I Been Hangin' Around Grain Elevators: The ILM Canadian Pop Music Poll (Nominating/Voting Thread)

Deadline for nominations: Friday, April 7
Deadline for voting: Friday, April 21

Spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11QxHlqiNKXsLFaZBRkHcD37OCcujR04cx0ItcCdXm9w/edit?usp=sharing

The spreadsheet is just a placeholder for now, with a list of Canadian artists I cut-and-paste from somewhere. I'll start inputting actual songs over the weekend.

I always base the points for my polls on the old Pazz & Jop system:

# of Songs Listed     Total Points Allowed        Maximum Points for One Song
      10                      100                            30
      20                      200                            40
      30                      300                            50

If you don't like math, let me know and I'll suggest a point scheme. If you don't like Canadians, I can help you work through that, too.

After they finish the female country poll, you can begin posting nominations on this thread.

This is gonna be difficult. I could easily put in a bunch of votes for Joni, Neil, and the Band, but they should have (and have had) their own polls.

I didn't see them on the spreadsheet, but they are indeed Canadian, and I hereby nominate the following:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1fzJ_AYajA

Definitely Canadian. There are lots of gaps on the spreadsheet right now--just got it from some site with a list of Canadian artists.

I hope the artists you mention don't dominate--I'll limit myself to one Neil and one Joni (not a huge band fan)--but, depending upon how many people vote, they could. Their votes could be split among so many different songs, though, that they don't.

band = Band!

I will be trying to determine and then voting for the most Canadian Neil and Joni songs.

Can we add to spreadsheets? Needs Drake, Marie Davidson, Paul Bley Tim Hecker, Tegan & Sarah and Oscar Peterson for starters.

Adds: Kathleen Edwards & board favorite Destroyer

Thanks. They'll all be added this weekend. But please nominate specific songs. As I mentioned above, the list of artists is just a placeholder--perhaps useful to anyone not from Canada--but they'll all be replaced by specific songs once this is underway.

I will be trying to determine and then voting for the most Canadian Neil and Joni songs.

I had been thinking of approaching those two particular artists in exactly the same way.

Looks like the country poll is finished, so nominations are open. I've started inputting actual songs, a mix of famous ones and personal favourites, plus things culled from lists. Ginette Reno's "Beautiful Second Hand Man" will be high on my list; her Wikipedia entry, which I checked to see if the title was hyphenated, says "Not to be confused with Janet Reno."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vX7ZWzocec

Any limit on # of nominations?

Here's four I'll post while I'm thinking of them.

Anne Murray - Talk It Over in the Morning ( Youtube )
Junior Boys - Night Walk ( Youtube )
Jane Siberry - Everything Reminds Me Of My Dog ( Youtube )
Bamff and Danice Macleod - Crevice Tool ( Youtube )

Not really, no--as many as you need. I finished inputting the CBC's list of 100 best Canadian songs.

Crevice Tool is like some kind of fever dream you feel sure can’t actually have happened.

Half-joking question: Is "Sunglasses After Dark" a brain fart in the spreadsheet, or did it actually have a different title in Canada?

God, my mistake--"Sunglasses at Night," of course. That damn "Goo Goo Muck" clip.

Top 10 for me!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTFVMMCwsss

Red Rider, "Lunatic Fringe"

Added some K-97 Top 100 hosted by Rick Mercer. Some truly horrendous stuff on the spreadsheet right now--Dan Hill, Parachute Club, Nickelback (of course)--that needs to be blotted out by some more good ones.

Amazingly, neither the CBC nor K-97 list had this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eyBzgnvDF4

Wow, something I actually can't find on YouTube or Spotify: "I'll Cry Tomorrow" by a Diodes spinoff band, the Secrets. (All I get is Susan Hayward.)

Marie Davidson - Work It
G!YBE - Dead Flag Blues
Tegan and Sarah - Closer
kd lang- My last cigarette
kd lang - Summer Fling
kd lang - Consequence of Falling
kd lang - Surrender
The Band - The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
The Band - Whispering Pines
Feist- 1234
Feist - Mushaboom
Feist - Secret Heart
Len - Steal my Sunshine
Martha and the Muffins - Echo Beach

About half of those are on there, headed out for a movie, will get the rest on later.

I signed in: not seeing how to vote, or how to add artists, or songs for artists already listed. Will these options come later, or should we just put our choices here?

Just list stuff here, I'll add it; you can view the spreadsheet with the link, but that's all.

Totally forgot to put my email in the opening post:

say (no space) hey (no space) at (no space) rocketmail (dot) com

Maybe a moderator can add that at the bottom? (I'll make a request at some point.)

For any Canadians nostalgic for a year you barely half-remember:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISFU41ULoSk

Making a mention of Doughboys here so I don't forget later. The Crush album is pretty much all killer no filler.

Oh yeah, "Whispering Pines"!!! (XXP) No-brainer for me despite not entirely 'getting' The Band more broadly.

Anne Murray: You Needed Me
Bachman-Turner Overdrive: Hey You
DOA: Nazi Training Camp
Gordon Lightfoot: Carefree Highway
The Guess Who: No Time
The Guess Who: Undun
Nomeansno: Stop It
SNFU: She’s Not on the Menu
SNFU: Where’s My Legs

Probably the only poll where both Terry Jacks and Teenage Head are locks for my Top Ten.

Men I Trust - Lauren
Men I Trust - Show Me How

Alanis Morissette - Hands Clean
Broken Social Scene - Art House Director
Carly Rae Jepsen - Run Away With Me
Chantal Kreviazuk - Surrounded
Christine Fellows - Mlle. Steno
Emm Gryner - East Coast Angel
Jann Arden - The Sound Of
Jane Siberry - One More Colour
Japandroids - North East South West
Kate & Anna McGarrigle - Jacques et Gilles
Katleen Edwards - National Steel
Leslie Spit Treeo - Book of Rejection
New Pornographers - War on the East Coast
Owen Pallett - The Riverbed
Rheostatics - Queer
Rufus Wainwright - Beauty Mark
Sloan - Money City Maniacs
Weeping Tile - Judy G.

Thanks, added everything. The way the last two have been formatted is exactly right: the artist (no "the"s, not even for Weeknd), space, hyphen, space, song title. Makes it easy to cut and paste.

Worked at a downtown record store in the mid-'80s with a fanatical collector of rare Canadian albums; he got me onto this weird psychedelic thing from '69 that will probably be on my list.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23eoO5eZJgw

And don't forget the British Modbeats (St. Catherines). I found this in a pile my parents kept in the basement when I was a kid..."L.S.D." scared me! I'll probably include their "Sorrow" cover.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLoKI5FJyjM

Tal Bachman - She's So High
Terri Clark - Better Things To Do
Michael Buble - Haven't Met You Yet

I might have more nominees later. Leaving some of the heaviest hitters (Neil, Joni) alone until I see what everyone else is nominating (to quote one of my nominated tracks, "This could get messy").

I don't always make a point of listening to everything that's nominated in these polls, but for this one I pledge that I will listen to every unknown-to-me song that is linked/mentioned in this thread.

Lester Pearson and John Diefenbaker are smiling down on you.

Joni Mitchell - A Case of You
Neil Young - Journey Through the Past
Destroyer - Kaputt
Leonard Cohen - The Partisan
Sloan - Everything You've Done Wrong
Fucked Up - Two Snakes

Excellent punk-pop:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFUDNesRLUk

I think you've got to count Buffalo Springfield--or at least their original lineup--as sufficiently (3/5) Canadian.

Will vie for my #1 (Alex Trebek!):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rptfbfnkt8A

I am gonna run out of room to vote for things but here is a variety of songs i'd consider voting for that aren't on the list yet. Will add more later!

Handsome Ned - Put The Blame On Me
Jeff Moore & Friends - It's You
Supreme Being Unit - My Transporter Room
The Deadly Snakes - 200 Nautical Miles
Hayden - Dynamite Walls
Rheostatics - Horses
Rheostatics - Seven
The Dinner Is Ruined - Bought Yerself A Bullet
Stompin' Tom Connors - Big Joe Mufferaw
Gordon Lightfoot - Christian Island (Georgian Bay)
Justin Bieber - Somebody to Love
Drake - Passionfruit
The Grapes of Wrath - But I Guess We'll Never Know
Jayda G - Both of Us
Paul Brandt (f/ Jess Moskaluke) - I'm An Open Road
Carly Rae Jepsen - Tiny Little Bows
Tegan & Sara - I Was A Fool
The Halluci Nation (f/ Saul Williams, The Chippewa Travellers) - The Virus
Morley Loon - Agajee Dona Nooch
Nelly Furtado - Say It Right
The New Pornographers - Bleeding Heart Show
Handsome Furs - Dead + Rural
Hawksley Workman - Old Bloody Orange
Les Trois Accords - Sasketchewan
Muffler Crunch - Jocelyn The Killa
Five Knuckle Chuckle - Granola Boy
NQ Arbuckle - Song For Deborah
Sean MacDonald - Toronto Song
Biosphere - Poa Alpina
Lowest of The Low - Rosy and Grey
Big Wreck - Under The Lighthouse (do they count?)
Captain Tractor - Talk
Sloan - People of the Sky
The Super Friends - Fireflies

By "they," do you mean Big Wreck (not sure) or Lighthouse (definitely!)?

It’s a long shot and I’ll probably be the only voter for it, but Étienne d’Août by Malajube is going to be very high on my ballot. If you can track down the Daytrotter Sessions version, that’s the one that puts a hot poker right through my heart.

Ah I meant big wreck, just one guy is Canadian but it’s the main guy but iirc formed in the US.

I looked at their Wikipedia entry...They seem to be half-Canadian, or at least did at their inception. Someone who isn't, who I thought was, is Gale Garnett--born in New Zealand, arrived in Canada at 11. So not eligible--but I'll post this anyway.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3G-c5FAaRrY

Sure vote for me--later redone but not the same. This version you can only hear in the movie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ8utCB2eq0

some more, this poll is going to be impossible to narrow down.

Shania Twain - No One Needs to Know
Dan Bryk - She Doesn't Mean A Thing To Me Tonight
Gordon Lightfoot - A Passing Ship
Neil Young - Helpless
Cowboy Junkies - To Love Is To Bury
Teenage Head - Somethin' On My Mind
Eric's Trip - About You
John Akpata - Kanada Day
Jeremy Latta - Chickadees/Churchbells
Buffy Sainte-Marie - Not the Lovin' Kind
Gino Soccio - Dancer
Kate & Anna McGarrigle - Jigsaw Puzzle of Life
THP Orchestra - Two Hot For Love
Cano - Baie Ste-Marie
Robert Paquette - Bleu et Blanc
Terry Bush - Maybe Tomorrow
Trooper - Santa Maria
Leonard Cohen - So Long, Marianne
Great Speckled Bird - Long Long Time To Get Old
Duck Sauce - Barbra Streisand (Original Mix)
Rough Trade - Lie Back, Let Me Do Everything
Rush - Subdivisions
Max Webster - On The Road
Rita MacNeil - Working Man
The Rankin Family - Fare Thee Well Love
Down With Webster - Your Man
Constantines - Soon Enough
The D'Ubervilles - Belladonna, Deadly Nightshade
Diamond Rings - All Yr Songs
Shabason & Krgovich - In The Middle of The Day

NoMeansNo - Tired of Waiting
Bruce Peninsula - Satisfied
Fucked Up - Year Of The Tiger
Colin Stetson - Judges
Cryptopsy - Benedictine Convulsions
Chad VanGaalen - Gubbish
Sum41 - Fatlip
Thrush Hermit - The Day We Hit the Coast
Strapping Young Lad - Detox
Gordon Deppe & The Spoons - Theme For A City
Harmonium - Chanson Noire

A friend got me out to see Broken Social Scene a couple of times--we were at the show they turned into a pretty good film--and I came to like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYdeNlnLyoI

Gino Soccio - Dancer

Didn't know this was Canadian; will definitely be on my ballot!

Actually the second time that's happened in this thread; didn't know the Diodes were Canadian either.

Okay, seeing as they're not actually against the rules, lol:

Claude Vivier - Orion
Hugh Le Caine - Dripsody

I feel like I shoehorn the latter into just about every thread ever tbh.

Po' Girl - Scattered Leaves

Whoops, “Scattered Leaves” is Be Good Tanyas.

Myriam Gendron - Solace

Okay, seeing as they're not actually against the rules, lol:

Claude Vivier - Orion
Hugh Le Caine - Dripsody

I had to make rules for myself or most of my list would be un-pop like these.

Big Sugar - The Scene
Wild Strawberries - I Don't Want to Think About It
Sky - Some Kinda Wonderful
Treble Charger - Red
Odds - Someone Who's Cool
Bass is Base - I Cry
Copyright - Radio
Emmy Gryner - Summerlong
Big Wreck - The Oaf
Pluto - The Goodbye Girl (Pop Goes the Girl Mix)
Love Inc - You're a Superstar
Ivana Santilli - Sun + Moon = Tomorrow
Thrust Hermit - From the Back of The Film
Moist - Breathe
Sandbox - Curious
Men Without Hats - Pop Goes the World
David Wilcox - Do the Bearcat
Tom Cochrane - Big League
Bedouin Soundclash - When the Night Feels My Song
Les Respectables - L'homme 7:00 up

I saw these guys open for the Guess Who in 1974!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCs1slIfofE

Emmy Gryner - Summerlong

I like this one. She lives in St. Marys (I think--maybe Stratford), where I am--saw her speak as part of an author's panel a couple of months ago.

They used to play that Scrubbaloe Caine song on Q107 to introduce their Psychedelic Psunday block.

What I meant to mention was that Jim Kale was in the band after leaving the Guess Who. (Which reminded me of Brave Belt, Randy Bachman's post-Guess Who band in the early '70s--basically the same lineup as BTO.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFmk4SegWE0

The first BTO album was meant to be Brave Belt III.

I think we have a future as the Siskel & Ebert of Dumb Early'70s CanCon No One Else Remembers or Cares About.

New Big Wreck album is p solid btw.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlntx2ddQYY

I asked my friend Howard, who edits the SOCAN magazine, to suggest some nominations that I just added to the spreadsheet. (He's very big on Jessie Reyez and Julien Taylor.) Every Canadian song ever has now been nominated, except for, I'm happy to say, Northern Lights' "Tears Are Not Enough," which showed that we can come up with well-meaning songs just as annoying as its British and American equivalents.

I'll start a voting thread with an email address and point schemes tomorrow morning.

https://phildellio.tripod.com/glenn.jpg

eh by i thought i had til tomorrow night

You can nominate more, no problem. I won't ask for this thread to be locked till Saturday.

Just started streaming the playlist on random and heard Myriam Gendron for the first time. Really good!

Les Maledictus Sound - Kriminal Theme

Paupers - Magic People

As I passed the Perth County sign driving home from Clinton today, I realized I haven't yet mentioned the Perth County Conspiracy from Stratford. Actually don't know their music, but I'll try to some of it a listen this week.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbqJCGNvs84

Bruce Haack - Electric To Me Turn

my bad on the black box. i feel like there's a 90s house song by a canadian group i got it mixed up with but can't think of what

flopson, maybe you are thinking of Love Inc?

Cub - Pillow Queen
Men I Trust - Tailwhip

Kathleen Edwards - Six O'Clock News
Wolf Parade - I'll Believe in Anything
Broken Social Scene - 7/4 (Shoreline)
Stars - Elevator Love Letter
Grimes - Oblivion
Fucked Up - The Other Shoe
Constantines - Young Lions
Japandroids - The House That Heaven Built
The Stills - Lola Stars and Stripes
Colter Wall - Motorcycle

Nominating a few artists without any other noms:

Alessia Cara - Here
Andy Shauf - Neon Skyline
Crystal Castles - Not in Love
Helena Deland - Truth Nugget
Hot Hot Heat - Talk to Me, Dance with Me
Mac DeMarco - Let Her Go
Majical Cloudz - Downtown
Ought - Men for Miles
PUP - Kids
Purity Ring - Fineshrine
Russian Futurists - Let's Get Ready to Crumble
Sandro Perri - In Another Life
Tobias Jesso Jr. - How Could You Babe?
White Lung - Below

Does U.S. Girls count? Wasn't sure.

I had to look them (her) up, but no--Toronto-based, but born in Chicago.

Here's a bunch more nominations:

54-40 - Ocean Pearl
Amanda Marshall - Birmingham
Avril Lavigne - I'm With You
Bif Naked - Lucky
BKS - Astroplane
BTK - Peppyrock
Captain Tractor - Last Saskatechewan Pirate
Caribou - Odessa
Crash Test Dummies - Superman's Song
Doucette - Nobody
Doug and the Slugs - Too Bad
Gilles Valiquette - Je suis cool
Headstones - When Something Stands for Nothing
Hayden - Bad as They Seem
Hayden - Dynamite Walls
Holy Fuck - Lovely Allen
Ivan - Open Your Eyes
jacksoul - Still Believe in Love
K-os - Man I Used to Be
Klaatu - Sub Rosa Subway
Klaatu - Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft
Kim Stockwood - Jerk
Kon Kan - Arts in D Minor / Harry Houdini
Love Inc - Broken Bones
Luba - How Many
Luba - Let it Go
Marianas Trench - Who Do You Love
The Moffatts - Misery
Motherlode - When I Die
New Pornographers - Sing Me Spanish Techno
Nickelback - Leader of Men
NoMeansNo - The End of All Things
One to One - Angel in My Pocket
Our Lady Peace - 4 AM
Pagliaro - Lovin You Ain't Easy
Remy Shand - Take A Message
Ron Richardson - Ooh Wee Babe
Rubber - Sunshine
Sam Roberts Band - Bridge to Nowhere
Sarah McLachlan - Into the Fire
Sarah Slean - Sweet Ones
Smoother - East side
Snow - Sexy Girl
Soul Attorneys - These Are The Days
Spunkadelic - 9.95
Stompin Tom Connors - The Hockey Song
Syrinx - December Angel
Ugly Ducklings - Gaslight

After adding those and cleaning up some duplication this morning--not recognized by Google Sheets if even an apostrophe is stylistically different--that brings us to an almost too-perfect 1,001 nominations, ready to be turned into the book 1,001 Canadian Pop Songs You Have to Hear Before You Die.

Nobody's mentioned anything from Lighthouse yet, so I will - One Fine Morning

(sorry 1002 doesn't have as nice a ring to it)

That and "Sunny Days" are both on there--holding fast at 1,001. (I've added things myself here and there without mentioning them on this thread.)

Glad Remy Shand snuck in under the wire!

I liked Crowbar's Bad Manors and everything I heard of King Biscuit Boy with them (xgau called him "Canada's Paul Butterfield and I mean that as a compliment"), also his s/t album produced by Allen Toussaint, also Ronnie Hawkins' version of "Matchbox" w KBB and Duane Allman, but the only qualified(?) single that comes to mind is:
King Biscuit Boy - New Orleans

You just ruined everything, thanks.

(Kidding.)

?

(That brings the spreadsheet to 1,002 songs, instead of 1,0001.)

I mean, 1,001...anyway, I really am joking.

Sorry, I should have checked the deadline! Just happened to think of him---one of my role models, along w Butters, as a budding harmonica player & singer, def in that order, in my case--

The two Crowbar songs I know are "Oh, What a Feeling" (obviously) and "Million Dollar Weekend," which I recall as sort of being part of the whole back-to-the-'50s story that was everywhere in the early '70s.

Just gave it a listen, and totally--their "Clap for the Wolfman."

Dumb - Pull Me Up
Ducks Ltd. - 18 Cigarettes
Kiwi Jr. - Murder in the Cathedral

xpost yeesh, was that Crowbar?!! I knew them only as boogie band (as we used to say)(another kind of 50s nostalgia, the hot groovy what's happenin' now tonite in this bar kind)

Gordon Lightfoot - I Ain't Sayin'
Junior Boys - Birthday

Just had to increase the vote-splitting potential at the last minute.

^ Whoops, inaccurate title:

Gordon Lightfoot - Im NOT Sayin'

Ooh forgot Ought...If I can slip it in:

Ought - Today More Than Any Other Day

I would like to nominate this episode of Danger Bay as the best Canadian anything ever. Guest starring Alfie Zappacosta!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAJZWNdFvJU

Added Ought; that should close nominations now. If a moderator sees this, maybe this thread can be locked now.

Come on Over for a Rendezvous: The ILM Canadian Pop Music Poll (Voting Thread - Deadline: April 21)

Leonard Cohen - Avalanche
BADBADNOTGOOD - Time Moves Slow
Men I Trust - Say Can You Hear
Jale - Not Happy
Eric's Trip - Smother [didn't seem to make it to the doc.]

_1,001 Canadian Pop Songs You Have to Hear Before You Die_.