I love music from the band System of a Down. Their tunes are wonderfully heavy but maintain incredible melody. Their lyrics are politically charged and meaningful. Serj Tankian has an exhilerating delivery with many facets, just listen to "Chop Suey" for a sample of what I'm referring to. He's the
Is there a more dismissive term in the English language than "whatever"? Someone can tell me to f*ck off, go to hell or eat shit and die and I'm cool with it. "Whatever", however, is the lowest of the low. I've been listening to a song from CDLX called
Using statistics gathered from my Last.fm page I've created a new My Music page The URI is http://www.torontomike.com/music.html. Right now it's simply displaying my weekly artist chart and my overall artist chart. Once my creative juices start flowing, I'll add more exciting features aimed
It's the year-end list you've been waiting for. I've already documented my favourite albums of 2005 and now here are my ten favourite songs of 2005. 10. Wolf Parade's I'll Believe In Anything I only got into this band recently when a friend insisted I listen to Apologies to the
With only a few days remaining in the calendar year, it's time to write a bunch of year-end "best of" entries. I've already hit you with my favourite television shows in 2005 and my favourite musical guilty pleasure of 2005 but now it's time for a biggie. Here are my
I've never been ashamed to write about the guilty pleasures in music, film and television. These are the things you know you shouldn't like but you do. Like a grilled cheese sandwich on a lazy Saturday, they just feel good even if it's not necessarily good for you. To borrow
I'm so damn proud of the new music I hear coming from this country. This week I've been heavily spinning the tracks from The New Pornographers' Twin Cinema, Metric's Live It Out and Broken Social Scene's Broken Social Scene. All three albums are fantastic. They're a joy to listen to
Last December I unveiled my definitive Christmas mix. This year I created a 247 song Christmas playlist and quickly got tired of skipping over the songs I didn't feel like hearing. My solution to this problem was to create a second Christmas playlist consisting only of the tunes I feel
It looks as if Green Day's "Jesus of Suburbia", the second track from their 2004 American Idiot release, will appear on SLS14. At 9:08 it will be the longest song in the history of SLS. It's an epic with several twists and turns. In the spirit of Meatloaf's "Paradise
I just created a playlist that includes all my Christmas albums plus all seasonal songs found on other albums in my collection. I then removed all repeats. The same song may appear multiple times, but only if it's by different artists. Only one "White Christmas" by Bing Crosby allowed! This
Last month I announced I had taken the Christmas discs on my MP3s page out of "Various Artists" and was now sorting them by "Christmas Music". Should a Christmas album be from a single artist, I decided that would remain under the artists name. A couple of anonymous souls wrote
I watched the half time show during the Grey Cup on Sunday. For those who didn't, it was the Black Eyed Peas performing a variety of their hits and causing a little controversy. From what I can tell, there are three reasons for this controversy. I'll list the three reasons
Yesterday I heard The Pursuit of Happiness' "Hard To Laugh" on CFNY Edge 102. It was the first time I've heard a song on the radio from TPOH that wasn't "I'm An Adult Now" in many years. Earlier in the week, I read this which discusses "When We Ruled: The
Listening to The National Playlist on CBC radio this morning, I heard a song entitled "The Bridge" from a Toronto-based band from Windsor called Elliot Brood. Prior to today, I had never heard of Elliot Brood. One listen to "The Bridge" and I was impressed. It's a very cool single
It started when I started reviewing Dave Cassel's list of the 100 greatest internet moments. While cruising down memory lane I learned about a video for an acoustic version of Radiohead's "Creep". This moment was ranked in the top 100 and I had no recollection of it. The video is
On Saturday, BBC Radio2 is is airing part two of their documentary "The Maple Music Revolution". Here's their description of the feature: "A major two-part series where Bob Harris looks beneath the surface to discover the reasons for the emergence of a unique, creative and dynamic government-funded Canadian music scene.
Twas the night before Halloween, and all through the house, all the creatures were stirring, except for the mouse. The monsters had gathered to plan and prepare, for the trick-or-treaters who soon would be there. Sick to death of "Monster Mash", these monsters played a frightening playlist of ten "ghost"
We'll continue with another block of ten as I name artists and their definitive songs. We're knocking down ten a day, in alphabetical order. Weezer - Undone (The Sweater Song)Whale - Hobo Humpin' Slobo BabeWhite Zombie - Thunder Kiss '65Willie Nelson - On The Road AgainWu-Tang Clan - Protect
Moments ago I cross referenced the top ten selling albums of all time with those in my collection. I learned that I owned eight of ten but was missing Fleetwood Mac's Rumours and the soundtrack for The Bodyguard. I have no interest in owning the soundtrack to The Bodyguard, but
Exactly one year ago today, I checked to see how many of the top 10 selling albums of all time I had in my collection. At the time, I had three: Led Zeppelin IV, AC~DC's Back In Black and Taryn's Shania Twain's Come On Over. If we revisit this
We'll continue with another block of ten as I name artists and their definitive songs. We're knocking down ten a day, in alphabetical order. The Watchmen - All UncoveredThe White Stripes - Fell In Love With A GirlThe Who - Won't Get Fooled AgainTom Cochrane - Life Is A HighwayTom
It took one spin of Arcade Fire's Funeral to hook me. "Wake Up" quickly became my favourite cut on the disc and I couldn't wait to share it with my brothers and buddies. I shared it with all of you on August 3. This afternoon I heard "Wake Up" on
Jeff Martin, frontman for Canadian rock trio The Tea Party, has quit the band. Fifteen years after they formed in Windsor, Ontario, The Tea Party are no more. I never liked The Tea Party. At best they were an okay Doors cover band. This band hogged valuable stage time at
We'll continue with another block of ten as I name artists and their definitive songs. We're knocking down ten a day, in alphabetical order. The Fugees - Killing Me SoftlyThe Guess Who - American WomanThe Offspring - Self EsteemThe Police - Every Breath You TakeThe Pretenders - Brass In PocketThe
A recent article in the Toronto Star by Douglas Bell alerted me to the fact last Monday's New York Times contained an erroneous review of the new Broken Social Scene album. Much of the review seems to focus on Broken Social Scene as a Montreal-based band. Broken Social Scene, of
