Singing the Body Electric

This is just me poking at my own (negative) reaction to something that was shared about a joke in the Our Flag Means Death finale that didn't fully make it onscreen. I know it goes without saying around here, but this isn't a slam on the person who shared it—I just have continuing thoughts I keep chewing on about the show and about some of the production details that I think speak to larger trends.

( Queer as in [insert punchline here] )

Fandom 50 #18

Look, sometimes all there is to say is "This was extremely formative to me in my early adolescence, and I think you can all tell why."

I also distinctly remember that when I bought this album, my older sister—then in high school, very attached to her identity as a prep—informed me that if I kept listening to this kind of stuff, people would think I was a skid. By the time I was her age, I had a shaved head and a face full of metal, and my wardrobe was 95% black and 5% safety pins, so she wasn't wrong. Happily, by that point, no one I knew said "skid" anymore. Or "prep" for that matter.

Push by Moist

Fandom 50 #17

It's not an exaggeration to say that my entire fifty-song list hinged on my choice for 1993. This was the year that had the greatest number of favourite songs by favourite bands vying for a single space, and whatever I slotted in had a domino effect spanning almost forty years as I prioritized finding other spots for the bands that didn't win out.

Was 1993 just a stellar year for Canadian music? Possibly. I think in general there was a maturing alternative sound in the air, not just in the mainstream breakthrough of grunge but people doing interesting things with folk, country, adult contemporary, and what used to be called college rock. There was a lot of accessibly different stuff out there getting radio play.

But I think it's mostly just that I was nine years old in 1993, had my first job (delivering the Pennysaver), and had the money to buy cassettes for myself for the first time. I had a hand-me-down Walkman too, and even though I'd got it because the tape player part had stopped working, it still functioned as a portable FM radio. My sister was old enough to have a proper after-school job, and she brought even more new music into the house that I was eager to borrow. Totally with permission, every time.

In short, 1993 was the year I started discovering my own music, and nothing hits like that.

Settling on Crash Test Dummies was partly a practical choice based on the logic puzzle I inadvertently created for myself and partly because God Shuffled His Feet just still thoroughly delights me as an album. And this song in particular seemed a fitting one to share thirty-some years later in my life.

Afternoons & Coffeespoons by Crash Test Dummies

Fandom 50 #15

1991 was one of the years with several contenders, but I knew I had to get some early Sarah McLachlan in here.

Into the Fire by Sarah McLachlan