Gone are the days of radio stations throwing together compilations of local artists, for better or worse. Two of the three albums I'll be talking about are local to me. Winnipeg is an absolute hotbed for local musicians. It's also a hotbed for really SHITTY local musicians, but hopefully we can put that aside for the time being (not a guarantee). All three of today's CDs were still factory sealed, and I decided to unleash whatever interesting and odd music is contained on them. Surprisingly, much of it is quite good and I'm more than happy to highlight the talent. However, if you're a regular to CGE, you know I can't let the trash slip through the cracks.
Hot 103 / QX104 - We Are Family: A Collection of Super-Fun Songs for Kids & Parents
This is probably one of the least annoying children's albums I've ever listened to, and you all know how I generally feel about children's albums! Most of the tracks on this CD are actually really good, and the majority of the artists featured here are genuinely talented. For an album with 22 tracks, that's quite impressive. I had a difficult time choosing which songs to feature because it's that good! However, this album isn't without it's blemishes because we've got a few stinkers. Let's get to it...
I've never heard of "Why", but this song is the greatest children's song I've ever heard. It absolutely smokes! You don't expect to hear something this good on a Children's album. I demand that "Why" takes charge and overtakes the current Canadian children's music landscape with more greatness! The best thing we can do for our youth is give them great music in their early years so they can create great music in the future. The last thing we need in Canada is more "musicians" like Drake.
The band Paper Moon possesses two members who were previously in a band called B'ehl. The band has seemingly derived their name from the title of B'ehl's first album called "Only a Paper Moon". After I had found a stack of CDs in the trash (which included one very enjoyable album by B'ehl), I went and found their other releases. I'm sadly still missing one Paper Moon album. They're a great band! This D*sney cover is just as fun as I expected it to be. If you want a really unusual listening experience, try seeking out B'ehl's cover of the Simple Minds song "Don't You Forget About Me".
Cher Maendel - This Little Light Of Mine
Okay kids, gather around because it's story time!
Many Canadians will know Cher as a contestant on Canadian Idol. Since I generally don't watch TV, I originally knew Cher as a karaoke hostess. She was a good singer who got a gig doing something she genuinely enjoyed. While attending one of her karaoke shows, I ended up meeting one of her sisters. She was a lovely human being, and we eventually started dating. As time progressed, I ended up meeting their parents along with some of their other family members.
Something that I found a bit off-putting was how the family would sit around the dinner table and talk absolute trash about Cheryl (which is what her family calls her, and I will therefore be referring to her as such from this point on). Now, I felt it was a bit unfair to be sitting around the table trashing Cheryl, so I decided to come to her defence. After all, I knew her as a karaoke hostess, she WAS my girlfriend's sister, and I would have gladly offered her any help should she have ever requested it. However, my good intentions wouldn't go unpunished. It didn't take long for Cheryl to start talking trash about me to her family, her sister, and to any acquaintances who went to her karaoke shows. To my knowledge, I had never done anything bad to Cheryl nor her sister, but for some reason beyond my understanding, Cheryl was absolutely hell-bent on making me look like a piece of detestable garbage to her entire family. To my defence, her family shared some absolutely jaw-dropping stories (which I will not repeat here) about how badly Cheryl treated people other than myself. I quickly learned that Cheryl is a lousy excuse for a fellow human being, and that's putting it in the nicest way possible.
However, Cheryl has one good quality. I genuinely enjoyed watching her interact with her nephews. She was kind, attentive, and interacted lovingly with them. My only wish for Cheryl is that she would extend those good qualities to the adults in her life. Given that she interacts extremely well with children, I honestly believe Cheryl is in her best element on this album. She would do well to embraced becoming a children's entertainer.
As for the song itself... Aside from Cheryl pointlessly stating "It's Cher!" at the beginning of the track, the arrangement and performance is excellent. It ironically sound like something that Sheryl Crow would have recorded, and I honestly enjoy much of Sheryl Crow's music (except for that fucking God awful Guns 'n' Roses cover.)
Pushing Daisies - Rock n' Roll Readers / Comfort Food (featuring Fred Penner)
Rock n' Roll Readers is a fun song! I also know the singer Roland personally. We used to attend a local jam session together. He's a great guy, and we seemingly have a mutual respect for each other musically. He is the father of five children, so I should have expected a children's song from him to be on point. It's also nice to see him pair up with Fred Penner on the track "Comfort Food". (Fred also appears on the song "Fred & Chrissy".) I have absolutely nothing bad to say about Fred or his music. In fact, I grew up with his album "The Cat Came Back". Fred's music is family friendly, enjoyable, and nowhere even close to annoying. Thank you Fred for all the great family entertainment over the years!
Chad James - Old McDonald Had A Farm
This is typical of the stuff I generally find on Children's albums. It's a 2000's electronic dance version of this well-known children's classic. It's perfectly skippable and disposable. Whereas most of the other artists on this album have gathered other talented musicians to assist them in making quality music, this track contains none of that. It's a complete throwaway.
This track doesn't belong on here. For a children's album released likely sometime in the 2000s (I can't find an actual date anywhere on the CD) no child of that era is going to remember the TV show Fraggle Rock. I don't even think there were any re-runs airing in the 2000s, given that D*sney was in the middle of trying to buy the Jim Henson company during that time. This track is solely a GenX nostalgia trip, and it's mediocre at best. It's an absolutely pointless waste of space that holds no relevance twenty years after the TV show went off the air. I'm pretty sure the generation this album was aimed at wouldn't miss this if it had been left off the album. The song itself is played on some cheesy keyboard that was likely purchased from the children's section at the Red Apple Clearance Center.
Caroline Hunter & Mookie Wilson - The Candyman
I've made it very clear in the past... I hate this fucking song with every bit of my soul. The Sammy Davis Jr. version makes me wanna puke. This version rivals the awfulness of the original with the two main vocalists pretty much talking the lyrics all the way through the performance. In fact, this may actually be worse than the original. The only good version of this song in existence is by the band Cibo Matto who's absolutely surreal and bizarre arrangement makes it magnificent. Other than that, this song as a whole can go fuck itself.
Classic Rock 101 - Twisted Tunes: Homegrown Originals Vol. 1
Even before this album entered my CD player, I got a warning about what I was in for...
This is the only non-Manitoban release I'm covering in this entry. I'm guessing Classic Rock 101 was a radio station somewhere in British Columbia (likely Vancouver) given the (stoner) subject manner of some of these songs. Every track appears to be the brainchild of Ben Karlstrom and Graham Hatch.
As a side note, I honestly don't like the song "It's Great To Be a Guy". Embracing bad stereotypes isn't good for anybody. Fortunately, we have a few winners here...
This is right up there with the song "Drugs In My Pocket" by The Monks. It's a fun song about pretty much every household in Vancouver.
This track represents about 90% of this fucking blog. In case you didn't know, the Canadian government mandated radio stations to play 30% or more Canadian content on the airwaves. This became extremely evident with my appearances on "Amateur Hour" where the host had to log how many of the songs I brought were Canadian content. In this particular case, we're lucky that Canadians create a lot of shitty music. I'd probably have very little problems starting up my own radio station, but nobody wants that.
You can pretty much guess what this song is about.
Download this entire album because you live in Vancouver
Transmissions from UMFM 101.5 2013
UMFM is the University of Manitoba's radio station. Before I get into this double album of local music, I'd like to thank UMFM for providing a link to this blog over the years. I was surprised when I saw the link on their website. I really appreciate it!
I honestly didn't know what I was going to get when I plopped disc one of this massive collection of local ditties into my CD Player. For the most part, it's a pretty fun listen! Picking select tracks from two entertaining CDs wasn't easy. It's pretty well balanced between the talented, the absurd, and the mediocre. As per usual, I'll be ignoring the mediocre. How a track called "Fuck The NRA" falls into the category of "mediocre" is beyond me, but it certainly didn't make any impression on me.
If I didn't know better, I would have sworn this is The Cure. Listen to this and tell me it's not The Cure. You can't.
French Press - Back On The Mattress
What a devastating and raw piece of music. It's absolutely magnificent. This is the best song you're going to hear on this entry (aside from the previous song that apparently isn't The Cure). If you like the band The Sundays, you'll enjoy this.
Romi Mayes & Jason Nowicki - Lucky Tonight
I'm a big fan of Sass Jordan's Racine album. The singer here sounds a LOT like Sass Jordan. It's catchy and played well on an acoustic guitar. Really good!
Imaginary Cities - Bells of Cologne
I'm not completely against spoken intros on songs. Some of the best songs I've heard have a nice, short spoken intro. However, the first 45 fucking seconds of this track is all dialogue between the two band members discussing what the song is about. Guess what? I don't need an explanation. Put it in the liner notes of your album. Just play the fucking song. It's extremely easy to skip over this track solely because of this reason. However, once you skip past the intro, you get a really nice acoustic piece and stellar vocals to boot. It's a great song with a shitty start.
Johnny Sizzle - Space Adventure 2.0
I'd be doing a disservice to this blog if I didn't feature this Casio-based Johnny Sizzle track. Johnny doesn't sing on here, but it's still fun! This blog owes it's entire existence to Johnny.
The Unbelievable Bargains - Aquatic Mammals
The title explains it all. It's a dumb song about aquatic animals, but at least it's a fun dumb song.
Vince Andrushko - The Garden Plot
"You kids! You stole my onions! I'm gonna miss my onions!" If your life is missing a song about kids stealing vegetables from some poor man's garden, then consider this to be my belated Christmas present to you. It's great!
"My baby's got H.I.V." Oh wait, those aren't the lyrics, but that's where my brain went. If I'm honest, that probably would have made it a better song. This is like Moxy Fruvous, but without the creepy dude trying to take advantage of women (and I hope that assumption is true). Canada is full of goofy bands like this. We really didn't need another one.
Sometimes you shouldn't put certain things together, like this drumming, this vocal "melody", and this heavily echoed guitar riff. It sounds like someone's five disc carousel got sick and barfed all of it's CDs onto the floor. It's a very difficult listen.
At first you think you're on The Tonight Show. Then, the music shifts into a terrible rap song about the UMFM radio station with an added touch of D*sney magic! I expect these kind of campy lyrics in country music, but I guess Rap music is just as vulnerable. The last thing the University of Manitoba radio station needs is a theme song, and if it did, it wouldn't be this.
Why are so many rap songs so fucking terrible? What happened to rap music being fun? Remember songs like "Jump Around" and "The Humpty Dance"? We need that back. If you like shitty beats, a shitty mix, and hearing a shitty air horn in your shitty rap song, this track is for you. It's fucking awful.
Well, wasn't that fun? I thought it was!
February and March have been excessively busy for me. Now that April is upon us, I'll be getting back into the swing of things. Until the next entry, keep your stick on the pinata!
