Trying to explain why things are better than other things makes things difficult for everything. Canada is home to more incredible talent than anyone is usually willing to admit and this decade has been an incredibly awesome one to be a Canadian, musically speaking. That being said, creating distinctions of quality and taste is a tricky business. There’s a lot to consider.

When it comes down to the brass tacks of the whole operation, it is important to note that all “supposed to's” have been violently discarded. We put albums we had heard up against each other and chose 25 of our favourite ones. There are certainly great albums that we have not highlighted, but we felt that the best way to make a list would be equally as fun to read as it would be to write; to ignore the myriad shoulds that continually bombard this sort of process and stick to the stuff we really loved the most. You'll notice there isn't much for hip-hop (though both Cadence Weapon and K'Naan were in the running until the very end), and there are a lot of other genres get little or no representation here - admittedly, this is pretty indie-rock heavy. There may also be other things that are under or over-represented on this list, but in all honesty, we can't help what we like. The important thing is not so much the records themselves as the picture they paint of our experiences with them and what that means in our day-to-day lives. This is just a part of the picture, the dots we’ve chosen to connect that meant the most to us. Some are obvious and some are marginalized but all of them are just plain dope.

You may notice that they are presented in order of release date rather than any formal ranking system. Establishing a hierarchical means of rating the intrinsic value of works of art is archaic and meaningless - instead consider each work on its own in the singing of our universal song.

Dig it, this was our decade.

Also, R. Nansen requested that we mention the 2007 breakup of the Rheostatics; they didn't make our list, but we salute them anyway.

ONWARD

2000

Umm...

2001

Hayden - Skyscraper National Park (Hardwood)

When Hayden first came out, he was heralded as the new Neil Young and was signed to Geffen. He’s one of those guys who nobody seems to listen to all that much, but when he announces a couple of solo dates at the Danforth Music Hall they sell out instantly. My roommate saw the National one time and they introduced him as one of their heroes and proceeded to rock the shit out of “Dynamite Walls.” The man himself is pretty reclusive; he doesn’t give many interviews and his releases (until recently) are always a couple years apart.

“Miles away
Just up ahead,
it doesn’t matter what
any of us are looking for,
we’ll never find it because
it’s not even there.”

Skyscraper National Park highlights everything that is wonderful about his songwriting. It is, in turns, beautiful and reserved, blissful and noisy, heartbreaking and hilarious. Hayden is one of the unique artists who successfully uses instrumentals to bridge his more vocally driven tracks. I also point to the fact that it might be the most amazingly titled record on this list. His guitars are so eloquently presented and rhythmic that they make my head spin on every listen. While he’s released records before and since, this album is so haunting and manipulating in its emotions and textures that it overshadows the others.

- Patrick

Hawksley Workman - (Last Night We Were) the Delicious Wolves (Universal)

Regardless of when you think Hawksley lost his way, it’s difficult to argue with his early albums. Originally For Him and the Girls was going to adorn this list but it’s listed as officially haven been released in 1999. Oh well. The subsequent album, while not as silky and confusing as its predecessor, only strengthens the points made earlier and takes Hawksley to a new level of insightful glam folk weirdness. It should also be noted that “No Beginning and No End” is one of the greatest ballads I’ve ever heard.

It’s interesting that this album is the only point at which Hawksley really got any rotation on alternative radio in this city. My first time hearing him was “Jealous of Your Cigarette” on Edge 102.1. I didn’t get hooked until much later but that was definitely my first exposure. I proceeded to be addicted to him and his live shows for several years. A little later (Lover/Fighter) he wrote some tunes that got played on softer radio formats and has gradually moved in the direction of slick pop music that’s being listened to by god knows who, but (Last Night We Were) The Delicious Wolves is a time capsule of a formerly great artist in his creative prime. I sincerely hope he makes another great album in the near future. Meat comes out next week.

-Patrick

2002

Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Yanqui U.X.O. (Constellation)

Semi-operational Montreal post-rock collective, Godspeed You! Black Emperor is all about tension. Despite their making completely instrumental music, they still manage to write some of the most decidedly political songs to come from just about any place. There is tension equally in what they do as in what they do not do and every pulsing, nervy millisecond is sure to fill any listener with a jittering anticipation of something unexplainable. And then come the crescendos, lots of them and they are still amongst the most ominous you are likely to hear. Even then it seems like there is something even more deadly lurking on the other side.

Yanqui U.X.O., the group’s last album before their thus far very much-extended hiatus almost immediately following its release (though apparently they are maintaining that they aren’t broken up) is an important moment for post-rock, to be certain. There is simply nothing for it, it is a journey of a record that is as angry as it is restrained and as pummeling as it is soothing. There is nothing out there that is more pissed off, and you can feel the rage without having to hear a word – or even read very many of them either as Godspeed You! are notorious for their general lack of any information about anything in their packaging. This record, regardless, features some of the most instruments making the least noise and some of the least instruments making the most noise, and any other combination of these things possible at some point during its hour-plus running time – it is what can only be loosely described as a maximum minimalist record and for the post-rock equivalent of a terrorist cell, that’s not a bad position to be in.

-Curran

2003

Broken Social Scene - You Forgot It In People (Arts & Crafts)

What is there to say about his record that hasn’t already been said? Or felt?

I’m 21. I grew up in Toronto. Broken Social Scene have been the defining band of my adolescence. You Forgot it in People is the sort of album that only comes around once in a lifetime with a very specific set of circumstances preceding its creation. It’s scattershot unity and overarching air of desperation and potential triumph, (b)latant sexuality and devotion to experimenting with what so-called “alternative” rock can be really resonated with my young mind.

And can we talk about the production for a second? David Newfeld’s use of the recording studio as an instrument is the reason this record is successful. It succeeds in being otherworldly while maintaining the obvious fact that the album is coming from humans. And they were local humans. Collaboration is at the heart of You Forgot it in People. This was before BSS became the Kevin Drew Experience (although Brendan Canning’s solo offering was much better than Drew’s). This was before the individual members of the band were able to split off into their various and sundry individual musickings with actual monetary backing and distribution. It was essentially the launch pad for Arts & Crafts as a label and thusly responsibly for the largest Canadian movement in independent music of the decade. Combined with the actual strength of the material and production on top of its significance, You Forgot it in People is more than a record, it’s a painting of Toronto.

A similar image would adorn the cover of their self-titled follow up to YFIIP (remember when it was going to be called Windsurfing Nation?), but the music on that album lacks the essential magic of the previous one. Not to say that’s bad, it’s just that self-awareness wounds some of the best bands. Not that they’re dead. Just in a sort of hibernation. Or purgatory. The question is whether they can adapt along with their changing role and already established musical legacy.

-Patrick

Caribou/Manitoba - Up In Flames (Domino)

With 2007’s Andorra, Dan Snaith gained himself a veritable boatload of utterly well-deserved fans and recognition for essentially making what is quite possibly the best 60s record since the 60s. That record is boss, I guarantee you it is one of the best of its vintage, but I make the even bolder claim that Andorra is an easy second best in comparison to his second full-length, 2003’s majestic, otherworldly Up In Flames. Back then when he was Manitoba (the record was later re-released under the Caribou moniker) Mr. Snaith was more electronic about his psychedelia, and indeed Up In Flames does prove to be a very successful blend of sunny IDM and ambling, equally sunny psychedelic pop.

Snaith can do it all: he sings in a dreamy, subtle tenor, he can program the craziest beats and the most outrageous synths and he also happens to be one hell of a drummer and those insane patterns you hear on “Bijoux” and “Hendrix With KO”: yeah, that’s all him. Top to bottom, this record is golden; not one second wasted let alone any tracks – there is only a massive pile of glorious, charming and immediately loveable electro-psych-pop tunes that ache of wonder and demonstrate an instrumental prowess rarely seen anywhere.

This is what bedroom recordings were made to sound like: not a dude with an acoustic guitar, Garage Band and his tortured soul, but a dude with an electric guitar, some seriously epic laptop software and several warehouses full of percussion instruments, amongst other various things that make noise. Back when Caribou was Manitoba (before that ludicrous lawsuit), Dan Snaith was a king of Canadian electronic music and while he’s still a king, sounds like those on Up In Flames make one yearn for the days when he picked up a synth every now and again.

-Curran

Constantines - Shine a Light (Three Gut)

“On To You” should be the national anthem. In my head I can very clearly hear it playing on loudspeakers as some very attractive Canadian athlete accepts their Olympic gold medal for something and they raise the flag to the rafters. I’m thinking it’s for swimming. Regardless of the plausibility of this strange fantasy, it is one hell of a song – and it’s not even the best one on this sprawling, ballsy indie-rock masterpiece. After recording a serious motherfucker of a self-titled debut in 2001, Constantines toured Canada extensively, added keyboard player Will Kidman to the roster and went to work on putting together what would be come their epic magnum opus, Shine a Light.

The record is a living thing. It breathes, pulses and grows; it is forever exposing its endless layers with each continued listen and appears to be more infused with life and soul than should be allowed. I don’t know who would stop them. This is an album that doesn’t make you feel, it makes you feel for it. When it fights, you can feel its black eye; when it longs, you understand its sentiment – it doesn’t project things on to you, it’s going to keep on feeling for itself whether you’re with it or not.

And those songs. Oh god, those songs. Each of the twelve tracks that feature here are pure gold, little howling slices of Canadiana that occasionally soar in anthemic glory or slum in a murky dirge. Singer-songwriter Bryan Webb has never been more fiery or earnest as his gutteral growl of a baritone leads an assault of indecipherable, gargantuan guitar noise and a savagely powerful rhythm section through the apocalyptic death of the city that seems to be occurring all around. There is nothing more sincere, more moving, more patriotic, than Shine a Light; it is raucous, barbaric and hopelessly free.

-Curran

Do Make Say Think - Winter Hymn, Country Hymn, Secret Hymn (Constellation)

Do Make Say Think are among the greatest post-rock bands that exist or have existed. The only one I wound really consider comparable at all is Tortoise, actually. That aside, Winter Hymn, Country Hymn, Secret Hymn is a wonderful example of the potential catharsis of the genre and the beauty of the intermingling of hope with lack and gentleness with darkness.

To go through all the songs and try to explain the emotional rearrangement one encounters (in the passive voice) would be impossible. The album seems to possess and inherent honesty that penetrates right into the spot that nothing other than music seems capable of reason. It’s Inner, Outer and Secret.

Charles Spearin is consistently one of the most interesting musicians to watch and listen to. The outright approachability of the man is what makes the music coming from his bass so incredibly compelling. He never seems like anything other than the normal human being that he is while living and breathing his passion as a day job. The man did his time and this is what he has to show for it. It’s wonderful.

Ohad Benchetrit is similarly compelling. His solo work with Years is so forward thinking that nobody will catch on for a while, but he changes what it means to make instrumental acoustic guitar based music. Combine this with the tasteful metal stylings of Justin Small and you begin to get a picture of who these people are and what they are capable of. Winter Hymn, Country Hymn, Secret Hymn is and extension of the devotion it takes to maintain sanity in a reality that demands existing outside of it. And it’s humble!

-Patrick

Jim Guthrie - Now, More Than Ever (Three Gut)

The songwriting, presentation, lyricism and arrangement of this album are brilliant. It’s difficult to approach from any critical standpoint because it’s almost distancing in its perfection. But every time you listen to the album, pieces of it reveal themselves to you. There’s an overarching idea of the blurring of the lines between objects. Perceptions are hazy, society’s suspect… but everything is charming and uplifting. There’s an immediacy that can’t be escaped. Owen Pallett did all the string arrangements. Bry Web plays the banjo. It’s one of the testaments to the gone-but-not-forgotten Three Gut records. What’s beautiful is that Now, More Than Ever is essentially a pop folk record that challenges with every breath without ever stepping totally out of line. The only album Guthrie has put out since, Human Highway’s Moody Motorcycle with Nick Thorburn, is good, but doesn’t approach the previous album’s majesty. Now, More Than Ever is so damn good that Guthrie himself has been unable to articulate anything as well ever again. He writes incredible commercial jingles instead.

-Patrick

Polmo Polpo - Like Hearts Swelling (Constellation)

I can’t understand why the universe didn’t lose its celestial shit over this record. It has as much in common with Do Make Say Think and Godspeed You! Black Emperor as it does with John Fahey and Throbbing Gristle. Organic ambient post-folktronica is the closest thing I can think of that sort of describes it. Or maybe the feeling when you think your cell phone is vibrating in your pocket but you realize that your body is feeling something that isn’t there and you vaguely begin to worry about tumours. Or when you look at the sky over a lake at night and can’t decide whether the stars are always there or whether you’ve been in the city too long. It’s dread and beauty married.

Sandro Perri remains the largest unsung musical asset to Toronto. His body of work as Polmo Polpo, with Glissandro 70 and under his own name is uniquely experimental and strangely accessible. Please go listen to all of his albums.

-Patrick

The Unicorns - Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone? (Alien8)

Similar to Death From Above 1979, only with even less press (though with more quality and successful new projects) this is the lone full-length from this extremely short-lived Montreal art-pop duo, of which one guy is now the main guy in the good, but certainly less-good Islands and the other guy is now in a band called Clues. In terms of story, it is a pretty similar one to that of Death From Above 1979, sure; however, musically, in the Canadian-of-the-2000s sense, The Unicorns had much more in common with Chad VanGaalen, who still would release his debut a full year after this morbid hunk of weird hit the scene back in oh-three.

Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone? is whimsical, quirky, occasionally hilarious and, to be honest, quite a brilliant record overall from two guys playing a lot of instruments and singing largely in non-sequiters. Of all of the (millions of) bands who have had the notion “I’m gonna be like Neil Young, only weirder,” no one has ever really been able to do it better than the Unicorns. Brimming with songs that would be just as home on children’s television as in a horror film, Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone? is absolutely one of the best albums of the decade whose main descriptor is “eccentric” and with lyrics like “We’re the Unicorns and we’re people too,” and “drove up in my Bone Camaro thinking only ‘bout you,” you can see if you haven’t heard just what directions this record takes. This is a ballsy record, and it is as truly bold as it is surprisingly poignant as in the end, the whole messy, scattered and bizarre exercise has turned out to be a journey from fear of death to acceptance.

-Curran

2004

Apostle of Hustle - Folkloric Feel (Arts & Crafts)

Andrew Whiteman gets a tough rap. Every time he puts out a new ambitious fuzzy indie tinged with cool world music influences everyone just points out how white he is and says he’s unsuccessful. But MAN this guy can play! And his songs are beautiful! “Animal Fat” is absolutely magnificent! AND he’s responsible for some of BSS’s most ruthlessly cathartic moments.

Another reason why this record is definitely worth consideration is Dave Newfeld’s production, yet again. The choices he makes behind the boards in terms of the presentation of Whiteman as both a player and vocalist are accentuated perfectly by Julian Brown and Dean Stone’s rhythm section. The album amounts to a collection of immaculate and infinitely relistenable off-the-wall pop songs, stepping carefully and effectively. It’s difficult to describe the intensity of Folkloric Feel’s narrative succinctly because it possesses a quality that is so good precisely because it eludes articulation.

-Patrick

The Arcade Fire - Funeral (Merge)

Maybe this is an obvious choice, but didn’t you love Funeral when it first came out? I constantly make the argument for Neon Bible being the better album but that detail doesn’t begin to encompass why this band is so important and why this record especially expresses their triumph. It’s been said again and again and again, but irony is wounded and dying and this album put another bullet in its necessary systems.

Approaching songs that have a romantic and wistful zeal with equally romantic and wistful instrumentation just after the nineties are reduced to rubble and aching for something to replace them is a bold and interesting move. Funeral is a game changer, it an album of New Sincerity. There isn’t much more to write about it other than the fact that it flipped music on it’s head a la Music from Big Pink and it came from the lovely Montreal, in your lifetime. And don’t you forget it, honey.

-Patrick

Death From Above 1979 - You're a Woman, I'm a Machine (Last Gang)

The lone full-length release from the extremely short-lived noise-dance-rock duo of Jesse F. Keeler and Sebastian Grainger – both of whom have since moved on to painfully subpar new horizons – should be looked upon as one of the true gems of noise to be released (very frequently by two-piece groups) this decade. And, given the unfortunate fates of MSTRKRFT and Sebastian Grainger and the Mountains, it should also be seen as an example of two people bringing out the best in each other.

Indeed, Grainger’s propulsive, overwhelmingly-loud drumming and maddened, howling vocals coupled with Keeler’s harshly overdriven fuzz bass and occasional MicroKorg theatrics was a magical combination for the two or three years before they hated each other. Also, their cavalier, don’t-give-no-shit attitude about seemingly everything didn’t hurt their punk rock cred either, but You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine speaks for itself. A blistering spazz of an album that comes out of the gate thundering and ends in sex, this is truly one of the better albums by bands that only ever released one album.

I feel however, that it is extremely difficult to discuss this record without at least touching upon the group’s only other significant release, an EP released in 2002 called “Heads Up,” which is dangerously close to being better than the full album. “Heads Up,” composed of six tracks in about thirteen minutes is a musical drop-kick that creeps upon listeners unsuspectingly and ravages their naïve souls for about thirteen minutes and then just leaves abruptly. Listening to “Heads Up” is like being temporarily possessed. Together with You’re A Woman, I’m A Machine it completes a story of a band with endless potential that just couldn’t keep it together, and makes for what should prove to be the best blip of genius in the indie-rock canon.

-Curran

Feist - Let It Die (Arts & Crafts)

I know, heavy on the A&C content, right? Leslie Feist worked for years before this weird-ass bilingual lounge record came out. She was in By Divine Right. She toured with Peaches as a hype woman. This album almost didn’t make the list for whatever reason. Then I listened to it again and just realized that the strength of song choice and production on this album set it aside from anything that can be considered a peer to it.

The record was incredibly famous. Songs were in ads and shit. The thought of it makes most people ambivalent, despite the fact that The Reminder was also wicked, though less velvety. The fact that the album is mostly covers and rearrangements merely puts it in a different tradition of album making than completely original record. The choice to blatantly sing the same song as somebody else is the choice to participate in the river of song… or the building of the tower of song, if you will. On top of that, her original songs blend seamlessly and tastefully into the tapestry of the album. Needless to say, Feist has added some compelling river bricks.

-Patrick

2005

Buck 65 - Secret House Against the World (V2)

“Fighting with the neighbours, screwing the wife,
Hip-hop music ruined my life.”

Richard Terfry is a difficult guy to pin down. He is one of the few artists that has an essential Canadian-ness about him that is unavoidable. His work is so scattered across the board in terms of genre and timbre that it exists as a testament to the beautiful (and troubling) melting pot of our country. From his inception as an off-the-wall Nova Scotian hip-hop artist signed to Sloan’s label, working with the Anticon collective through to his most recent work, 2007’s devastatingly dope Situation, Buck has taken an avant-garde dance through a co-opted genre and adapted it to his own voice and influences.

2005’s Secret House Against the World represents the pinnacle of his artistic production. It’s as Tom Waits as it’s Gainsbourg… and it’s essentially a post hip-hop record. Oh, and his backing band includes most of the members of post-rock guru group Tortoise. Oh yeah. The only thing that I don’t understand is how exactly this record ended up being the way it is. It’s a little bit like Talking Honky Blues at times but other than that it really just exists in its own category. Despite his comfy position as drive time radio host on CBC Radio 2, I hope Mr. Terfry continues to shock and dazzle us in the coming decade.

-Patrick

Jason Collett - Idols of Exile (Arts & Crafts)

Idols of Exile is cool because it represents the greatest music achievements of both Collett and Howie Beck. In this writer’s opinion, they’re both better when they work together. Please do another record together.

Not that either are anything to sneeze at in their solo work. It’s just that this album fucking rules. Collett unleashes a voice so knowing that you feel like you actually know the guy. Like he could say, “Boy, you got a pretty mouth,” and that wouldn’t be weird. Like his lyrics come from something you’ve read before, or a story you heard in an unlikely social situation. Idols of Exile is also the perfect example of the BSS family playing on each other’s albums to maximum effect. Amazingly placed horns, “electrostatic” guitars and general folk rock intensity accompany Collett’s middle-aged free man badass groove. It’s always almost summer, yeah.

-Patrick

Final Fantasy - Has a Good Home (Blocks)

The first time I saw hide or hair of Owen Pallett, he was opening for the Arcade Fire at the Danforth Music Hall on April 26^th, 2005. I didn’t know any of his songs then, and the setlist is impossible to find, but I do distinctly remember several of the standout tracks from his debut record as well as a GREAT cover of Mariah Carey’s “Fantasy” with Gentleman Reg. I rushed to the merch table after his set only to discover that there was only one copy of “Has a Good Home” available there and it had already been sold.

I can’t remember where I actually ended up buying the record. I do know that since I’ve had it, it’s been played fairly constantly. There are few records on this list as engrained into my bones as this one. He Poos Clouds which, as the first winner of the Polaris, is nothing to sneeze at, lacks much of the essential charm that makes Has a Good Home so damn infectious. The combination of violin loop based pop song writing along Pallett’s classic vocal clarity and wry sense of humour remains peerless. It’s meaningless to determine which album is actually better, though; the relationship between the two of them (and now Heartland, which came out yesterday [Eds. Note: Holy fucking hell is it ever good]) is what’s important. Canada has spawned a large number of amazing songwriters but few that are as unique as Pallett. I feel privileged to have witnessed his rise to popularity over the last five years; for this writer, at least, he’s already changed the face of Canadian music.

-Patrick

2006

Destroyer - Destoryer's Rubies (Merge)

We had our list put together, but there were a few “yeah, that’s pretty good”s that ended up squeaking into the twenty-five. Well I tell you that isn’t good enough! I feel like when making a list, if you’re hesitant about including something, or if you doubt your decision to include something, get rid of it immediately or you will regret it so much when you return to look at your handiwork in the future. Lists are about bold moves and ballsy decisions, just get rid of it!

We got rid of some of the stragglers, but there was one more record on here that I really wanted to include, felt should be included, but had a nagging feeling like I didn’t actually want it there (or even like it all that much) as much as I had been insisting. Patrick put on Dan Bejar’s Destroyer’s Rubies and within about ten seconds I was able to say with great chutzpah “OK, this is such a better record than that other one. Already. Dan Bejar: welcome to destiny.”

And so it was. This quirky slice of theatrical avant-pop is clearly the best thing I’ve heard to come forth from the Vancouver New Pornographers crowd and indeed it is without a doubt Bejar’s strongest solo work; it’s glammy, it’s folky and it’s weird – Bejar’s voice is smooth and dramatic and his lyrics are idiosyncratic and at times hilarious. Sorry bananas, I’ve got a new source of potassium. And after an overly long anecdote, I am out of words: Destroyer’s Rubies is kickass.

-Curran

Junior Boys - So This Is Goodbye (Domino)

Full disclosure: this record is my own personal #2 Canadian album of the 2000s (and #4 overall). This record also gets my vote for Sexiest Ever. The second album from Hamilton-based electro-pop duo Jeremy Greenspan and Matthew Didemus is so icy-smooth and so cocksure in its delivery, it may very well turn out to be the 2000s-hipster equivalent of Can’t Get Enough.

So This Is Goodbye is without question the best electronic album to be released in Canada this decade, it is a serious, serious record in the “Man, this is some serious shit” sort of way. Between Greenspan’s breathy, crooning tenor and those sophisticated, pulsating beats and those glacial, crisp synths, there is precious little to compare it to. Too melodic for IDM and too clean for electro, this ultra-smooth arpeggiator-heavy sex machine is truly nothing short of the future of baby-makin’ music – it’s unstoppably fresh. So This Is Goodbye will make feel so dirty afterwards, you won’t know what to do with yourself – also, unrelated, there’s also a Sinatra cover in the mix.

This is a record of mornings-after, of suspicion, loss and bad things involving too much brandy; it is the album of hurtful realizations and difficult decisions – all wrapped in a wintery, ethereal sheen that coddles the hurt and turns it into hope. Very sexy hope. No electronic albums this decade had the same emotional resonance with the technical chops to back it up, none had such a duality as this with sounds that appear to be so solid, but could only be so frail. This is brave face music.

-Curran

Rock Plaza Central - Are We Not Horses (Outside)

A fabulous concept album from a very special group, this, the third full-length from Toronto’s Rock Plaza Central is, quite plainly, the most sophisticated and unique recording to come from the Jeff Magnum tradition. Singer-Songwriter (and also novelist) Chris Eaton’s powerful-but-understated lyricism and warbling, strained half-drawl coupled with fiery, intricate instrumentation make for what is without question one of the most exciting and emotionally resonating folk albums in years – and it’s about robot horses.

Yes. The album is a concept album about mechanical horses that don’t know that they’re mechanical and the subsequent revelation of which sparks an epic battle between good and evil. It gets pretty epic. Fortunately, as is the case with any concept album, an artist must bring the goods in order to pull it off and when I tell you that this is one of the finest concept albums to come out of any country this decade, you’d best believe Mr. Eaton and company most certainly did bring the goods on this one. Indeed, matching Are We Not Horses? equine-centric lyricism the whole way are some of the most lively, rollicking, galloping and workmanlike folk songs to be released – as I say – this side of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. Third track, “My Children, Be Joyful,” as it happens, sounds like too good a Neutral Milk Hotel imitation to not be some lost outtake from Magnum’s top-secret vault.

Rest assured however that Rock Plaza Central are steering very much their own course and here we can hear a confident, original and technically mind-blowing band play one of the most warming, glorious and yes, joyful, records of the decade. One that is huge on concept and even bigger in delivery – a fist-in-the-air tale of redemption set to soaring horns and a novelist’s touch.

-Curran

2007

Joel Plaskett Emergency - Ashtray Rock (Maple)

Nostalgia is a motherfucker. It bleeds into our lives making us wonder what would happen if we had behaved differently or made different choices in the past without regard for how important it is that we live in the present. I can’t think of another record that deals so effectively with the way things used to be for a specific generation of kids raised on rock 'n’ roll in Canada. My generation, I guess. And the record seriously sounds like the Who.

Plaskett works best when he has an amazing concept (which he frequently does). Ashtray Rock deals with the soul crushing falling apart of a teenage friendship between two guys in love with the same girl. It sounds simple, but Plaskett’s description and presentation of the weirdness and anger and beauty of growing up is compelling enough to make it one of the most important albums on this list. He really taps into an essential part of Canadian adolescence that’s hard to put your finger on. It’s somewhere between shitty concerts, underage drinking, winter coats and awkwardness. It’s epic and unforgettable.

-Patrick

2008

Plants and Animals - Parc Avenue (Secret City)

Plants and Animals play a musical brew that they describe themselves as being “Post-Classic Rock,” which is probably about as accurate as a band can be in describing themselves. On the surface the Montreal-via-Halifax trio’s debut full-length appears to be heavily indebted to the psychedelic and glam rocks of the early 1970s – upon first hearing album opener “Bye Bye Bye” I must admit that my mind immediately went to Queen. However, there is something mysterious about Parc Avenue, something that very distinctly and very clearly sets Plants and Animals apart from any of the other classic rock revivalists (a term that all too often means “trying really hard to be Zeppelin”). Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that Plants and Animals chose some of the more tasteful elements of classic rock to model themselves around, elements that don’t revolve around epic guitar solos. Or perhaps it is the “post” aspect that they willingly apply to themselves that makes this looking back seem so fresh.

Rather than emulating a certain sound of the past, Plants and Animals build on it – they aren’t a tribute band and scarcely can they be called revivalists. It’s as though instead of aiming to play classic rock with a contemporary twist, they imagine themselves at the tail end of the peak of the music they are most interested in, ignoring everything that’s happened between then and now and set out to develop something that never really ended. Plants and Animals infuse their hazy psychedelia with elements of Afrobeat and Krautrock to produce not only one of the most effective and honest nostalgia trips of recent memory, but also an album – three years in the making – that is so utterly laced with life and warmth that, while it is easy to write about how it compares to certain things, when you listen to it, that it sounds like anything simply doesn’t matter.

-Curran

Chad VanGaalen - Soft Airplane (Flemish Eye)

Bizarre, hodgepodge, slightly silly and always obsessed with death, with his strained Neil Young-esque tenor, conflicting loves for both banjos and homemade synthesizers and haunting, morbid and eerily childlike lyrics, Calgary’s Chad VanGaalen crafted Soft Airplane into one of the most tortured, haunting and plain strange albums of recent years. Where his first two records, 2004’s Infinniheart and 2006’s Skelliconnection were composed of tracks culled from several hundreds of bedroom recordings from a period of many years, Soft Airplane marked the first time VanGaalen actually sat down to make a record for itself – and it turned out to be a near masterpiece.

Using a wide, wide range of instruments – many of them his own inventions – ranging from acoustic guitars and banjos, to ancient-sounding synths and drum machines to the odd orchestral arrangement, VanGaalen follows whatever whim that comes into his head to create a beastly, gorgeous folk-electronic-noise meditation that shimmers and soothes as much as it profoundly unnerves. For a note on VanGaalen’s whims, I point to “TMNT Mask” (the acronym stands for what you think it stands for), the most purely electronic-sounding track on Soft Airplane, in which VanGaalen takes a harmonica solo. That happens.

Where VanGaalen’s instrumentation is eccentric and scattershot, his lyrics are some of the most bizarre in the business. Completely and utterly fixated on death, VanGaalen’s free-associative, sometimes unsettlingly graphic and occasionally charmingly awkward verse adds endless levels to the writer’s music and serves to further the artist’s relentless originality. This is a record that occupies so many spaces, aesthetics, moods and shapes; it is eccentric and often aloof, but only in that sort of way where you know that he isn’t trying to be alienating, he’s just really, really into doing his own thing.

-Curran

2009

Jon-Rae Fletcher - Oh, Maria (Weewerk)

Jon-Rae fucking singing his mangled, bared heart out. Throwing his fucking soul out there for you to do with as you will, letting it all go to the sound of a lonely trombone. This modest, simple and largely unnoticed folk record from this relatively unassuming Victoria-via-Toronto-via-Vancouver-via-Edmonton (there’s probably more) singer-songwriter is, as it turns out, without a doubt the concept album of the decade.

Dig: serial killer living in the woods comes across a woman named Maria with whom he falls in love with as he murders her (“She must have seen my knife burning in the dark / and with that knife reflecting in her dark eyes I lost my heart”), which prompts him to return to society where he attempts, but ultimately fails to mend his wicked ways, leading him to drink, misery and ultimately release as he rides off into the sunset of death coming back to his precious Maria – the refrain is truly glorious.

Pretty cool, right? Though the concept would not nearly be as solid in practice were it not for Fletcher’s humble and brutal display of heart, which is splattered violently all over Oh, Maria and evidenced in Fletcher’s almost too simple guitar strumming, delicate songwriting and powerful, golden, heartbreaking voice. With only these things, a piano, a bass guitar and one oh-so perfect trombone, we see here what should be the new coming in the new decade: more with less. Passion, emotion and genuinely good tunes without gimmick, vanity or vexation: there is only that voice and that heart. Oh, Maria is little more on paper than a humble alt-country/folk record, but it is upon listening nothing short of titanic, and it digs deep.

-Curran

Japandroids - Post Nothing (Polyvinyl)

When you are speaking of Japandroid’s truly remarkable debut, Post Nothing, you are speaking of two things: concision and sincerity. The duality of minimum/maximum that occurs within this record is staggering and the sheer amount of quality that Vancouver’s Brian King and David Prowse mine out so few elements makes me want to believe that this may in fact be the most sublimely concise album of all time. The magnitude of the sound featured here is astonishing for only two guys and at just eight track and a running time of thirty-five minutes, Japandroids make absolutely every second count with their relentless hooks and King’s (no other word for it) majestic guitar tones – far and away one of the most well-produced rock records of the decade.

But despite Post Nothing’s technical prowess, what you really stay for is the fact that you can practically smell the sweat dripping from every note as King and Prowse make it abundantly clear from the getgo that they are playing with more than their whole ass. Very obviously disciples of the Constantines’ School of Being Just Really, Really Fucking Earnest, Japandroids’s eight songs about girls, Vancouver and girls in Vancouver (most of which have fewer than five lines of lyrics) are often some of the most affecting, heartbreaking and powerful of the latter half of the decade. No small feat for songs that are also, at heart, fist-pumpin’ party anthems.

This is a record about holding tight to youth, about chasing girls, hating girls and thinking about girls, about talking with friends about girls and drinking beer with friends while longing for girls – this is the teenage fantasy to the extent that J.M. Barrie could never envision. It is Post Nothing because there is nothing to be post about – nothing’s happened yet, we’re only thinking about those sunshine girls.

-Curran