed it" unveiling via Facebook stories this year was perhaps ultimately a disservice to the records I lauded. After all, cramming the list into short videos isn't too far off from ju...

Year in Rock 2011 Nominee: Sam Roberts Band

SAM ROBERTS BAND I Feel You From: Collider Released: May 10 Having already endured the breakout success ( Brother Down was Canada's it rock song of 2002), the tentative dabbling in the U.S. market, as is the rite of passage for all moderately successful Canuck artists (2003's debut We Were Born in a Flame was the best time to try; one of the best albums of the year, it made a small dent in the American mindset upon its release there a year later), the difficult, druggy third album (the aptly named 2005 disc Chemical City ), and the subdued creative step backward (2008's Love at the End of the World , aside from hit single Them Kids , was really kinda bland), it seems according to script that Sam Roberts would start settling in on his fourth album (and first with the band credited as equal contributors), Collider (you know, I think it was a bad idea to give me brackets). Well, as far as settling in goes, Roberts does and doesn't on Collider .  W...

IN REVIEW: Rancid - "Trouble Maker"

As far as punk rock goes, it's hard to name a hotter hot streak than the trio of records Rancid cranked out between 1995 and 2000; the star making ...And Out Come the Wolves , the far-reaching Life Won't Wait and their balls-to-the-wall second self-titled album solidly positioned Rancid as leaders of the second generation of punk. It also preceded a period of slow progression, as Rancid would take eleven years to release their next three records. By the time ...Honor Is All We Know came in 2014, many fans (myself included) had to wonder whether or not this was the end of the road. Such concerns are handily dealt with on the closing track of the standard edition of their ninth record, the positively punishing This Is Not the End . Well, okay then, that's sorted. Now, what of this new record? What do we make of the use of their original logo on the cover, a logo that hasn't graced a Rancid record in 25 years? Is this a throwback to the band's heyday, a new begin...