SNOWSUIT SOUNDS: 100 CANADIAN POP SONGS YOU OUGHTA KNOW

[Originally published December 2003.]

Obligatory but true preface statement: not necessarily the "100 Greatest" or even "my 100 Favourite" Canadian pop songs. More like 100 really good and often great ones that came from all over the map, including many from unexpected quarters. Organized by sub-genres, most of which are the figment of my own imagination.

Obligatory apology: I'm obviously old.

VOICES IN THE WILDERNESS (PRE-EXPO)

1. "I'm Movin' On," Hank Snow (1950)
The "OS" (Original Snow) scores big on both sides of the border and sets the tone for much to follow with a song about picking up and heading south. Leaving his home town of Liverpool (!), Nova Scotia, because his woman "done [her] daddy wrong," Hank doesn't seem too upset about the ordeal; to the contrary, it sounds like it was just the excuse he was looking for to leave. The music, animated and carefree, implies a different kind of travel as well: country music moving forward into rock 'n' roll. Listen to that guitar solo; now imagine the exact same thing amplified. (#1 on Billboard's Country chart for 21 weeks.)

2. "Little Darlin'," the Diamonds (1957)
A song that has weirded me out ever since seeing a puppet spastically lip-synch to it on TV (one of those hazy childhood memories I can't connect to a fact: which TV show? which Puppet?!). #2 on Billboard's Pop chart; all that prevented it from becoming the first Canadian recording of the rock era to hit #1 was Perry Como's "Round and Round." (A few months later, Paul Anka would nab the honours with the rather soppy "Diana.") More significantly, it might also be the first pop record to make prominent use of a cowbell--funk archaeologists, take note.

3. "Goodbye Baby," Jack Scott (1958)
Modest but menacing rockabilly from Windsor, Ontario. Scott's pleasure in saying goodbye is precisely that: in saying the words, repeating them, dangling them in front of the poor woman's face. Sans Sam Phillips at the control board, he twists the knife even further in a later chorus by throwing in his own haunting echo on the word "baby."

4. "Clap Your Hands," the Beau-Marks (1960)
Early '60s gymnasium rock from Montreal. The follow-up, "Rub Your Tummy," wasn't so hot, though.

5. "Big Town Boy," Shirley Matthews (1963)
Matthews was born in Harrow, Ontario (population somewhere around 2,500), but recorded this girl group explosion in New York City--so draw your own conclusions. Try and convince me that isn't Hal Blaine on drums.

6. "Unless You Care," Terry Black (1964)
Tim Powis suggested this "Searchers knock-off" from Vancouver (a.k.a. "Terry 'Cross the Mersey"). A chiming, blissful sound, and an early captured example of a long-standing national pop obsession: Canucks imitating blokes.

WEIRD FOLK(IE)S

7. "The Stranger Song," Leonard Cohen (1967)
As the opening track from Robert Altman's McCabe and Mrs. Miller, it hooks you into the bleary rhythms of the movie as authoritatively as "Be My Baby" hooks you into Mean Streets. Moreover, the strength of the melody and lightly strummed Spanish guitar lines make this a natural for a Euro-disco remix.

8. "Black Day in July," Gordon Lightfoot (1968)
Not Lightfoot's subtlest example of song craft, but the bleakest, hardest, and fastest thing he ever put on the radio. I used to call it his "Stones record"--"Paint it Black"'s hollowed-out beat fused with "Street Fighting Man"'s simmering '68 apocalyptic fervour--but it's actually weirder than that suggests: more like Scott Walker leading a frenetic acoustic garage rock outfit with a restless drummer who thinks he can pull off an Elvin Jones impersonation and falls off his stool trying to prove it. (Lightfoot's track record on AM radio is perhaps under-appreciated; I'm also fond of "If You Could Read My Mind," "Sundown," "Beautiful," "The Canadian Railroad Trilogy," and 2 or 3 others. I don't care so much for the long one about the boat, though.).

9. "Get Down To," McKenna Mendelson Mainline (1971)
A trippy, weightless, acoustic blues shuffle. If released today it would get tagged as "roots" music and everyone would argue about how "authentic" it is. In 1971 it was just another cool pop novelty, really not that distant--in spirit, anyway--from "Brand New Key" or "Double Barrel" or "Little Green Bag." (Or so I prefer to believe; I never actually heard it on the radio myself.)
Footnotes: The "Mendelson" in question here is Mendelson Joe: artist, political activist, songwriter, and author of numerous cranky letters to Now magazine. Also, Rick James (yes, that one) was briefly a member.

10. "All the Things I Wasn't," Grapes of Wrath (1989)
All the best (read: the prettiest) parts from Nick Drake, James Taylor, and (I kid you not) Genesis's epic "Supper's Ready" distilled into an introspective radio soundbite. In 1989, I predicted that this Vancouver band would have an illustrious career and relegate Kingston, Ontario's Tragically Hip (rising to prominence right around the same time) to the trash heap of Canadian pop. The evidence: TH's "New Orleans is Sinking" and "Blow at High Dough" (both of which still make me cringe) vs. GOW's "All The Things I Wasn't" and "O' Lucky Man." Okay, so Grapes of Wrath's career didn't pan out quite as expected, but seriously, does anyone even know what happened to Tragically Hip? It's like they disappeared off the face of the earth or something.

11. "Lovers in a Dangerous Time," Barenaked Ladies (1991)
I'm dazzled by the beauty of this Bruce Cockburn cover--their one (their only) shining moment--especially by the way they effortlessly switch gears from a syrupy cello-and-piano ballad into the hyper skiffle-billy beat of the finale. Probably the best fully homegrown Can-Con cover of all-time--though, really, what else is there? Neil Young's version of Ian & Sylvia's "Four Strong Winds" is okay; Maestro sampling the Guess Who only half-qualifies; the "Barenaked Bruce" mash-up that made rounds on the web a couple years ago ("If I had a million dollars/some son of a bitch would die!") is little more than inspired silliness.

12. "Trees Lounge," Hayden (1996)
Weird folk, indeed, if by "folk" you mean a song that would've been a standout cut on In Utero. A lot of presence in this recording, and a terrific drummer; those pauses on the downbeat during the guitar break are perfect.

PROTO-PUNKS

13. "Brainwashed," David Clayton-Thomas (1966)
Not "jazz rock" (though one piano fill sounds enlightened), more like a pummeling, anti-U.S. foreign policy garage rocker (a precursor to "American Woman"?)--one that, incidentally, got him (literally) bleeped for rhyming "damn" with "'Nam." #1 in Canada. Didn't chart at all down south.

14. "1,2,5," the Haunted (1966)
Garage rock from Chateauguy, Quebec, or A Much Noisier Side of Bob Dylan. Just some guy mouthing off (not saying anything, as far as I can tell) over a big beat and really simplistic organ, bass, and guitar lines. Check out also "Vapeur Mauve," their French version (no kidding) of Jimi Hendrix's biggest hit.

15. "Ambulance Blues," Neil Young (1974)
In many ways, this eight-minute stripped-down T-Dot epic is much more in tune with what Hollywood was turning out in 1974 than it is with any other music from that year, with the possible exception of Pretzel Logic. In its resigned, shattering tone, it feels more of a piece with The Conversation, and Godfather II than it does with, I don't know, Court and Spark or Planet Waves (to name two obvious reference points that often come up when discussing Neil Young). If you ran "Ambulance Blues" over Michael Corleone's final flashback from Godfather II--when he announces to his brothers that he has joined the army--the match up would be considerably more interesting I bet than Dark Side of the Moon synched up to The Wizard of Oz. (Best Supporting Actor: Violinist Rusty Kershaw.)

EARLY MULTI-TASKERS

16. "Opportunity," Mandala (1967)
"We came 3,000 miles from Canada to LA to tell you exactly how it feels. And maybe--maybe it's here we'll get our opportunity!" No one would get away with this now--not without being excommunicated by the Canadian media. Musically, this is garage-soul from an era when it was often hard to tell the difference. Guitarist Domenic Troiano and organist Joey Chirowsy engage in a noisy banter, and vocalist George Oliver (who reminds me a little bit of John Kay from Steppenwolf) sweats though the performance while keeping the histrionics (most of the time) at bay.

17. "When I Die," Motherlode (1969)
This peaked on Billboard at #18 a couple months before Blood, Sweat & Tears peaked on Billboard at #2 with "And When I Die," so in a way there were two wildly different Top 40 meditations on death at the exact same time made by two different groups of Canadians. (Also, "When I Die And When I Die" would make a great Smiths title.) The B.S.T. song is likeable up-tempo horn-driven pop. The Motherlode track is a sweet gospel-soul falsetto ballad, something that would've fit perfectly in Crooklyn (renamed Kensington, of course, and no, Atom Egoyan is not allowed anywhere near the set).

18. "As Years Go By," Mashmakhan (1970)
A genre grocery list sort of record (MASHmakhan--get it?), almost M/A/R/R/S-like in its fit-the-pieces-of-the-puzzle-together-ness. It goes a little something like this: Horror movie music (featuring Lon Chaney on organ); polka (the rhythm in the verses...note the similarities to ska); progressive hard rock (the Deep Purplish breakdown); loungey schmaltz (the singer stretching his "I" on "I will love you"); Israeli folk icon, Theodore Bikel; Grass Roots's "Live For Today."

19. "Raised on Robbery," Joni Mitchell (1974)
The flimsiest and fastest song from Court and Spark flaunts just as many genres as Mashmakhan, though it's a little less of an exercise. The Breakdown: Hard rock (a first--an only?--for her); jazz (no need to be afraid--it's the kind you can dance to); the Andrews Sisters; doo-wop; corporate L.A. studio pop; Stevie Wonder keyboards; standup comedy, uh, poetry...everything, it would seem, but "folk." It's also a more fully realized version of what Springsteen was aiming for on his first two (even three, I'd wager) albums.

SUNSHINE, LOLLIPOPS, INCENSE, AND PEPPERMINTS

20. "Cornflakes and Ice Cream," Lords of London (1967)
A fairy-tale, merry-go-round sound, Carnaby St. in a dream. "You grew up into a beauty queen/I grew up into a music machine." #1 on CHUM.

21. "Half Past Midnight," Staccatos (1967)
Lovely pop-vocal sound, doo-wop as if it had been invented in 1965 on the cusp of psychedelia instead of in 1948. This Ottawa group eventually mutated into Five Man Electrical Band.

22. "If You're Looking," Tranquility Base (1970)
My brother Paul pushed a few good ones on to my list, including this, perhaps my favourite discovery of the last 30 days. Tranquility Base were a Toronto group fronted by Ian Thomas, though it sounds nothing at all like the sort of stuff he would later chart as a solo artist ("Painted Ladies," "Coming Home," et al.). "If You're Looking" has an oddly fluid yet stately sound--a droogy Association or an extended family version of the Mamas and Papas, with a string and flute arrangement fresh off some forgotten Bollywood soundtrack. This sounds pretty weird now--I can't imagine how it sounded on the radio back then.

SHIMMERING SONGBIRDS

23. "Beautiful Second Hand Man," Ginette Reno (1970)
A lesser-known but key record in what I would label the "post-Expo sunny daze" phase of Canadian pop: musical reverberations from the great big cultural smile that started with the international fair in '67, lingered on for a few years with Trudeaumania, and culminated with Paul Henderson's winning goal in '72 (to tie maybe too precise a bow around the moment). Others of that ilk include: "Share the Land," "Oh What a Feeling," Ocean's "Put Your Hand in the Hand" (K-Tel pop in extremis), Lighthouse's "One Fine Morning" and "Sunny Days," Anne Murray's "What About Me," and of course, Bobby Gimby and the Young Canadian Singers's "Canada," a government-commissioned Expo theme song, available on 7" vinyl, and a bona fide retail phenomenon. It sold kazillions.

"Beautiful Second Hand Man" by Montreal's Ginette Reno, bears no specific relation to the putative post-Expo theme (though it's tempting to replace "man" with "land"), but then neither do most of those records. The "theme" is in the shared attitude and the confidence of the moment. A vibe that, with its brassy, kick-your-legs-in-the-air chorus, Reno taps into perfectly.

24. "Stay Awhile," the Bells (1970)
Featherweight what-goes-on-in-the-bedroom AM fodder from a Montreal group featuring husband and wife vocalists Anne and Cliff Edwards. Wispy, banal, beautiful, and #1 in Canada (#7 on Billboard). And yet, bizarrely creepy too, in a Twin Peaks kind of way:
"Into my room, he creeps / Without making a sound.
Into my dreams he peeps / With his hair all long and hanging down."
Eww.

25. "Talk It Over in the Morning," Anne Murray (1971)
Her greatest hit of all was approximately her 14th most popular one, but maybe time itself has caught up with the song, a perfectly composed and arranged Bacharach recreation penned by Roger Nichols and Paul Williams (of "We've Only Just Begun" and "I Won't Last a Day Without You" fame). With a graceful, quietly soaring vocal Anne exudes what Lester Bangs called "the scientific application of that time honoured and almost forgotten erotic technique--the holdout."

26. "I Want You to Love Me," Susan Jacks (1974)
Written by her former husband Terry Jacks (both were also part of the Poppy Family), there's more than a bit of Dusty Springfield in this yearning, want-you-so-badly performance: not exactly the early pop Dusty ("I Only Want to Be With You") nor the late '60s white soul queen (Dusty in Memphis), but rather, something in between, a girl growing into a woman right before our ears. It's also a fairly early example of a synthesizer hook in the Top 40--a good one, too.

SENSITIVE SEVENTIES GUYS

27. "Make Me Do (Anything You Want)," A Foot in Coldwater (1971)
The closest domestic equivalent Canadian high school guys had to "Stairway to Heaven" in the first half of the seventies: last chance to cop a feel on the dance floor, basically. (Not that I was in high school then or copping any feels on any dance floors...) Edward Bear's "Last Song" was strictly "ladies choice."

28. "Sour Suite," Guess Who (1972)
Just a guy at a piano with some dramatic orchestration to punctuate his pain--as much a Burton Cummings solo record as a Guess Who record. Melodically, the song is a blueprint for the later Guess Who hit, "Glamour Boy" (with more than a hint of Bread's "Guitar Man"), though it never quite explodes into the huge neon advertisement of a chorus that the later one does. The music here builds quite forcefully, but Cummings never resolves his highly coded traumas (what's this "4-6-2-0-1" he keeps referring to? the room he's staying in at the asylum?), not even through songs themselves, which he distrusts more than anything else: "And worn out phrases just keep a-hangin' on."

29. "Pretty Lady," Lighthouse (1973)
30. "Oh My Lady," Stampeders (1973)
I'm sure more than one thoughtful radio DJ at the time stumbled on to this "twofer" set. Terrific mid-tempo, male-gaze ballads, both much fresher to the ears 30 years later than "Sweet City Woman" or "One Fine Morning" (which are still pretty good anyway). The Stampeders go for a "homegrown" feel (cue the harmonica), but embellish it with a nice string arrangement. The Lighthouse song is more like a daydream: "Maybe once in my life/make love to you." "Maybe?" "Once?"

31. "If You Go Away," Terry Jacks (1974)
I imagine that if you didn't hear this song while growing up and encountered it for the first time now, it might be a hard sell; unlike Tranquility Base or Mashmakhan or Thundermug, which I think anyone with a taste for great radio singles would latch on to almost instantly if they heard them, "If You Go Away" leans so heavily toward the theatrical that it would no doubt just sound like dreck to some ears. But it's a crystalline production, with every musical flourish directing the song toward some unfathomable horror, from the staccato cheese organ riffs to the heavily orchestrated backdrop to the murderous snare shots that emphasize the lines of the chorus. And then, of course, there's Jacks himself, at his most emotional and most bathetic.

BUTANE BOUILLABAISSE

32. "Oh, What a Feeling," Crowbar (1971)
As the very first single released in Canada following the 1971 Can-Con legislation (which mandated that radio stations should play 30% Canadian music between 6 AM and midnight), there's something maybe a bit opportune or contrived about this feel-good anthem. It's like a "rock and roll jive" update of the Gimby single. The lone verse in "OWAF" is fairly forgettable and the track ultimately doesn't go anywhere--with all that excitement generated in the first 30 seconds, there aren't many heights left to achieve. But the hooting and hollering that run through the song do add a genuine celebratory flavour to it all (a lesson not lost on early hip-hoppers), and the hook is still-- well, the hook, and it will sound great over a loud tinny playback on a shitty sound system in an inhumane and ergonomically challenged hockey arena for as long as such things exist (assuming they still do).

33. "Get Up, Get Out and Move On," Fludd (1972)
In Phil Dellio's words, a "Dazed and Canadian favourite, a one-of-a-kind extravaganza by a group that just located the wah-wah pedal on their amplifier and got a little carried away."

34. "Africa," Thundermug (1972)
The best thing ever to come out of London, Ontario (about which, more later), and one of my dozen favourite hard rock singles of the '70s. What it is: a rumbling rhythm section laying down the foundations for techno, a vocalist giddy with delight over the hook he just stumbled upon ("Love A-free-ka/ah-ah-ah"), and an eerily prescient kazoo solo, eons before the Bomb Squad went out and bought their own.

35. "Hey You," Bachman-Turner Overdrive (1975)
Basically just a great excuse to shout "sha-la-la-la" out of a car window.

36. "Fly at Night," Chilliwack (1977)
I didn't grow up with any Neil Young albums in my household, so until 1978 or '79, all I knew by him was "Heart of Gold, "Old Man," and "Helpless" (oops--my brother did own C,S,N,Y's Deja Vu). But on more than one occasion I mistook "Fly at Night" for a Neil Young song, even though it seemed really strange that he would have two songs on the radio about old men with parts that sounded almost identical but which were clearly different because one song ended up all fast and rocky while the other one stayed slow and mellow and had a banjo. (I also thought "A Horse With No Name" and "Painted Ladies" were by Neil Young too, common mistakes among kids at the time, I assume.)

In a way, "Fly at Night" still strikes me as what could've been the lead-off single from the electric Harvest Neil never released; that is, from the mainstream LA rock album he recorded in 1976 (Tractor?) after ditching Crazy Horse, disowning Tonight's the Night and On the Beach--"godawful crap, what was I thinking?"--and hooking up instead with Waddy Wachtel, Larry Carlton, Wayne Perkins, Michael McDonald, and someone nicknamed "Goose." (Produced by Gary Katz, cover photo by Richard Avedon.)

37. "Magic Power," Triumph (1981)
The sort of obligatory push-button power ballad that every metal or hard rock band has to attempt at least once in their career. And when someone pulls it off as well as Boston--I mean Triumph--do here, you don't complain or scoff or fret about any concerns you might have listening to a Journey--I mean Triumph--record. You just sink backwards on your pillow and let "the magic power of the music" wash over you. And then you go back to the kitchen and finish the damn dishes.

38. "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You," Bryan Adams (1991)
Declared "un-Canadian at any speed" by the infinitely wise bureaucrats who run the Canadian music industry because it didn't fit the prescribed Can-Con breakdown (MAPL: Music/Artist/Production/Lyrics), Adams responded with a loud, public "Fuck you!" (We could use more like him.) The by-far prettiest song in his repertoire (dampened only slightly by a fairly rote guitar solo) didn't need our help anyway: it sat at #1 on Billboard for seven weeks. I like about half of Adams's singles and dislike a number of them as well. The only other ones I considered for the list are "Run To You" and "Summer of 69."

BUBBLEGUMMY

39. "So Good Together," Andy Kim (1969)
Only the Guess Who and Anne Murray pulled off more Top 40 Billboard hits in their day--14 and 11, respectively, compared to his seven (BTO were close behind with six)--but none of them co-wrote "Sugar Sugar" with Jeff Barry, which alone marks Kim as an immortal pop figure. Of the pop hits by him I'm familiar with, I much prefer the ones where he sounds fey and girlish ("Shoot 'Em Up Baby" and a solid cover of "Be My Baby") over the ones where he sounds like a hopped-up Anthony Newley with his chest hairs showing ("Fire, Baby I'm on Fire," "Rock Me Gently"). "So Good Together" marries his most bombastic Spector-like arrangement of all to a vocal that's lithe, lean, and pure wimp.

40. "I Believe in Sunshine," Madrigal (1970)
K-Tel compilations turned out to be a great source for Canadiana, not surprising given that it was a Winnipeg operation. Albums like 22 Explosive Hits, I Believe in Music, and Blockbuster turned up all sorts of neat (and twice as many terrible) things I'd either forgotten about completely or was unfamiliar with: tracks by Shooter, Bond, Les Emmerson, Chester, etc. "I Believe in Sunshine" is one from the never-heard-of pile, a homegrown bubblegum track with slightly icky post-Expo sentiments ("it can never rain when I've got/sunshine close to me") and a strong arrangement (love that delay on the piano solo). The intro is lifted part and parcel from "I Think We're Alone Now."

41. "Heartbeat (It's a Lovebeat)," DeFranco Family (1973)
#1 with a squirt gun, and as good an example of any teen-pop track from before or since of how sophisticated simple-minded music like this can get. Propelled by a glistening harpsichord and a bombastic orchestral score (note how the toms accentuate the "listen to my heart pound" line--an obvious and effective bit of pop mastery), the minor-key verses and atonal bridge merely serve to augment the puppy-love glee that emanates from the chorus. Well done, lads! The follow-up, "Abra-Ca-Dabra" was mere stupid shit, though not terrible.

42. "Under Your Spell," Candi (1988)
A little bit of Madonna in the sound, and a whole lot of Stock/Aitken/Waterman. Earnest, but not overbearingly so. Most disconcerting fact I've learned in the last five minutes: Candi was a group!

43. "A Thousand Stars," Tuuli (2002)
Girl pop-punks from Toronto on an all-out blitz to make a teen-dream ballad as wide-eyed and appetizing as "I Want it That Way"--except that the punk in them keeps nudging its way into the sound. The music bruises as much as it soothes. Amazingly--and sadly--they didn't take over the world with this song (or with the great album that spawned it, Here We Go). And while I'm hardly the type to begrudge Avril Lavigne or Sum 41 their success--both of them have good tunes, no reason to deny them that--the Tuuli record just gets to me in a way that neither of their records do.

POWER POP

44. "Some Sing, Some Dance," Pagliaro (1972)
A bilingual pop master from Montreal with three great English-language hits to his credit (cf. "Lovin' You Ain't So Easy" and "What the Hell I Got"). In "Some Sing, Some Dance," Pagliaro mucks up all notions of identity by slipping in and out of a cooing British accent in the verses to a southern drawl in the chorus (I always thought "some sing" was "some sang"). Here, as elsewhere, he sounds as sad as anyone that the Beatles are no longer around--those big, open acoustic guitar strums tell the story well--but along with Badfinger, he's at least willing to try and make us all forget. I mean remember.

45. "Can You Give it All to Me," Miles and Lenny (1974)
A weird record that I only have the slightest recall of hearing as a kid: a muffled, orchestral backdrop and some trembling voices that sound like they're suffocating, or sinking in quicksand. A David Essex-Moody Blues-ELO merger with a couple pre-disco Bee Gees on top. The type of song that doesn't jump off the radio but rather oozes out of it. I don't know anything about Miles and Lenny (I'm not even sure I got the date of the song right here) and it's probably better that way.

46. "Underwhelmed," Sloan (1992)
What's the bigger sin if you're a music critic living in Canada: to admit that you love songs by Bryan Adams and Snow, or to admit that you're not really as nuts about Sloan as you're supposed to be? The thing is, I do like Sloan--I'm just a bit underwhelmed when I try to reconcile their press clippings with their actual accomplishments as a singles band. At some point, fairly early on in their career (even in songs I like, such as "Coax Me"), they started to turn out stuff that sounded increasingly rarified: music that was much better at capturing a moment (be it '66 UK or '73 stoner rock) than it was at tapping into the moment. The latter is obviously not something you can do by design--and I would never impose this as a rule, per se--but it's one of the mysterious things that makes popular music, well, pop (as both a verb and a noun). It's what separates, say, the Flamin' Groovies from Elton John, or Big Star from Cheap Trick (guess which side I prefer?).

"Underwhelmed" is great pop, not great "pop." It's very much a part of 1993, and it still sounds terrific ten years on. The lyrics are smart-silly in the best possible way (knowing, but not smarmy), the guitars and the beat are warm, loud, and shambolic (not dry, dull, and grungey)--it's a bang-up of a performance all around, and it still feels like kids discovering something right there on the spot ("this is so cool!"). On some old notes of mine, I mentioned that the video has "major homoerotic elements," but I can't remember what I was thinking when I wrote that and I haven't seen the thing in ages.

47. "Love of Minds," Odds (1993)
A fine if spotty group from Vancouver who deserved better but should've demanded better too. They lowered the ante on too many good singles ("Wendy Under the Stars," "It Falls Apart," "Someone Who is Cool") by releasing almost as many duds ("Heterosexual Man"? "Eat My Brain"?). "Love of Minds" showcases one of the group's strengths: the vocal harmonies between songwriters Steven Drake and Craig Northey, which are sweet and Beatle-esque and all that, but also fully alive and present and ready to lunge out at you. Likewise, the music is polished, bright, and not at all timid or indie.

INSTRU-MENTALISTS

48. "Theme From 'A Summer Place,'" Percy Faith (1960)
The roots of string disco (also of Air). At weddings, I often mix this in during the dinner portion with Love Unlimited Orchestra's "Love's Theme." Downloading recommendation for harpsichord lovers: Faith's 1952 hit "Delicado," harpsichord lounge-bop at its most deranged.

49. "Music Box Dancer," Frank Mills (1979)
Like "Louie Louie," this b-side was flipped into a hit by some enterprising DJ. Me, I despised it at the time along with all the other instrumental piano hits of the era (Hagood Hardy's "The Homecoming" and Vangelis's "Chariots of Fire" are the two that come to mind...it would be several years still before Robert Miles would pick up this particular gauntlet and run with it). 25 years removed from whatever made me hate it so much--peer pressure and punk rock, of course, but also having to hear it six times a day on my parent's radio station--it now just sounds like goofy novelty pop, a geriatric "Popcorn" for the back-to-acoustic set. (I wonder what Glenn Gould made of it all??)

50. "Robot Shuffle," Kid Koala (2000)
"Robot Glam Stomp" is more like it--a sly mutation of Gary Glitter's "Rock and Roll (Part 2)" beat with indecipherable Kraftwerk simulations and scratched-in hip-hoppers and soul-shouters on top providing not so much content as just more stuff floating by in a grand parade of life-affirming packaging. This Montreal turntablist/studio whiz adds a big warped, childlike grin to everything he touches. If Pee-Wee's Playhouse was melted down into a slab of vinyl, it would surely have Kid Koala's stamp all over its grooves.

GLITTERY

51. "Roxy Roller," Sweeney Todd (1976)
Big beat guitar techno. If there's a more androgynous vocalist in '70s rock than Nick Gilder, I haven't heard him (or her). I was raised on a steady diet of glam and I had no idea it was a guy singing this song (or his followup solo smash, "Hot Child in the City," which I don't think has worn quite so well). Plenty of other male vocalists sing higher--the Sparks fellow, for instance, who would never be mistaken for a girl--but Gilder, over top a monstrous, trebly T-Rex riff, inhabits girlfulness in his performance (a terribly pretentious description that might make more sense if you listen to it). Back then, everyone cracked up over the "bubblegum on her knees" line, and then freaked out over the space-age synth bubble that followed it.

52. "Sweet Thing," Goddo (1978)
Tim Powis summed it up well in the rockcritics Top 5 section: "A shamelessly lusty ode to a teenage groupie. Listen to the way the singer lecherously whispers 'Yeah!' before the first verse." "Lecherous" is precisely the right word for this; thank God punk didn't kill off all the bad guys.

53. "All Touch," Rough Trade (1982)
A tense, fast, in-and-out new wave relationship song from post-Cabaret duo, Carole Pope and Kevan Staples. "All touch and no contact"--presumably they mean of the emotional sort, though given their robotic exterior it's hard to say for sure. It's a dance track made by people under the illusion that they're actually making hard rock or punk; not all that different from Loverboy, come to think of it.

54. "Anna," Pure (1995)
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Suede, with a guitar riff that could give you toothache.

INTERPLANETARY CRAFTSMEN

55. "I'm a Stranger Here," Five Man Electrical Band (1973)
The "long-haired freaky people" and hippie morality play of their big hit "Signs" is replaced here by creatures from outer space and a different kind of morality play: a) the environment is going to pot; b) the little green men said so. In other words, very silly stuff, but kind of irresistible if alien-pop is your bag, and if you just can't get enough variations of the "Cinnamon Girl" riff.

56. "Here Come the Cyborgs Part 1," Simply Saucer (1974)
Taken from the belated compilation, Cyborgs Revisited (2003), which is hardly "the best Canadian LP ever" (according to Alternative Press--what did you think they'd say, second best after Lawrence Gowan's debut?), but it comes with a great story nonetheless. Headline: "Obscure Mid-70s Hamilton, Ontario Band Invent Post-Punk Sound Three Years Prior to Actual Punk; City Ignores." This is probably the most obvious track from the record, and you can't turn away from the sound: wild, exuberant rhythms going bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang really fast, guitar squalls all over the place, space rock weirdness providing atmosphere, and a nerdy guy on vocals sounding nerdy. Recorded by a young Daniel Lanois.

57. "Spaceship Superstar," Prism (1977)
As with "I'm a Stranger Here," the sort of song that logic dictates you should grow out of once you make it to, I dunno, your 13th birthday or something, but I have the same giddy response to it now as I did in '77. Mind you, even then it was hard to hear this without being aware that they were in on the joke--or anyway, that they never took all this intergalactic jazz too seriously. Two clues: 1) the background vocals in the chorus ("he's a spaceship superstar") which evoke images of sashaying vixens wearing long, flowing capes and gobs of eyeliner; 2) the sardonic pronunciation of "guitar" ("gi-tawww"). And speaking of pronunciations, the birth of Axl Rose can be found in Ron Tabak shouting "Meteorites!"

58. "Phasors on Stun," FM (1977)
A "Halo of Flies" intro makes way for a swirling, glittery mixture of synths and mandolins, giving this a slight Eddie Jobson-Roxy Music feel (circa Country Life). More than that it's the Yes record that was deemed OK for '77 Toronto punks to like, thanks mainly to the looming presence of our resident Resident and bandaged bandit, Nash the Slash, who later went on to a pop-art recording career of minor note (recording a cute if stillborn version of "Dead Man's Curve").

DISQO (NOT DISCO)

59. "Come To Me," France Joli" (1979)
Opening with a languid, willowy, awaking-from-a-dream sequence, it's hard when you listen to this to reconcile the fact that it was actually made by a 16-year old. It sounds way too assured, way too lived-in, for that. Big in Europe.

60. "(Boogie Woogie) Dancing Shoes," Claudja Barry (1979)
I love disco records from the late '70s that send up rock records or soul classics. The best example I can think of is Amii Stewart's militaristic makeover of "Knock on Wood," which surely must've horrified many Stax lovers at the time. In a less grandiose fashion, Claudja Barry does a cheeky little commentary here by lifting the central hook from the Music Explosion's 1967 hit, "Little Bit of Soul." I always wonder: were disco producers trying to be cheeky when they did this sort of thing? Or were they just innocently inserting hooks like this into the songs merely because they sounded good?

61. "Dancer," Gino Soccio (1979)
A lot of things happen in this mix--melodic twists and different sounds (sax, electric guitar, futuristic synthesizer sprinklings) fly in and out of it--but the basic pulse--the sparse drum pattern and a simple bass line which is doubled up on a piano--is so sure, so steady, and so obsessive in following its own groove that even the slightest alteration to the frame of the track would cause the whole thing to collapse. To ears not in love with disco, it must sound merely repetitive. But as Tom Smucker wrote about the song in the Rolling Stone Illustrate History of Rock & Roll: "This produced a druggy and hypnotic effect closer to rock-disco or even traditional funk, though a Eurodisco sense of drama remained."
Footnote: Soccio once produced a disco record for Guy Lafleur.

62. "Angel Eyes," Lime (1983)
I really want to hear more of this Montreal group; the three tracks I know by them are all excellent and a little bizarre. Last-call-at-the-bar helium disco that paves the way for Hi-Nrg. I was going to remark on their voices, but a review in Amazon (by Aaron S. Holsberg) says it well: "Working on a shoestring, Denis and Denise LePage (husband/wife? brother/sister?) of Montreal, Canada delivered crisp, zippy synth production, catchy melodies, and charmingly imperfect vocals--his voice is gravelly and low, hers is squeaky and high, the contrast is great."

63. "Bye Bye Mon Cowboy," Mitsou (1989)
With a cowbell that could humble Leslie West, listening to it now, I'm surprised I ever thought of this in such strict terms as "dance music" (which isn't to suggest that you can't define it that way, or indeed, dance to it). It's a new wave-rock tune with a sax-accented rhythm. Beat-mixes nicely with Smash Mouth's "Walking in the Sun."

PUNK

64. "New York City," Demics (1979)
There are many notable things one can say about London, Ontario. It's the only city in the world that has a bridge named after Guy Lombardo. The Rolling Stones once played a concert there in 1964 and had the plug pulled on them by the cops. There are more plazas and donut shops per square foot in London than in any other city in the world (geographical fact). It is the birthplace of the Demics. If "New York City" has gained a reputation over the years a little out of proportion with how good it actually is--voted best Canadian single of all-time in a rather dreary Chart poll--I can at least verify that it was very exciting in 1979 to discover that stuff was happening right in my hometown. Someone here was actually making a difference.

Over a fairly pedestrian dirgey Stooges riff, Keith Whittaker (R.I.P.) doesn't sing the tune so much as he intones it, barely even attempting to overcome his alienation, like, yeah, he wants to go there but deep down he holds no illusions that it'll actually change him (pretty sure the line, "'cause they tell me it's the place to be" is 100% sarcasm). He only seems to wake up when the lyric sheet demands it: "I'm getting fuckin' pissed off, you know!/I'm tired of goin' downtown." Not too many years after this came out, London wouldn't even have a downtown to complain about, hence the outbreak of those aforementioned plazas on every corner of the city.

65. "Picture My Face," Teenage Head (1979)
If you're familiar with the music on my list from this era, I probably don't have to explain that it's a fine line here between "punk" and "new wave," but my process for deciding was fairly simple: if there were any synthesizers used during the recording of said track, it goes in new wave; otherwise, if there are no synthesizers but it conveys some form of anger, hurt, fear, weird humour, or violence and it's fast and has simple chords and is basically derived from the Ramones (and was referred to as "punk" back in the day, "the day" meaning between 1977 and 1979), it's punk. (Pointed Sticks use an organ, but that's not even close to the same thing as a synthesizer; so did ? and the Mysterians, and the Ramones might've too if they could've afforded one.) This has a guitar solo, but that's okay. It's not like it ruins the song or anything.

66. "Part of the Noise," Pointed Sticks (1979)
Vancouver pop-punk that has rightly been compared to the Buzzcocks, but you'd have to willfully ignore your ears and good sense to not also hear a sound verging on what Streetheart and Loverboy were getting at just around the same time and around the corner: taut, hyper-pitched energy with the sheen (if not exactly the beat or tempo) of disco. The drummer's name is Dimwit, but he's not. Produced by Bob Rock, mixed at Little Mountain Sound.

67. "Surfin' On Heroin," Forgotten Rebels (1981)
Time heals all wounds. No, I'm not a former junkie or anything, just someone who had grown incredibly sick of this song after years and years of hearing it on alternative and college radio. Returning to it for the first time in a long time, it sounded great all over again, but the first thing that struck me (as with the Demics) was how blasé they're trying to be--like it wouldn't be "punk" enough for them to really get into it or something. Which I don't really have a problem with, it's just not exactly how I remembered hearing it under much different circumstances.

NEW WAVE

68. "Tired of Waking Up Tired," Diodes (1978)
Couldn't tell you if they had another good track in them--a cover of the Cyrkle's "Red Rubber Ball" sounds negligible now--but who cares, this is more than enough to hang a semi-legend on. If punk or new wave was the springboard, the sense of weariness comes from Ray Davies, circa '66. Lazing on a sunny afternoon and increasingly irritated about it.

69. "Say Hello," April Wine (1979)
My brother-in-law Tom recommended this one (my initial choice was the power-poppy "Tonite is a Wonderful Time") and wrote: "The only song of theirs I can even stand, but a really good one: I love the way the drums keep slipping on and off the backbeat." I'm not sure exactly what he means, but it sounds to me like the beat here is on a different counter than the rest of the music; it's at the same tempo, but the downbeat doesn't always come in where you naturally expect it to line up with the rest of the music--or maybe the beat is regular and it's the rest of the music that's irregular. Whatever--it's fairly complex stuff. But it's also pop music, and it's not like it's hard to follow along; you only get messed up when you start to pay really close attention.

Aside from that weird beat, it's also just a really good Police record, one of at least four really good Canadian Police records released around this period, all of which I might even prefer to the real thing: "Miss Plaza Suite" by Streetheart, "Eyes of Stranger" by the Payola$, and "New World Man" by Rush, the last one a dead ringer for "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic."

70. "China Boys," Payola$ (1979)
Absurd brilliance from Vancouver's Rock and Hyde axis ("Rock" meaning producer Bob Rock) that sucks every last formal gesture of new wave dry, from the keyboard patch named "ultra-cheesy" to the near-indecipherable British yowl of expatriate Paul Hyde (a gesture that would reach even more inane proportions in the duo's 1987 hit, "Du-tee Woah-tah"), to the hooligan chant of the chorus, to the regrettable Asia-is-all-the-rage theme.

71. "Echo Beach," Martha & the Muffins (1980)
A highly refined version of a sound that derives primarily from Essential Logic and early Stranglers. Also, one of the only new wave songs I can think of with a flute part--at least until the arrival of Men at Work. (Other strong M&M considerations: "Paint By Numbers Heart," "This is the Ice Age," and "Swimming," the latter two produced by Lanois and possibly the music that brought Eno to his attention: trippy, polyrhythmic, ambient pop.)

72. "Nyet Nyet Soviet," BB Gabor (1980)
With what sounds like a "treated" guitar pulse running through the entire performance and the Red Army Choir (recruited from a Murray McLaughlin session in an adjacent studio) on background vocals, this is probably the closest thing on this list to "industrial"--sorry Skinny Puppy lovers--though it's thin and weedy too, hence... nu wave. Produced by Terry Brown of Rush fame.

CORPORATE DILETTANTES

73. "Action," Streetheart (1978)
Streetheart were the most consistent of the west coast's critically despised but very popular new wave-disco-metal-prog scene of the late '70s and early '80s (which also included Loverboy, Harlequin, Sweeney Todd, and, in an early incarnation as a guy who made disco 12" singles, Bryan Adams)--except that it maybe wasn't a "scene," per se. More like a weird, momentary blip on the Can-Con radar. Streetheart have a few really strong tracks--including a good dance version of "Under My Thumb"--but "Action" is probably their peak. As quilty in its own way as Mashmakhan, it's highlighted by shrieking interjections of metallic guitars, a drummer doing the sizzling 16th-note hi-hat thing, voices in the chorus that sound like they fell off a Queen or Sweet single...and a lead singer slipping in a bit of colonial rubbish.

74. "Workin' For the Weekend," Loverboy (1981)
Choosing "any song by Loverboy" as the second worst Canadian single of all-time (after a disco song, naturally) in their book Mondo Canuck, Geoff Pevere and Greig Dymond sum up the band's radio output thusly: "They're all frightening examples of just how derivative Canadian stud rock became in the eighties. Simply too much tight leather and irony-free testosterone for our taste." Whether there's irony in their testosterone or not--and I'd argue that the testosterone levels are actually pretty low in this music compared to most hard rock; in fact, I always assumed it was their swishy-ness that rubbed people the wrong way--Loverboy did turn out a few crafty radio hits in their day, though admittedly, you're either willing to go along with vocalist Mike ("no relation to Ginette") Reno, or you're not. "Turn Me Loose" is their most intense recording--a rock-disco fellatio-fest that now sounds like an early '80s archetype--but "Working For the Weekend" has more Devo energy, and is a rather thrilling electro rave-up. It's like a Bowie showdown between the hard rock of his glam phase and the hookier ambient sections from his Berlin LPs.

75. "On the Loose," Saga (1981)
Though it's still a pop song, "On the Loose" (produced by Rupert Hine and a big hit in Germany) is probably the closest thing on this list to actual prog-rock. And the further it gets into prog--the more layers of Euro-centric keyboard trills it adds--the more I tend to eat it up. The production isn't merely excellent, it's actually inspired. But by what? you ask. Well, by ABBA (the insanely-reverbed-out piano in the chorus), by dub, by heavy metal, and classical harp music.

76. "Innocence," Harlequin (1981)
I don't know how even the most hardened-against-the-'80s sort of pop fan (you know who you are) could deny this great, catchy hit from a Winnipeg group who didn't know what they were but knew how to get it. This is hard-rock disco with a note-for-note rhythm straight out of "Jump" three years before the fact. Produced by Jack Douglas of Aerosmith, Patti Smith, and Cheap Trick fame.

77. "All I Need," Toronto (1983)
When this hard rock group led by two women (one of whom was named Holly Woods) are remembered at all it's more for the guitar-based hits, "Your Daddy Don't Know" (very good) and "Even the Score" (fairly brutal), but on this synthetic mid-tempo dance track they strike a more melancholic (and melodic) pose: eyeliner disco laced with regret. Better than Kansas and Texas, if not quite as good as Boston or Chicago (sorry, not familiar enough with Detroit or Alabama).

BIG SHINY TUNESMITHS

78. "We Run," Strange Advance (1985)
Another very pleasant first-time discovery for me; an icy, full-on backdrop of synthesizers and rigid white-funk bass lines melted into liquid matter by a recurring string sequence and a vocal that is at turns awkward and yearning. The Pet Shop Boys would not have relegated this to a b-side.

79. "Sunglasses at Night," Corey Hart (1985)
If Billy Idol is master of the '80s Sneer, Corey Hart is our reigning '80s Pouter. Always looking bent out of shape about something, you could never tell if was he going to explode into a temper tantrum or break down and start blubbering like a big cry baby, all of which was no doubt an enormous part of his appeal to young women (and, apparently, gay men) across the land. I absolutely loathe "Never Surrender," Hart's first #1, but this introductory chart hit sounds surprisingly strong in retrospect: a hypnotic, baroque synthesizer pulse sets the stage for a showdown between a Prince-style rocker (check out those keyboard stabs) and a Sylvester-style sex-dance track. And of course, Mr. Pouty on top, just doing his thing.

80. "Don't Forget Me When I'm Gone," Glass Tiger (1986)
A mid-80s song that employs what I call the "street-strut beat," which was popular in all sorts of dance and pop hits from the era. (cf. "The Way You Make Me Feel," "True Blue," "Everybody Wants to Rule the World," and on the Canadian side, West End Girls's "Not Like Kissing You" and Rock and Hyde's "Dirty Water.") Glass Tiger's first hit still feels like a heroic gesture, awash as it is in thunderous drum rolls, spirited fake horns, and a guest appearance by Bryan Adams that still catches me a little off guard. It's like rubbing sandpaper against, well, glass, and finding that not only doesn't it ruin it, it actually improves the sparkle.

81. "They Call it Democracy," Bruce Cockburn (1986)
I like the way the rippling whammy-barred guitar lines wrap themselves around Cockburn's huge sequenced beat here (part MTV, part Africa), and the strong vocal melody make his politics more rather than less interesting. Explicitly political pop records are always a tricky business (and the much more lauded "If I Had a Rocket Launcher" is an example of a failed one in my view), but I'd happily welcome something like this on the airwaves today. I actually can't imagine what it would be like to hear it in that context.

82. "Closer Together," the Box (1987)
Searching for that old Expo feeling 20 years on. An English pop hit from Montreal that's like a big group hug for citizens across the land: "it's up to you and up to me and up to all of us," a line that twists Lennon's more nonsensical admonition from "I Am the Walrus" into something a little more Up With People. But though it verges on drowning in these sentiments--Mulroney-mania was hardly igniting cross-country harmony regardless--the music holds it all together: slick, mainstream '80s Big Pop, played not merely with conviction but with naivete.

83. "Julian," Alta Moda (1987)
I'd be really surprised to find out that Michael Stipe didn't have this song on his brain when he sat down to write "Losing My Religion." Incandescent gothic mandolin pop with a shrewd vocal from Molly Johnson, pizzicato string plucks from the orchestra pit, and occasional interjections from the guy in the chair marked Requisite Eighties Drum Fills.

84. "Hand in Pocket," Alanis Morrissette (1996)
What it all comes down to is the way her voice sits in the mix, the slinky machine beat, and the mechanical guitar riff. In other words, everything, except, yeah, sure, the words, but those are innocuous enough as far as it (and she) goes. (And I still think complaints about her harmonica playing being rudimentary are completely beside the point. Does the song really call for Slim Harpo?) "You Oughta Know" is a more powerful performance, but also a greater endurance test.

85. "Man! I Feel Like a Woman," Shania Twain (1997)
Never fails to ignite a wedding dance floor (believe me), and the production on it sizzles, so no wonder. The crunchiness of the guitars and the disco-fied beat is more Eliminator-era ZZ-Top than Back in Black-era AC/DC, and that opening riff is like a clarion call. And of course, chixtotallydigit.

PURE ENERGY

86. "I Beg Your Pardon," Kon-Kan (1989)
A bizarre love triangle between the guys from Kon-Kan, an old Lynn Anderson 45, and the programmer behind New Order who was kind enough not to sue for sound infringement. I love a bunch of New Order songs, but this has something that New Order rarely touch upon: a sublime sense of its own silliness. For some reason I've never been able to explain, that main synth riff makes me think of Green Acres.

87. "Savin' Myself," Eria Fachin (1988)
The zenith of '80s girl-dance pop, perched somewhere between teen idol dream-pop and adult accompaniment disco desire. Now considered a Hi-NRG classic. (Sad to learn in my research that Fachin died of cancer in 1996.)

88. "Broken Bones," Love Inc. (1998)
Drugstore space cowboy e-house that "real" ravers despise, either because it's too catchy (can't trust those catchy tunes...), too structured, or because it says its piece in four minutes. Never mind that they stole their keyboard preset from Robin S...who cares, seven years after "Show Me Love," it still sounded good. From the magic wand of Chris Sheppard, Canada's own cottage dance industry.

PUB POP

89. "It Hasn't Hit Me Yet," Blue Rodeo (1994)
I'd be happy to never again hear "Try," a suck-up to the audience on every level (truth be known, I prefer Sheriff's power ballad, "When I'm With You"). And though in general I'm not a big fan of roots rock (and enough with the Band comparisons already: they sound nothing alike!), "It Hasn't Hit Me Yet" is glittering country-rock with weeping steel guitar lines that communicate not as symbols of backwoods authenticity but as tools of melodic magnification. Seriously: have Wilco done anything even remotely this sweet?

90. "Out of My Head," Junkhouse (1993)
If the image didn't send shivers down my own spine, I'd say "54-40 meets Tragically Hip." But that clearly won't do, so how about: college rock from Hamilton guys infatuated with Southern rock (note the singer's inflections), though it's southern rock as drone pop. Woozy, drunk, insistent, just a touch off-balance.

91. "Fireworks," Tragically Hip" (1998)
Ten years ago I probably would've made a point by not including them here, but ten years ago I would've had a point, because aside from "Little Bones" not only were they not very good back then, they were mostly fairly awful. (No need to recap what I wrote above.) Over time, though, my resistance to Gord Downie's voice broke down (not my wife's, though--she still makes me change the station when they come on the car radio), and their material has gotten better, which isn't to say it's always good. "Courage" retained a bit of their early whininess, but the beat was massive; the cottage-rocker "Ahead By a Century" actually strikes a wistful chord in spots; and "Fireworks" is probably the only truly great pop song ever to come out of this country with hockey as its subtext (there is possibly nothing more hellish than jokey Canadian punk songs about our national sport--avoid at all costs). The reason it's the best hockey song ever is because it's not really about hockey at all, it's about getting laid, and it might even be the best song on this list about that. Or maybe it's the only one; there are limits to my statskeeping.

POST-PUNK

92. "Silver Suit," Hardship Post (1994)
Fast, nervous, tightly compressed east coast indie rock. Joe Jackson going 'straight edge' in 1981.

93. "Even Grable," Treble Charger (1995)
Shoegazey and gorgeous but never narcoleptic. Dinosaur Jr./Live Rust/My Bloody Valentine guitar sculpturing at its poppiest, and, with a rhythm that sounds like a sea shanty, at its most oddly pleasurable as well. "Red," their other big single from the period, was almost as good--that is, until they went and ruined it with a louder drum mix for the USA.

94. "Watermark," Weakerthans (2000)
Fast, nervous, tightly compressed indie rock from Winnipeg, Manitoba--"talented and bright...lonely and uptight," uh-huh. Is this what's meant by 'Emo'? Not sure--sounds like a punky Vapors after their Japanese girlfriends ditched them. (Note: that's a good thing.)

95. "Letter From an Occupant," New Pornographers (2000)
Last-call-at-the-bar helium post-punk from Vancouver with Neko Case from Chicago (the city, not the group) on vocals. Very pop, and very heavy. "The song, the song, the song that's shaking me..."

MIXMASTERS

96. "Let Your Backbone Slide," Maestro Fresh Wes (1989)
I've always had a thing for sparse hip-hop records--just a guy mouthing off over a beat. I like the opposite kind, too, of course--the cram-as-much-musical-data-as-you-can approach--but the sparse ones highlight the rapper's voice as drum machine, and Maestro's firecracker displays of lyrical rat-a-tat-tat are persuasive ("call me a hip-hop, tip-tac-tition!"). This is one of the best rap songs of the late '80s, which were very good years for rap, indeed (cf. "Wild Thing," "It Takes Two," "Bust a Move," "Doowutchulike," Public Enemy, Eric B, et al.).

Maestro's big band, ska-inflected followup, "Conductin' Thangs" ('91) is also great silly fun (for rear-view mirror rap, I'll take it over the Dream Warriors, who were just a bit too La-De-La for me), and his '98 comeback, "Stick To Ya Vision" almost closes the circle on Can-pop itself, as he weaves his tale over a sample of "These Eyes."

97. "The Plumb Song," Snow (2001)
His specialty is vocal hooks, and musically, this languid, professional pop track is closer to "Hand in Pocket" ("someone pass me that guitar!" he shouts off the top) than to Beenie Man, but echoes from his dancehall past are unmistakable, from the cute little "biddley-biddley boms" he sneaks in at the end (he also references "Informer") to the melodically complex vocal bits he slips in all over the place. Much of the effect here is informed by the production itself, with a strong overlay of voices in harmony grafting a new millennium Pro-Tools doo-wop. The street corner's gone but the games remain the same.

98. "Bakardi Slang," Kardinal Offishall (2002)
There's been a lot of publicity for homegrown hip-hop in the last few years, and a considerable number of releases make good on claims that it's here to stay (where in the western world isn't hip-hop here to stay?). A good thing, but it still feels like baby steps to me (Choclair? You must be kidding). The more I hear of Kardinal, though, the more he lays to waste my own prejudices about Can-hop. The in-your-face sheen of the production on "Bakardi Slang" doesn't mask the creaky interplay between those spidery guitar rhythms and digital rocksteady beat so much as it adds clarity to the sonic inventiveness of it, and the main nursery hook--lifted from Shirley Ellis's classic novelty cheer, "The Name Game"--is a captivating and unshakeable one indeed.

99. "Stars and Suns," Broken Social Scene (2002)
An obsessive, singular, frighteningly good bass line destined to clear everything in its path clashes against girl group handclaps, lacerating bursts of feedback, and trés sexy beats. "Dream pop from Toronto" is the sales pitch, "ambient multi-tasking space metal from anywhere" is the sound. Produced by David Newfeld, mastered at Stars and Suns studio.

100. "Tired Out," Buck 65 (2003)
Sad-hop from Lower Sackville, NS, neatly ending this survey right back where it started (close enough). Like the other good parts on Talkin' Honky Blues, "Tired Out" is small-scale and ambitious all at once. It glides along on a cute military snare riff, an acoustic guitar adding melody and texture, and some tasteful steel guitar breaks to reinforce the point. "I was an asshole" is his big admission; "I was cold and I deserved to be" is him making art out of it. It took me a while to hear this guy's voice, but it took me a while to hear Leonard Cohen's too. And I'm still working on Tom Waits's. (Strictly for the curious: his somnambulistic version of Roxy Music's "In Every Dream Home a Heartache.")