after spending a punishing term in LA, where out of desire to torture myself i preset my grundig yachtboy p4000 radio to wake me with the obnoxious sounds of NPR (conspiracy theories yeah!) or KROQ (advertisements + angry suburban rock music (!= the fall) yeah!) i have returned to canada for the holidays. after an extended incubation period spent in bed i briefly became addicted to much music and took a comfortable pleasure from watching the latest sloan video today.
my previous attitude towards sloan is likely typical of any self-conscious canadian university student: brief love affair before being distracted for an even shorter relationship with teenage fanclub, and then disgust. but now i come home and watch sloan and think "what a bunch of wankers i'm not sure i like the music but i sure love listening to it!"
question: what bands fill that empty nostalgic hole in your heart?
― Paul Barclay, Thursday, 20 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)
My relationship with Sloan is a difficult one. The first two albums
were pretty good, third album was a grower, but after that the
unbridled nostalgia for the 70s, both good and awful, just began to
take its toll on any admiration I had for the band--they'd already
proved with Smeared that they could create something a bit newer and
edgier, but then it just degenerated into who could out-Beatles or
out-Stones who and who could work April Wine riffs into a song. Of
course, the kiddies ate it up because they didn't know how dire April
Wine could be, and don't have the musical background not to get
fooled by it again (same thing with Lenny Krapitz). Somewhere around
the time of Navy Blues, the marketing just got to me, too. Chart Mag,
who I wrote for once upon an age, was doing split runs with each of
their faces on the cover of one of the versions of that month's mag,
just like the band was KISS or something. And so I tuned out.
Oddly enough, the members of the band seem to be nice enough guys. I
keep seeing them around the city, buying records or eating lunch. And
my head was truly knocked off when I saw them live at a computer
industry event, of all places, last summer. Doesn't mean I like the
new albums any better (though I haven't heard the newest), but at
least the live experience seems to be honest and not so overtly
pandering to the big ol' nostalgia thing. So I'm really mixed about
the whole Sloan thing.
The real answer to your question, though: Abba.
― Sean Carruthers, Thursday, 20 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)