Favourite track from Canada's 5th biggest selling album of all-time "Big Shiny Tunes 2"

has to be block rockin beats

I'm looking at this tracklisting and I'm wondering why this particular compilation was so successful. Is Big Shiny Tunes like the equivalent to the Now That's What I Call Music? compilations here in the UK?

I think Much Music is Canada's answer to MTV

I mean, I also want to work with Supercat.

It's maybe more like our own "Shine" compilations of the late 90s/early 00s

Kinda key though, which version of "Semi-Charmed Life" are we talking here? If the long one, I'd vote that over "Fly" and "Paranoid Android." Nice second-tier of big beat megaclassics and pleasant late-90s rock radio stuff - "Lady Picture Show" and "Drinkin' in LA" are fine. Worst, on principle, has to be "Precious Declaration," it'd have to be one hell of a remix to make much out of that band and that song.

Voted for 'Breathe', because I listened to The Fat Of The Land recently and found myself loving it far more than I ever did when it came out.

I liked breathe at the time but it has to be block rockin beats

I had a copy, as did my friends. I'm not sure why it was so successful. Maybe alt-rock does well in Canada. I dunno, are there still self-proclaimed 'alternative' stations in the US? They continue to exist here, still playing a lot of 90s rock as far as I know.

Lady Picture Show
Song 2
Paranoid Android
Semi-Charmed Life
Block Rockin Beats

Tea Party and Wide Mouth Mason were my first and second rock concerts.

Tea Party I heard a song by in the early 90s on the UK late night rock/metal Raw Power (That became noisy mothers) they sounded like a hard rock Doors. Did they stay that way?

never heard of Wide Mouth Mason/Holly McNarland/The Age of Electric

*tv show on ITV

is no-one else going to stick up for Smash Mouth? ;_;

Yeah, Tea Party are like Doors with Middle Eastern influence. They cover "Kashmir". I haven't heard much from them since Transmission. They're pretty miserable.

Wide Mouth Mason took its name from the jar of the same name,[1]

was a single off this album I saw on that tv show around 1993 or so as I recognise the album cover

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splendor_Solis_%28album%29

pretty sure its this
http://youtu.be/aKLpeNJ9zZo

led zep meets the doors is how they described it on the tv

[I'm looking at this tracklisting and I'm wondering why this particular compilation was so successful. Is Big Shiny Tunes like the equivalent to the Now That's What I Call Music? compilations here in the UK?

Big Shiny Tunes is specifically Alt-Rock based and was heavily promoted by Muchmusic. And for a lot of people, MuchMusic was probably the main source of new music for a long while, especially if you were like me who lived in a town with no decent radio station or music stores. And Alt Rock was heavily promoted at the time as being the big alternative to the boy bands that Canada had a head start in over the US. And I remember things like Swallowed by Bush topping the year end countdown of the Best Videos of All Time in 1996. There was also the MuchDance/Dance Mix compilations that were more pop/dance/hip hop oriented that would usually be released around the same time of year as Big Shiny Tunes albums. There is also a Canadian equivalent of the Now That's What I Call Music series simply called Now!, but they weren't as popular.

Now as to why this entry in the Big Shiny Tunes series and not the others? Well, the first one was kind of an anomaly in that it mostly consisted of songs that were album tracks as opposed to big hit singles. By the time BST 5 came out, file sharing software was already on the rise and the idea of paying for compilations of big hit singles seemed less favorable. Not sure why it sold more than 3 or 4, which were the two in the series that I actually owned.

It's still weird, though, like from that it sounds like if MTV Buzz Bin Volume 2: The Future of Buzz Clips was one of the highest-selling albums in US history.

Is "Drinking in L.A." unknown outside of Canada? Too bad. It's a delight

I never owned this, but I remember hearing it in several apartment parties. The kind of person who owned 20 cds or less generally had a copy of this.

As mentioned above, a couple of years after this, this CD and others like it were replaced by a computer with napster running on it. Inevitably there would always be a couple of people who would download things they wanted to hear at the party and this random mix of songs would become the party host's music collection.

OTM; was just about to say that this was the pre-Napster 12-CDer's perfect rock album. I didn't own it but heard it all the time. It was partly a matter of timing, probably: this sort of stuff was v big in 97/98, when alt-rock and electronica didn't seem very edgy anymore. A lot of big hits by US and UK artists from whom the average radio listener wasn't going to buy an entire album.

For some reason, 7 of the top 10 of Wikipedia's list of best-selling albums in Canadian history are from 1997: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_albums_in_Canada . The list helps give a sense of what else was this huge around that time (generally glossy MOR/AC/pop). This was probably a good rock compilation for someone who was buying those albums as well?

I don't really know what the source for that Wiki list is, though.

Those things all turn up here in any case: http://musiccanada.com/gold-platinum/#!/gp_certification=33

Drinking in LA is one of those rare cases of a Canadian song being a hit in Canada, the UK and some other parts of Europe, but not in the US.

"Of the Nielsen soundscan era" does not mean of all time. More like of the last 25 years.

Is "Drinking in L.A." unknown outside of Canada? Too bad. It's a delight

― fennel cartwright

big hit here in the UK

"Drinking in L.A." got alt-rock radio play in Atlanta and presumably elsewhere, it had the right kind of cut-together sounds and slacker quality for the era of Odelay and such. I always figured the guy was Californian, not Canadian.

I had no idea they were canadian until I read the above posts

"Drinking in L.A." is played in the F Mixolydian mode.[citation needed]

is no-one else going to stick up for Smash Mouth? ;_;

― they TRY to look like GOOD people (soref), Sunday, January 11, 2015 6:26 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I got your back on this. Not a huge fan, but I like it better than anything else here.

ALLL AROUUND THE WOOOOOOORLLLLD STATUES CRUMBLE FOR ME

also got serious love for "swallowed" and "walkin on the sun" but iiiiiii just wwwwwwaaaant tooooo

fly

All things considered this is a pretty dece 1996/7 alt-rock mix CD, just swap in "Brimful of Asha" and "Where It's At" for "Push" and "Precious Declaration" and I'd have no complaints. Never not happy to hear "The Beautiful People," and please note that there is no Sublime on this album. Good job Canada.

(missed "Push" when I was discussing worst songs above, clearly that wins. i have been inching towards a "worst matchbox 20 single" poll for years here, maybe it's finally time)

please make that poll

"Of the Nielsen soundscan era" does not mean of all time. More like of the last 25 years.

V. good point.

Holly McNarland - "Numb"
The Tea Party - "Temptation (Edit) (Tom Lord-Alge Mix)"
Wide Mouth Mason - "My Old Self"
The Age of Electric - "Remote Control"

probably one of these 4. just kidding i've never heard any of these during my lifetime which is weird because i've heard the other songs on this CD over 100 times each. except for drinking in LA which i've probably heard like 30 times in my life.

it's "drinking in LA" but still, this whole thing is legend

drinking in la was played here a lot in the uk so im surprised its the song here some have heard the least

Wow, I own (or owned) this. I spent Christmas 1997 in Canada, aged 17, with Canadian cousins. I bought this with a gift certificate at one of the big suburban malls, along with, if memory serves, the Matchbox 20 album and Tool's Aenima.

I lived in NZ and literally never heard 'Drinking in LA' again until I came back to Canada.

Now I hear it on the radio (in Canada) occasionally and it is so incredibly nostalgic to a specific month of my life.

should have been called big shinny tunes, obvs

Big Shinny Tunes was a possible name for the very first Mix CD I made, back in 2000. I made a photoshopped cover for it and everything.

Is "Drinking in L.A." unknown outside of Canada? Too bad. It's a delight

― fennel cartwright, Monday, January 12, 2015 9:47 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this guy gets it.

I heard it today in my dads car but dunno what radio station it was

Drinking in LA was also a big hit in mexico. I think people in the US know it too? Last time I was in LA I started singing it with some friends when the bar stopped the music at closing time and half the bar joined to sing along until security came in to tell us to keep the noise down.

"Fly"

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

someone voted for "push"

heh, radiohead voting lurkers out in force again

Interesting that four of the five Canadian acts on this thing got zero points. If Cancon restrictions hadn't existed this could have been a significantly better compilation. Or they could have chosen better Canadian tracks I guess.

Kind of surprised nothing from Our Lady Peace made it onto there.

Was just gonna say, Superman's Dead and Clumsy ruled my shit in 10th grade, though maybe neither has enough good time party energy for this comp.

Or they wanted to promote artists that not every single Canadian owned a CD of already.

Taking a look at some of the Canadian Rock charts, apart from Our Lady Peace those songs on there were proabably among the bigger hits by Canadian bands at that time that would have fit on there. Sarah MacLachlan was really big at that time, but she would have seemed a bit out of place on there. And some other bands like, Matthew Good Band, Big Wreck, and Econoline Crush didn't start getting a lot of airplay till late in that year. The only other song from that time that I could maybe fitting on there was Downtime by The Ghandarvas.

Or maybe Cubically Contained by The Headstones.

high five to the other walkin on the sun fans

Could've included one of the singles from Sloan's One Chord To Another or Someone Who's Cool by Odds maybe. Or Big Sugar.

high five to the other walkin on the sun fans

― ♪♫_\o/_♫♪ (Karl Malone), Wednesday, January 21, 2015 5:14 PM (6 minutes ago)

yesssss, we are...not legion exactly, but maybe like five people

Ha, I might have voted for "Downtime" if it were on there. As it is, I would have probably voted for "Paranoid Android" if I'd remembered to vote, even though I think it's pretty flawed as a composition. I have some mildly pleasant feelings for "Beautiful People" and "Temptation".

Those are great songs, but would have probably been a tad too old at the time. And "The Good in Everyone" was on the first Big Shiny Tunes.

"Make You Mad" could have maybe made it though.

I am now reminded of the existence of another Much Music comp from around that time:
http://www.discogs.com/Various-RU-Receiving/release/228782

someone voted for "push"

― da croupier, Wednesday, January 21, 2015 7:09 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm a little bit angry

God help me though, I just now actually listened to "Push" for the first time in a decade (??? probably closer to fifteen years) - and it sounded... kinda surprisingly okay? Like the lyric is still gross and thoughtless at best but I'm just a sucker for these full, overdubbed, warm/rich 90s rock sounds it's doing. The video (and especially Thomas's mugging) is bringing back the hate though, and anybody who would actually vote it as the best song on this list is fucking nuts. Haha, I like how the one guy tries to work out his angsty rock feelings by kicking a building.

oh i don't hate the song, i just can't fathom preferring it over ALL these songs