The Top 100 Canadian Albums Part 10
November 28th, 2007 at 10:49 pm (Music, Tempus Fugit)
10. Tempus Fugit - …When You’re Having Fun
So here we are at the final post of my top 10 albums I voted for as a voting member of Bob Mersereau’s book The Top 100 Canadian Albums. TEMPUS FUGIT!! Let’s Rock or Let’s Suck as our not so fluent in English bassist would say. If you haven’t heard of Tempus Fugit or you think that it is only a Yes song from Drama then you are by far in the majority. If you know any of the members of the band then there is a pretty good chance you have heard this album. For those who don’t know it, you can download it here. Everything you never wanted to know about the band can be found at F.U.G.I.T.L.A.N.D. How could I not vote for it? It is my band. I’m the singer, rhythm guitar player and I wrote a lot of the songs (at least in their original acoustic guitar state).
Anyway this album ROCKS. Some of it is even very good. It did not chart in Bob Mersereau’s book. Since I can pretty much guarantee that I am the only voting member who has ever heard of us or heard the album, I’m not surprised. Should it have made the list? Absolutely. Once a friend of mine got into a car accident on the Allen Expressway while listening to it and they haven’t listened to it since. It is that powerful. Give it a listen. Our first album came out in 1986. This one in 1998. The next is due in 2010. We’re working on it. That one will make my top ten in the next book……….. Thanks for listening. This is a sendout for Superfly!
Sloan have released many great albums, three of which made the top 100 in Bob Mersereau’s book. Twice Removed at number 14, One Chord To Another at number 34 and Smeared at number 86. Honestly I don’t really get it either. Twice Removed I understand but the other two don’t really cut if for me. One Chord has some good songs in Everything You’ve Done Wrong, Lines You Amend, Good In Everyone and Smeared is OK. But neither of them hold a candle to this one. This album for me is kind of like Music At Work. It is an album of great songs which only fans really know. It is a 70s throwback album which plays like a concept album, with one song running into the next throughout most of the album. There is not a bad song on this album. It is stylistically varied from the mellowness of The N.S and A Long Time Coming to the rock of Losing California and Friendship. There is also a lot o piano on this album which takes it up a notch and might be why I like it so much. Then there is A Long Time Coming which may be the best song they have ever done. Then there is The Marquee And The Moon which may be the best song they have ever done. Then there is Delivering Maybes which may be the best song they have ever done. You get the picture.
So much has been written about After The Goldrush. It was Neil’s 3rd album to bear his name after his Self-Titled debut and Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere. It was followed by Harvest. The 1-2-3 punch of EKTIN -> After The Goldrush and Harvest pretty much solidified his career. No matter how good or bad he has been over the years, the trifecta of these albums will always rescue his credibility. Even without factoring in Tonight’s The Night, or Comes A Time, or Zuma, or Rust Never Sleeps, or Ragged Glory. or Sleeps With Angels. Each of these being better than most other bands’ best.
That’s right Rhythm Of Youth. Men. Without. Hats. Why? I’m not really sure at this point. I think when I actually received the original email from Bob Mersereau I was listening to this album. I grew up in the 80s, was in high school from 1983-1987 so I was pretty heavily influenced by New Wave. What is now retro is musical comfort food to me. Like Arias And Symphonies, The Hurting, Falling and Rio, Rhythm Of Youth was a pretty influential album to me back in my High School daze. I was and still am a big fan of Men Without Hats and I don’t really care what anyone has to say about it. This album is an amazing New Wave album. Not as good as Arias And Symphonies and if I was voting today I would probably have Falling or Radio Silence by Blue Peter here over this one but as I mentioned at the beginning of this 10 part entry, it was what I felt on January 27 2007. Every other day since them and proceeding it would have produced an entirely different list as it probably would for most people. It totally depends on your mood at the time.
The third of three Rheostatics albums to make my top 10. Stylistically this is definitely the most varied album of their career and also contains the most songs of any one album. Introducing Happiness was the one with the hit. In 1994 Claire was everywhere. They won a Genie Award for “Best Original Song” as it was also the centrepiece of the “Whale Music Soundtrack” which also came out in 1994. It is the third proper studio album in a row to be considered classic Rheostatics after Melville in 1991 and Whale Music in 1992.
Didn’t see that one coming did you? This could be another of the albums which no one other than myself voted for. I have to tell you, with all sincerity, there is no reason why this album doesn’t deserve to be in the top 10 Canadian albums. It spawned on global top 10 hit in Nova Heart and without a doubt is probably the most popular and most influential New Wave album to come out of Canada. Arias And Symphonies by Spoons is a Classic Canadian album by any standard. It is full of excellent pop songs. It is played perfectly. It charted well, had hit singles, was produced by a master (John Punter - Roxy Music, Japan) and it has an awesome cover. It has aged with grace and is still fun to listen to 25 years after it was originally released.
I know you’re thinking what the hell am I thinking. Surely Road Apples or Fully Completely. Maybe even Up To Here. Nope. I love those albums as well but for me it is Music At Work at the top of the heap. I think my reasons are similar to why I like U2 but would rather listen to One Tree Hill over Pride, or Drowning Man over Sunday Bloody Sunday. The bands I really like tend to be due to the songs which never get played on the radio. The album cuts. On some albums these cuts are filler and sometimes they are the meat of the project. When I first bought Music At Work I thought it was the biggest pile of Tragically Trash I’d heard to date. I listened to it a few times, saw the “An Evening With” tour in Toronto (I think I’ve seen them 20 times since 1992 at The Concert Hall show prior to Road Apples being recorded). I didn’t really listen to it again until about a year later. Then it hit me. This was an incredible record. It is a weird, non-commercial album album - an “Aim for the gutter” kind of album as Neil Young might put it. When I see them live now it is songs like Sharks, or The Completists or Wild Mountain Honey I want to hear, not Courage or 50 Mission Cap or even Music At Work. This album for me is full of those “other” songs that I love, not the commercial singles. The Hip have these types of songs littered throughout their catalogue in the form of Opiated, The Luxury, Emperor Penguin, Titanic Terrrarium, Eldorado, Are We Family, The Darkest One, Leave, Dire Wolf, Escape Is At Hand For The Travellin’ Man, On The Verge, World Container, Sherpa, Don’t Wake Daddy. Music At Work is like an album full of these types of songs and it is what I really like about The Tragically Hip. The dicotomy between the intensity of Tiger The Lion and the gentleness of Lake Fever is one of the great transitions in their Catalogue. Stay is an underappreciated beautiful song as are, As I Wind Down The Pines and Toronto#4. I think the thing is that all the songs on this album sound like The Hip but at the same time they don’t sound like The Hip as one would expect. A left turn. I still don’t like Freak Turbulance, though. Never did. Everything else on here is a 10.
DOUBLE LIVE - the second of 3 Rheostatics albums in my top 10. It is the one which turned me on to the Rheostatics. I was a latecomer to the Greensprouts fold. I had Whale Music on cassette which was given to me by Gary Gottlieb when it came out. I liked it but hadn’t yet had my moment of Rheostatics clarity. That “TA-DA” moment when you all of a sudden get it and are forever converted. I don’t even know why I bought this album to begin with. I know my first show was at the Reverb when they were still making Harmelodia so it must have been back in 1998. My TA-DA moment happened during the following Green Sprouts Music Week at The Horseshoe when they opened with “Saskatchewan” and that was pretty much it for me. It is the kind of moment you have while seeing the Rheos where, as a musician, you seriously consider never performing again. I’ve had many of those moments while seeing them live, 14 nights in a row in the middle of winter, year after year, much to the chagrin of my liver and my bank account. By about day 5 one’s job pretty much becomes a secondary necessity but the exhaustion keeps you from really caring one way or the other what happens. The Rheos were different. They were all phenomenally talented writers, singers and musicians. They would move from jaw dropping best moments you have ever heard from a live band, to roll on the floor laughing hysterically because they were also so funny. Canada has never seen another band like them and I doubt it will again. They were truly one of a kind. They could inspire one to want to be a musician and others to give it up all together.
As I mentioned yesterday I could have easily put many Neil Young albums on this list. My fascination with him began with Live Rust when I was 13 and from there I got into Harvest, After The Goldrush, Rust Never Sleeps, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere and on and on. I try to see him live whenever he plays as he is always great, whether he is alone or with Crazy Horse or any other incarnation. On The Beach was a late entry into my pantheon of great Neil Young albums but it quickly became my favorites. 
On any day this will be my number one pick. It is my favorite Rheostatics album, my favorite Canadian album and one of my favorite records. Ever. If you have never heard Whale Music pick it up. The only other albums you will ever hear which are like it are probably other Rheostatics albums.