Blog: From Blown Speakers

One Song: Perfect Songs for an Imperfect World download: the Constantines - On To You If you had asked me 6 months ago to name my favourite song by the Constantines , I would've probably said "Arizona" or maybe "Soon Enough." I don't know exactly what struck me last January during the Cons' two night stand in Vancouver, but for some reason this track, that I've always thought was one of the bands finer moments, transcended the rest of their glorious catalogue during [...]

• On To You » On_To_You234.mp3

I'll Make You A Tape So, in what will hopefully become a semi-regular fixture here (like the One Song posts), this is the first of many themed mixes. We'll shoot for once a month or so... but actually post whenever inspiration strikes (so really frequently in the next couple of months, settling down once the novelty wears off a bit). With that... download: Geek Love (or lack thereof) 1. A Camp - Algebra Nina Persson may be skinny, blonde (sometimes), and model-like, but math is [...]

One Song: Perfect Songs for an Imperfect World download: Final Fantasy: The CN Tower Belongs To The Dead I like to share a lot of music. I'm constantly either sending songs to, or shoving headphones in the hands of friends with the exclaimation, "you've got to hear this!" And, I didn't realize just how great this song was until I started sharing it with a lot of people. You see, I'm a huge sucker for violins, so initially, I chalked up some of my [...]

One Song: Perfect Songs for an Imperfect World Nation download: The Tragically Hip - Wheat Kings After a recent Stylus article posited that the Tragically Hip's mass appeal on this side of the 49th may be largely due to the fact that they are quintissentially Canadian, I had a debate with a friend of mine on the very subject. She countered that their popularity here might be due, in large part, to the fact that they never caught [...]

One Song: Perfect Songs for an Imperfect World download: Bright Eyes - Landlocked Blues I never "got" Conor Oberst before 2005. Sure, he had a great tune in him here or there, but the overemotional crap and the vocal "quirks" that peppered the material between every "Make War" and "Lover, I Don't Have To Love" were a little too much for my liking. He's always been divisive. Either he's the next Dylan in your eyes, or you think he's a complete write off, and [...]

One Song: Perfect Songs for an Imperfect World download: Refused - New Noise The first two tunes in what's now a regular feature here have been fairly down tempo, morose, little numbers, so I figured I'd change it up a bit and talk about the very loudest of my favourite songs. You may now know the members of Refused from the (International) Noise Conspiracy and Text. But, before Dennis split to make "garage rock," and the other three guys made do with what they had left, the foursome [...]

One Song: Perfect Songs for an Imperfect World download: Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Maps I remember reading an interview with Yeah Yeah Yeahs lead singer, Karen O, where she said that when the band put out their first full length, Fever to Tell , they wouldn't have cared if the record flopped, as long as people got to hear "Maps." Which is an odd thing, when you think about the fact that it's the one song in the band's repetoire that seems to stick out like a sore thumb. For [...]

So, in what may become something fairly regular here (on weekends, when news is slow), I've decided to blog about some of my absolute favourite songs. This was actually going to be a column idea for a paper I write for at school, but I'm terrible with word limits. Plus, I can post the mp3 here. This particular piece was already written with the intention of submitting to the paper, hence the reference to "print." Yes, I realize this is totally biting on Stylus' Perfect Moments in Pop , but what can [...]

A brief note on mp3s: Any mp3s that are from an official or otherwise legitimately commercially available release are for evaluation purposes only. If you download something and like it go out and support the musicians that made the music (preferably through one of the great independent retailers in the sidebar). All officially available mp3s are posted through YouSendIt and expire in 7 days or 100 downloads, whatever comes first. Generally speaking I won't be reposting anything, but if you've missed something that isn't commercially available I'll glady email it to you (my [...]