A eulogy for Kevin Drew's pet gerbil intended for a scrapped compilation album, it's the sound of a community coming together in real time as warm snare hits and melancholic horns wrap themselves around Drew's wavering, mourning vocals. We wouldn't be writing this list if not for "Death Cock," the first song the band recorded with Dave Newfeld, who would produce their two breakthrough albums. Old Dead Young: B-Sides and Rarities (2022) prove with the rest of these four-and-a-half minutes that it's also capable of the opposite - riding its tidal wave of sound, you'd swear you were capable of anything. After positing that "art can fail you" in the song's first minute, Kevin Drew and co. "Superconnected" is all blistering forward momentum and heart-palpitating fury, the kind of song that the band does like no other. Her bouncy pop- and R&B-minded delivery has helped steer the band in a fresher and more buoyant direction, and "Stay Happy" might just be her greatest contribution.īroken Social Scene can tap into a particular kind of quiet delicacy, but they never sound more themselves than when they forget about the brakes completely. That's nowhere more true than on "Stay Happy," where Engle muscles her way through thunderous horns, cracking drums and a serious bass groove and emerges, somehow, as the song's most memorable piece.
Broken social scene swimmers full#
A relative newcomer to the band, Engle emerged as a serious MVP on the 2017 outing - her voice, so rich and malleable and full of a bottomless warmth and enviable cool, helped ignite Hug of Thunder's powder keg of burly, glitter-bomb songs. Hug of Thunder is great for a lot of reasons, one of which being the presence of Ariel Engle. No song puts the Rock in Forgiveness Rock Record quite like "Forced to Love": Kevin Drew confidently takes the mic with his bandmates behind him Paul Von Mertens's flute hook is so infectious, the guitars can't help but join in and, of the very few guitar solos in BSS's discography, this track has two of them, both rippers. On their fourth album, they couldn't hide it anymore, finally paring everything down and pushing melodies to the front. Is the repetition of "This one will know how far to live on" line supposed to be nihilistic? Is red just Brendan Canning's favourite colour? Who knows, and who cares: all existential theories are certainly supported by the purposeful monotony of Canning's breathless, warbling delivery, and that treacly, oscillating bassline that crescendos into an unremitting blitz of handclaps.įor their first decade, Broken Social Scene pretended really hard not to be a traditional rock band, hiding behind their sprawling membership, fluid roles and ambient patter. There are plenty of mid-aughts forum posts on cultural institutions like that attempt to analyze "Stars and Sons" (and every BSS song, frankly).
Here are Broken Social Scene's 20 best songs ranked. From sweat-soaked instrumentals and tender ballads to fire-breathing anthems and towering odes to love and loss and friendship, we combed through one of the most bewildering and beautiful catalogues in indie rock and came out the other side with this list. With all this misty-eyed reminiscence and nostalgic reinterpretation coming our way, we decided to do some of our own - revisiting Broken Social Scene's intimidating sprawl to decide, once and for all, their 20 greatest songs.
Broken social scene swimmers series#
Arriving that same month is Broken Social Scene: You Forgot It in People, The Graphic Novel, a series of intertwining illustrated vignettes inspired by the album - expect tears, angst, maybe a few laughs, and a hearty helping of horniness. This September, Broken Social Scene are hitting the road - featuring one singular stop in their home country, by the way - to celebrate 20 years of You Forgot It in People, their seminal sophomore record that meant (and still means) a whole lot to a whole lot of people.
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