SPIN WORTHY (CDs)
Reviews in English and in French

2 CDs

Tom Cochrane, with his band Red Rider, started out like most Canadian bands: hacking it out in the Club scene. The group began to achieve moderate success in the '80s with the promise of carving a nice place for themselves in the emerging Canadian music scene. Then, in the early '90s, things began to take off. Tom's song "Life is a Highway" from the Mad Mad World album became a mega hit and has since become a bit of an anthem of the Canadian culture. The 2002 compilation Trapeze comes with a very complete essay by Canadian freelance music writer Greg Quill, plus commentary on every song by Cochrane himself.

Great Big Sea:
Sea of No Cares

For those of you who have never heard Great Big Sea, this is a great album of celtic, nautical, folk and rock mix. A truely unique sound. You won't be disappointed.

Tragically Hip:
In Violet Light

Best Canadian band? A question of taste, perhaps. But if the question is most Canadian band, that red-and-white mantle doubtlessly falls around the shoulders of The Tragically Hip. In Violet Light , almost an even split between rockers and gentler songs, is good enough to prove that the group's unlikely marriage of arty eccentricity and arena-ready rock has still got some life.

Reviews in French language

Yann Tiersen:
Amélie

Soundtrack

Auteur de plusieurs albums (L'Absente, Le Phare), dont certains titres de la bande originale sont d'ailleurs tirés, Yann Tiersen offre à Montmartre ses plus belles notes depuis des lustres. Simple, d'orchestration reduite – piano, accordéon, guitare – la musique respire la poésie de son auteur et comporte la même vivacité que le brillant metteur en scène Jean-Pierre Jeunet.

Liane Foly:
Au Fur et a Mesure: Best of

Dans la tradition des chanteuses noires américaines, Liane Foly vit le jazz et le swing avec passion. Avec sa voix sensuelle et grave, élégante et sexy, elle apporte une ambiance très jazzy au paysage musical hexagonal.

Tiga:
DJ Kicks

Imparable tube electro-pop.

“We live in the Age of Cruelty and every day I struggle to find my place in it. All I know I can offer the world is a thousand more adventures through dancing and light.” (Tiga)

Roch Voisine:
Double

Un auteur-compositeur-interprète extraordinairement talentueux.

           x>>> Important New <<<
             Au Canada: 15 aout 2003
Roch participera au grand spectacle qui sera donné le jour de la fête nationale des Acadiens (15/08) à l'occasion des 100 ans de Shédiac.

Roch will participate to the big concert given on the "Fete nationale des Acadiens" on the 15th of August.

A welcome retourn to classic Erasure. tThe song "Solsbury Hill" is a gem and the cover version of "Make Me Smile [Come Up and See Me]" is just the brink of Andy Bell's talents. He also sings a better version of "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" on the album: pure class!

Various Artists:
Gods and General

Soundtrack

Gods and Monsters is easily one of the best scores of the last years.   Recording with a 32 piece orchestra, Burwell delivers a fervent, mature symphony that smarts with originality and individuality.  A terrific masterpiece, this is one album that should be in the collection of everyone who loves music.

The Tea Party:
Triptych

god is pressure
god is pressure more or less
and it takes a lifetime
a life of lies to make a mess...

In its 4th studio album the Canuck power trio offers a palatable hybrid of new and old sounds (Seventies - what else?). Triptych represents the maturation and refinement of Tea Party.

Terri Clark:
Pain to Kill

Positively far different album than Terri's prior ones. The album opens with the current single "I Just Wanna Be Mad", her first top 5 hit in years.
The song chronicles a fight between a husband and wife - not the knock-down, drag-out stuff that makes differences irreconcilable, just an uncomfortable night when they're lying in the same bed, looking in opposite directions, trying not to touch each other.
But the top tune is "I Wanna Do It All," and the title says it all.

I wanna do it all,
visit Paris in the fall,
watch the Yankees play ball,
I wanna take it all in.

Reviews in French language

Isabelle Boulay:
Ses plus belles histoires

"La lune", "J'ai mal à l'amour", "Le saule", "Les ailes des hirondelles", "Les yeux au ciel", "Et mon coeur en prend plein la gueule", "Le banc des délaissés", "Je t'oublierai, je t'oublierai", "Parle-moi", "Sans toi", "J'enrage", "Perce les nuages", "Tombée de toi", "Un jour ou l'autre", "Jamais assez loin", "Vole colombe".

Jean Leloup:
La Vallée des réputations

Surnommé Johnny the Wolf, Jean Leloup est un des auteurs-compositeurs-interprètes les plus talentueux et sautés de sa génération. Les chansons de La Vallée des réputation sont drôle, mythique, naïf et festif, enregistrée sans répétition ou presque pour la beauté de l'art et contre la froideur du commercial.

J'aimerais parfois m'arrêter
Trouver un endroit où rester
Mais je n'aime que voyager
Et je ne fais que passer...

"La magie de Leloup est aussi visible en observant son auditoire où jeunes et vieux, gens ordinaires ou étranges se côtoient avec un plaisir similaire et un besoin commun de se lâcher et de fuir un monde ennuyeux. Il n'y a plus de classe sociale, d'âges, de riches ou pauvres, c'est l'unité dans la diversité. Le monde imaginaire de Leloup ne perd rien de son efficacité en spectacle et la tournée qui se poursuit partout dans la province risque bien de réserver encore quelques grandes surprises à ses fans, car un show de Leloup est toujours une première, au gré de ses fantaisies." (Jean Leloup à Québec: Y es-tu... sur scène ? par Pascal Evans
dans RFI Musique, 19 mai 1999 )

My Little Canadian Shop (the start spot)

... et toutes les filles: les chanteuses des Sixties

Visit also: 

 High-Octane DVDs

 21st Century Horizon (Books / Livres)