We’ve now arrived in the double digits of playlists and, yes, there are still some jarring shifts in tone here and there but some themes still break through here and there and this one is definitely no different. A couple things become noticeable and nostalgia is a glaring one as the list kicks off with some top-tier Stone Temple Pilots and then features a Pixies side project, a leading Green Day single, some original and iconic Zombie and more. With a Big Shiny piece of Canadian nostalgia, I bring the CanCon in with Holly McNarland and two BC local groups and give some love to new discoveries for myself like We Were Promised Jetpacks and 3TEETH.
Track #1: Stone Temple Pilots – Still Remains – Purple (1994)
It took the tenth playlist for one of the greatest albums ever made to make its first appearance on one of my playlists and you better believe it’s the kick-off to it! I was instantly obsessed with this record that doesn’t feature a bad track on it and I still listen to it very regularly. This song, in particular, maybe my favorite on the album, a track about being so infatuated with someone that you will accompany them past death. It seems creepy but it’s really beautiful.
“Pick a song and sing a yellow nectarine
Take a bath, I’ll drink the water that you leave
If you should die before me
Ask if you can bring a friend
Pick a flower, hold your breath
And drift away”
Track #2: Atreyu – Insomnia – The Beautiful Dark Of Life (2023)
My second repeat artist on the playlists after Tegan And Sara and it is almost a no brainer with how much I adore this band. The first track I hear off of their new album, this song features all the sensibilities I love about their songwriting plus has a hook that gets caught up in my head as a lovely earworm. The latest album of theirs absolutely rips but this song’s ramping up in the opening just invigorates me and I love the rising vocals of singer Brandon Saller in the chorus. For lack of a better word, it’s beautiful.
“I’m taking my chances
I’m leaving my sanity
Buried it down in this hole in me (Buried it down)
I’m losing the battle
I start to unravel
Until there is nothing that’s left in me”
Track #3: White Zombie – Thunder Kiss ‘65 – La Sexorcisto: Devil Music Volume 1 (1992)
Getting really classic three songs in here and it isn’t a solo Rob Zombie track that makes its debut here on the playlist but a song from the original group, the great White Zombie off their third album. A leading single, this song was the return after an album that did far less business than they wanted it to. This song is explosive, instantly iconic and contains all of the sounds that we have come to know and love from one of the absolute icons of heavy metal. With three different lyric versions out there, take your pick at which is the best but, even so, this song always rules.
“Well, sweet little sister’s high in hell cheating on a halo
Grind in a odyssey holocaust heart kick on tomorrow
Breakdown—agony, I said “ecstacy” in overdrive
Well, riding on the world, thunder kissing
1965 yeah, wow
Five, wow
Demon-warp is coming alive
In 1965, five five”
Track #4: Interpol – Barricade – Interpol (2010)
Whenever these second songs from artists and bands I’ve already posted here before start to reappear, it is a clear indication of how much I listen to them. The other factor with Paul Banks and his New York City band being back on the list with another song is that it even comes off the same album that the last one did. This has to be because, besides the Rock Band and Guitar Hero tracks, this album was the one that got me really on board with their sound, and it was the album that was on constantly at the beginning of the relationship with my wife and I. This happened to be the first released single and when it came on the radio, we made sure it was playing loud.
“It starts to feel like a barricade
To keep us away, to keep us away
And it kinda does
Starts to feel like a barricade
To keep us away, keep us away”
Track #5: Rammstein – Ich will – Mutter (2001)
More German techno metal and not just any band from that era but one of the greatest on stage shows you’re going to see, straight out of Berlin. Another track appearing on my playlist from Til Lindemann and his army of “ Neue Deutsche Härte” warriors, off the same album, Mutter, even, Ich will’s drive always gets my head rocking and the energy up. Their songs are so anthemic and catchy, you want to pump your fist along to anything without even understanding the lyrics. Rammstein may be out of a certain time in music, a discovery I made watching David Lynch’s Lost Highway, but those who are in the know still throw this on all the time.
“Can you hear me?
(We hear you)
Can you see me?
(We see you)
Can you feel me?
(We feel you)
I don’t understand you”*
*Translated from German
Track #6: We Were Promised Jetpacks – Quiet Little Voices – These Four Walls (2005)
The leading single off of this Scottish indie band’s debut record, there’s something beautiful about the simplicity of this song and its rising distortion to the finish that envelops me. Any song that brings the band together with a chorus harmony really gets me and this one has a great one that resonates to the rafters. I don’t have any deep thoughts on this band’s work as this is just the beginning of a love I’m really late to but I know that, given the company that this band rolls with, like, the giants of Scottish indie rock, Frightened Rabbit and Biffy Clyro. After rocking through this record, I’m definitely on to the sophomore follow-up, In the Pit of the Stomach.
“Quiet little voices creep into my head
I’m young again, I’m young again
I’m young again, I’m young again
Quiet little monsters creep into my bedroom wall
I’ll fall for you, I’ll fall for you
I’ll fall for you
Quiet words of wisdom creep into your victim’s ears
I’ll die for you, I’ll die for you
I’ll die for you
In any which direction, call me
I will run for you, I’ll come for you
I’ll die for you, I’ll come for you
Quiet little voices creep into my head
I’m young again, I’m young again
I’m young again, I’m young again
Quiet little monsters creep into my head
I’ll fall for you, I’ll fall for you
I’ll fall for you, I’ll fall”
Track #7: Holly McNarland – Numb – Stuff (1997)
Making her way from Winnipeg, Manitoba, I was a fan of Holly as soon as I heard this track and then when Elmo, it was sealed, I love her. The love has gone so far that we even found this album at our local record store and picked it up immediately for our car. Yes, at this point we still have a CD player. This track is also the eighth track on the second Big Shiny Tunes compilation, a collection of songs released by MuchMusic yearly in the nineties. That was definitely where I spun this over and over again in the late nineties, sandwiched between Marilyn Manson and Bush. Or Bush X if you’re Canadian.
“Chase distraction of your own existance
Keep it clean, clean enough to stab
Lick your own wounds, anxious for the next one
Cry for more pain, heal what you have”
Track #8: ASHES dIVIDE – The Stone – Keep Telling Myself It’s Alright (2008)
Being a big fan of A Perfect Circle and everything they’ve done as, really, a supergroup, I have to admit that this Billy Howerdel solo side project completely missed my ears but I am so happy to catch up with it recently. This is an album featuring something I love, big sound that resonates to the rafters, and this is a perfect example, starting with that beautiful intro. I also have a deep love for those echoey guitar riffs from Billy after the chorus, really great stuff and recommended for any APC fan. He actually wrote it during a writing session with the group and their instrumental Army, an unreleased track that was supposed to appear on Mer De Noms.
“We survive what we can’t change
So let it fade
Just let it go
We pretend so nothing does change
We’re flowers never breaking through the stone”
Track #9: 3TEETH – Drift – EndEx (2023)
I have had a deep love for industrial, as far back as my discovery on Nine Inch Nails and how it guided me through high school and really informed some of my musical tastes. Now, with a new record released in 2023, that fire still burns and it burns brightly with this Los Angeles-formed five-piece. This was the first thing I heard by them, the intro, and it’s a solid and darkly grinding song with dark and sinister lyrics and, when it comes to my industrial, I eat that shit up. It does hinge towards the metal side of the genre and that, honestly, works for me even better. Can’t wait for more from these guys.
“Abandoned like the American dream
Begging you to govern thee
Celebrate moral vanity
With a permawar for eternity
Cut my tongue like an amputee
With phantom love that used to be
Fading like my illusion of free
Soon there’ll be nothing left of me”
Track #10: Mother Mother – Simply Simple – Eureka (2011)
With beautiful and energetic harmonies, this Quadra Island, British Columbia band has always been a provincial favorite of mine especially with that three-headed hydra of Ryan Guldemond, Molly Guldemond and Jasmin Parkin. This song has such a flowing lilt to it that I can’t get enough of and it may be my favorite off their album which is a big thing to say because the lead single was the infinitely singable track, The Stand. I feel like, at its core, this is about a toxic relationship but a dependability threaded within that is simply unable to disconnect without ruining both of them. This interpretation might be way off but I’ll leave the songwriters to tell me I’m wrong.
“Rock me, baby
Until my eyes are closed and I’m asleep
And then it’s safe for you to leave
Call me lazy
For I have yet to let my soul free
It’s still very much in my reach, oh”
Track #11: The Breeders – Cannonball – The Last Splash (1993)
It’s really mind-blowing to me that the first thing Pixies related to land on this playlist is not something from the Black Francis-fronted legendary group but instead something off of the side project of founding member Kim Deal, a band formed in 1989. As soon as this song came on a mix, I was transported back to listening to all-request radio in the hopes that this track would be played. It also sets us back in time with the fax machine noise in the beginning, which would be totally foreign to a lot of music listeners these days. The Breeders still rule, The Last Splash is a landmark record and it all begs to be rediscovered. Just play this song for anyone looking for “new” music.
“Spitting in a wishing well
Blown to hell, crash
I’m the last splash
I know you, little libertine
I know you’re a real cuckoo”
Track #12: Green Day – Hitchin’ A Ride – Nimrod (1997)
For a first Green Day track appearing on one of my playlists, fro my money, I would have thought that it would have been of their landmark record Dookie but this song came on and gave me a good groove and I knew this had to be it. I know that this is a song about an alcoholic having trouble staying sober but if the drive into Billy Joe’s guitar solo as he says “SHIT” doesn’t kick you up full of energy then I don’t know what to tell you, you may have heart problems. This famed trio is definitely a part of my music evolution in the nineties and this song was definitely a good piece of it as I turned up the volume everytime it cme on the radio or MuchMusic.
“Hey, mister, where you headed?
Are you in a hurry?
Need a lift to happy hour
Say oh no
Do you brake for distilled spirits?
I need a break as well
The well that inebriates the guilt
One, two, one, two, three, four”
Track #13: Asking Alexandria – Into The Fire – Asking Alexandria (2017)
I will completely admit that this song only came onto my radar because it was one of the theme songs for NXT Takeover: Philadelphia but it was enough to make me immediately pick up the self titled record and devour it. This track was the leading single off of what was their fifth album but it was also the return of original lead singer Danny Worsnop, as he left in 2015 to focus on rock music with his new band, We Are Harlot. This is a fantastic song with killer melodies but the bridge to this song is a facemelter that I can never NOT headbang to. Heck, even my youngest daughter loves this song a lot.
“I’m a paranoid sycophant, masochistic dilettante
Narcissistic elephant in the room
I’m the end of the world thinning the herd
The all-around outta my mind, fucking absurd
I am gone, I am gone”
Track #14: Default – Sick And Tired – The Fallout (2001)
The recurring theme for playlist ten at the end of it is definitely a good pushing of Canadian content as Default makes their second appearance in these listings of my favorite and it’s the more angrier and aggressive song on the record. This also happens to be the kick-off of The Fallout and has a great little lead in with a tasty bass lick on the way in via Dave Benedict. I may have already stated that this was a fantastic live band and if Dallas Smith wanted to step away from the country scene for a little tour, it’d be amazing to see a run that celebrated this fantastic album. It’d be cool to see it played in order too but this is all my dream.
“You swore I’d regret it
Now thanks to you I can’t forget it
Cost of this constant battle
Won’t even miss you at all
Free from this life that you call…“
Steve Stebbing 