Canadian Music Week 2011

It’s the first ever event Eggplante attended (even before this site was in existence, actually!), and we’re about to heading into our third week on the Canadian Music Week circuit! We’ve been graced by performances from Lights, The Midway State, The Artist Life, Stereos, and seen countless more stars. Hedley, Karl Wolf, Girlicious, and Daughtry have all made appearances in the past, and 2011 isn’t looking to be very different. And what a sweet thing that is.

The lineup for the festival itself, where tons upon tons of bands show up to perform, and even more fans show up to watch, has been announced, and the list is nothing short of woah. 800 artists, 55 venues (yep, FIFTY-FIVE), all taking place over five nights of Canadian Music greatness. And of course, it wouldn’t be CMW without the fact that you can see whatever you want by just buying a single wristband! Pretty incredible – this is the only place on the planet that you can get this much live music content for a single price. Go Canada.

Some of the big names you can find at the festival are Down With Webster at Massey Hall (we’ll be at that show!), Melissa Etheridge & Serena Ryder, and Good Charlotte at The Phoenix, just to name three out of, you know… eight hundred.

The Indies have also been announced, where we’ve seen Canadian music greats win awards, and we’re starting to usher in new bands this year with names like Hollerado, Shad, Bombay Bicycle Club, and Janelle Monae. Hannah Georgas & Desperate Union will also be making an appearance to round out the night, in addition to other names that will no doubt be checking out the stage from the green room. You know, the one we’ve reported from every year.

We’re still waiting on details about FanFest this year, and of course the CRMA nominees include some huge names like Hedley, Michael Buble, and the Bieber, but the Song of the Year award is what I’m personally really waiting for. Hedley’s “Perfect”, Buble’s “Haven’t Met You Yet”, Fefe Dobson’s “Ghost”, Down With Webster’s “Your Man”, and the Young Artists for Haiti version of “Wavin’ Flag” were all songs I listened to repeatedly throughout 2010, and while they each deserve recognition for their songs, only one can take it home. You can count on Eggplante to report on the entire week’s events, including a more focused approach to the festival shows themselves, including reporting from Massey Hall, The Phoenix Concert Theatre, and of course the Royal York Hotel to get those interviews I know you’re all after!

See you in March when it all goes down!

Uncontrollable by Stereos

Stereos were the Summer Girl hitmakers of 2009, and they returned in 2010 with their latest album, Uncontrollable. A bit more dance, a bit less refined (but in the best way possible), this album still has that DNA of any hit Stereos song. In our playlist, we’ve got the original Stereos album back to back, and they flow between each other nicely, but somehow evolve fluidly into heavier, darker songs as it goes along.

Pat, the frontman of the band, continues to take up most of the writing duties, and he does a great job. Lyrics mean something, which you could argue you’ll find in any other album, but these ones have been well thought out and make more semblance of sense than most albums I’ve listened to. Some tracks are mixed with buddy and manager Mark Spicoluk, who has worked with artists like Avril Lavigne and Sum 41. The sounds are entirely Stereos, but the roots run deep to other Canadian artists.

Collaborations on the album are good, although nothing like the Jhevon Paris partnership they had going on last year. The first and sixth tracks have Collette Carr and Reema Major singing on them, respectively. Collette has an oddly Ke$ha-like quality, and Reema Major is a direct rip off of Nicki Minaj. They add to the album quite a bit – without them, the songs would be far worse off.

Now, with all the good always comes some bad. Even given all the positives above, I just can’t help but feel that the album is, well, unfinished. Just by quantity, ten songs seems a bit thin (the industry standard is getting closer to 13 nowadays), and by quality, there is an eerily unpolished quality about the album. I might be a bit easier on this album than I should be because I am actually a Stereos fan, but in all honesty, the album does feel just a hair of a beat off here and there. Elements don’t always work together, even though they do a good job of trying to bring together some techno, hip hop, and punk sounds. Maybe it’s just too much, and Stereos is trying too hard to remake the jambalaya they made the first time around. This one just has too many flavours that muddle together a bit too much.

Value here? Well, their debut album had a cool Deluxe Edition which included 25 (yes, twenty-five) tracks for something like twenty bucks. That was comprised of 13 tracks on the disc, and a new track every month for a year. That’s a pretty great deal, and the first time I had seen that done. Great way to service the fans, keep the creativity going, and get some new stuff out there. The first bunch of songs were actually brand new songs, while the last bunch tended to be more remixes of the first. Either way you slice it, twenty bucks for twenty-five songs. Good deal.

This time around, you’re paying the standard twelve or thirteen dollars for a ten track album, and there’s no option to upgrade to a similar deal like last year.