DAY THREE OF CANADIAN BANDS YOU NEED TO KNOW

I first heard about Sloan when their 2006 single, Who Taught You To Live Like That was the free download of the week on iTunes. It was off their album Never Hear The End Of It, which seemed to bring the band out of a bad funk. Out of their three previous releases, one was a greatest hits and the other two were disappointments, but this new release was a new direction for the band. Their single’s Beatlesque melody goes very well with the big harmonies and helps kick off their 30 song masterpiece. This band is known in Canadian music scenes as The Canadian “Fab Four”, because they all write and they all sing.

Although these Canadian lads will never measure up to the original Fab Four, if music was measured by quality and not fame, then Sloan would be one of Canada’s greatest. In the 1990’s, earlier in their career, they had difficulty with their label DGC. The label didn’t want to promote their catchy powerpop style in an era of grunge, and the band almost didn’t make it in the American Market. That all changed once they released their hit album, One Chord To Another, which is full of grade A songs, with no fluff. Consistency is the name of the game with Sloan as they have rarely disappointed with any of their 10 albums, which is suprising. Usually guitair pop bands don’t last, but Sloan has stuck around and stayed up to date with every album.

The song in the video is called The Lines You Amend, which is a pop gem from their 1996 release One Chord To Another. (Listen closely for the Ringo Starr reference)