Fri Mar 18/05
Consolidated's okay

Sloan is getting ready to release a greatest hits/singles/DVD package, which seems as appropriate a time as any to offer my reflections on one of my very favourite rock and roll bands. As something of a rabid fan, I have always had difficulty envisioning how others see these guys, but, based on the way radio stations play the hell out of their summer-friendly singles and then never play them again, I'm thinking they are widely thought of in the same terms as, say, Our Lady Peace — that is, as a perennial hitmaker of no real consequence.

This is incorrect. The part about Sloan, I mean; the part about OLP is about right.

First of all, let's be clear about the songs: very few Canadian bands (as opposed to singer/songwriters, for whatever that distinction is worth) can match Sloan's catalogue of instantly recognizable tunes. (They are, more or less off the top of my head and in alphabetical order: April Wine, The Band, Barenaked Ladies, Big Sugar, The Guess Who, Rush, and The Tragically Hip.) Indeed, for me it's impossible even to conceive of "Sloan's Greatest Hits" on a single CD, considering that I'd need tracks one, three, four, nine, ten and twelve from Twice Removed alone. This is an album mentioned here and there as the greatest Canadian record ever — I'll vouch for it here as the greatest Canadian pure pop record — and yet I've never felt that it gets anything like the respect it deserves on either side of the border.

Sloan has always been in an awkward position in that regard: their only significant record sales are in Canada, while the only serious critical attention they receive is in the US. I don't know if they ever had a Fear of Pop-esque foray into pop/electronic eclectica in them, but their continuing economic success in Canada can only have been a deterrent to such experimentation. Meanwhile, all the stateside reviewers have ever wanted to know is why the new album sounds like the one before it (a criticism I never agreed with, but it's common enough that I'll chalk it up to the "rabid fan" thing).

All that said, the track listing for A Sides Win: Singles 1992-2005 is pretty solid. I think "singles" is an odd criteria to choose for a record that appears to be designed for American release, considering that the 14 compiled tracks have been played a combined total of about 50 times on US commercial radio, but there aren't that many truly essential songs missing from this disc. The addition of "Snowsuit Sound," "Deeper than Beauty," "I Can Feel It," "Sinking Ships," "Keep on Thinkin'" and "Sensory Deprivation" would make this a reasonably definitive collection, in this reviewer's opinion.

In any case, the real announcement here is not the singles disc or the DVD (though Sloan has some hilarious videos), but that Koch will be reissuing the entire Sloan catalogue. Twice Removed should not be an import in the US — that's absolutely nuts — and the timing is perfect for the world to buy it, and One Chord to Another, in large numbers. According to my calculations, the money gained from this can subsidize many more albums, and many more sweltering summer nights at The Kee. I'll be there with bells on.