House parties weren’t parties unless they matched the raucous energy of “Fire-Eyed Boy.” Emily Haines commanding “Gimme more of that beat” on the outro to “Windsurfing Nation” as it transitions into the dreamy “Swimmers” is still ingrained in my mind as the sexiest two seconds in indie rock. The cacophony of horns and unstoppable drumming on “Ibi Dreams of Pavement” propelled me through sluggish winter mornings. I loved the record for being essentially an hour-long soundscape painted in major chords. It was everything I wanted my post-high school self to be - multilayered and riotous, but most of all, optimistic. I’d liked You Forgot It In People, but when it was released in 2002, my tastes hadn’t developed enough to fully appreciate the band’s freewheeling, orchestral take on pop (though discovering “Anthems For a Seventeen Year Old Girl” when I was 17 was, like, significant).īy the time the self-titled record was released, I was ready. Like Sean, hearing all of those voices together changed the way I’d approach indie rock for the rest of my life. Feist’s ubiquitous Let It Die had already made the big leagues when it was featured on The O.C., and later, Amy Millan and Torquil Campbell of Stars played to a field of dreamy-eyed sophomores at the University of Toronto. The individuals in the band had already made their mark on the city’s music scene: I’d first discovered Emily Haines’ purring in high school, when Metric was still opening for local punk bands. Yasmin Tayag: I started college in Toronto in the mid-2000s, so it was inevitable that this record would soundtrack my coming of age. Not necessarily fresh, but familiar - like the beach. These aren’t tight songs with a focused structure - they feel more like ideas about sounds and melodies and rhythms that come together, with an ebb and flow that rises and dissipates naturally. Not just because so many of the track titles reference water (“Our Faces Split The Coast In Half,” “Windsurfing Nation,” “7/4 Shoreline”), but because each track feels easy. “It’s All Gonna Break” never seems to know what kind of song it wants to be, so it tries to be all of them, and I love listening to it for that reason.Įvery time I play the record, I think about water. That album was maybe the closest to a jam rock record my 15-year-old ears had listened to and liked up till then. It felt more abstract than a lot of other indie rock coming out at the time. When I listened to rest of the album, I knew it was special. It was nothing I had really heard before. I remember a rush coming on the first time I heard that track - the fast snare rolls, the fierce cymbal crashes, what sounded like eight jangly guitars layered over one another. “Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl” was catchy, but too poppy “Almost Crimes” had moments, but wasn’t loud enough “Cause = Time” should have cascaded into an overwhelming crash, but never did. I had never listened to their second album, You Forgot It In People, apart from a few tracks my older brother would blast on the living room stereo here and there, and none of them really stuck with me. Neel Patel: The eponymous record was my introduction to Broken Social Scene. What about you guys, are we the only ones who still listen to this thing or what? When did you first come across this band and record? This record formed the types of indie rock that I still listen to today - semi-grandiose yet scrappy rock with thoughtful, melodramatic lyrics. Instead I’m just constantly reminded about how good it still is. I’m never pining for the past when listening to this record. Whenever I listen to particular tracks I can still picture shifting moments of first listening to it in college, but it never makes me become overly nostalgic. But weirdly enough it’s also a record that specifically defines a place and time for me. It’s a record I still listen to quite a bit. Sean Hutchinson: It kind of blows my mind that Broken Social Scene is 10 years old, not because thinking about it reminds me of the slow lurch of time marching me closer to my demise, but because it still seems fresh in my mind somehow.
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