A Sides Win: Singles 1992-2005

A Sides Win: Singles 1992-2005 Artist: Sloan
Label: Koch Records
Category: Music


Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1


UPC: 099923990420
EAN: 0099923990420
ASIN: B00080Z61U


Release Date: 2005-05-10

A Sides Win: Singles 1992-2005


Related Categories:

General General
Categories | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music
Indie Rock Indie Rock
Categories | Indie & Lo-Fi | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music
Canada Canada
Categories | North America | International | Styles | Music
General General
Categories | Rock | Styles | Music
Pop Rock Pop Rock
Categories | Pop | Styles | Music

Tracks:

  1. Underworld
  2. 500 Up
  3. Coax Me
  4. People Of The Sky
  5. The Good In Everyone
  6. Everything You've Done Wrong
  7. The Lines You Amend
  8. Money City Maniacs
  9. She Says What She Means
  10. Losing California
  11. Friendship
  12. If It Feels Good Do It
  13. The Other Man
  14. The Rest Of My Life
  15. All Used Up
  16. Try To Make It

Similar Items:

  1. Never Hear the End of It
  2. Twice Removed
  3. One Chord to Another
  4. Smeared
  5. Pretty Together

Amazon.com

Sloan is God's gift to rock and roll. There. It's been said--for the one-millionth time. While fans uttered the phrases "critics' darlings," "under-appreciated," and "under-rated," the band spent their time circling the globe and racking up a string of singles. They've been rightfully compared to the who's-who of four-piece rock/pop bands (no need to go into that here).* But it is, on the occasion of this 2005-released A-side retrospective, worth pointing out a few of the reasons for such comparisons. First and foremost is their catalog of recordings. Each album is dosed with tracks that run from horn-throwing monsters to easy-breezy rock-alongs. Each successive release one-upped the previous, either in terms of ability, maturity, or daring--never once alienating fans or looking back for past glory. All four voices fly in and out throughout; drum fills are pulled straight from the cocktail kit masters; tube-amp tones and guitar phrases could be the chapters in a How to be in a Killer Band for Dummies book. On stage, the band is the equivalent of a Yukon fire drill with members swapping instruments, vocals, and rock moves, song-for-song with furious skill and fierce cool. They're everything we've been trained to love about rock all rolled up in a tour van.

Highlights from this collection range from the ambitious undergrad stabs of "Underwhelmed" and the holy trinity of power-pop from 1997's One Chord to Another ("The Good In Everyone," "Everything You've Done Wrong," "The Lines You Amend"), to the grown-up Sloan of "The Other Man" ("If I'm the other man, nature will abhor me") and "The Rest of My Life" ("Am I gonna be someone who has to take the rest of my life to settle down/What kind of fool doesn't think about it/You have to be a fool not to think about it.") The one thing you'll find yourself wishing for is a speedy arrival of the B-sides and rarities.

The Bonus DVD version contains videos for all the songs and is the good value here. The videos accurately document the Sloan legacy and the song-by-song video commentary is fun for the superfans. --Peter Hilgendorf

<span class="tiny"> *(Beatles, Kinks, the Who, Led Zeppelin, Big Star, Kiss, Cheap Trick, the Clash, the Replacements, the Young Fresh Fellows and the Beach Boys--when Mike Love was out at the dry cleaners.) </span>

<span class="h1"><strong>Recommended Sloan Discography</strong></span> <table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="4" cellpadding="4"> <tr align="center" valign="top" class="tiny"> <td> <img src="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000000P0M.01.SWATCHZZ.jpg" border="0">
Smeared</td> <td> <img src="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00000IBBD.01.SWATCHZZ.jpg" border="0">
Twice Removed</td> <td> <img src="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00000DD4K.01.SWATCHZZ.jpg" border="0">
One Chord to Another</td> </tr> <tr align="center" valign="top" class="tiny"> <td> <img src="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00000K08V.01.SWATCHZZ.jpg" border="0">
Between the Bridges</td> <td> <img src="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0000658HK.01.SWATCHZZ.jpg" border="0">
Pretty Together</td> <td> <img src="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0001Z4PFU.01.SWATCHZZ.jpg" border="0">
Action Pact</td> </tr> </table>

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars A "best of" from one of the great pop bands in the history of rock.......2007-02-09

For the life of me I don't know where I learned about Sloan. But I confess it was only recently and I must further admit some shame at never before having heard of such a magnificent band. I started doing some research and discovered that when they were first breaking out in a big way in Canada, their record company decided that the kind of power pop they played would not go over well in the United States, where post-Nirvana grunge was dominating the rock scene. This was certainly my loss, since some of my all time favorite bands--the Beatles, Big Star, the Shoes, and the Smithereens--were all power pop bands. I started asking some of my more musical savvy friends about Sloan and was surprised that none of them had heard of the band either. And after poking around on some chat boards, I'm convinced that Sloan may be the greatest band around that the United States remains in complete ignorance about. Since first finding out about Sloan, I've been frantically rushing about getting as many of their albums as possible and am now convinced that except for the New Pornographers, they may be the best band out of Canada in the past couple of decades at least.

A SIDES WIN is a superb overview of Sloan's albums, but I have to add a qualifier. Some best-of anthologies can distort a band, making them sound better on a single disc than they do on individual albums. What is astonishing about Sloan is that most of their individual albums are very nearly as good as this greatest hits disc. There is no sharp drop off in quality between the songs that made the A-Sides discs and those that didn't. In fact, many of the songs that I have most enjoyed on individual albums did not make this disc.

This is power pop, a genre that has wide but not universal appeal. I absolutely love it. To me there is nothing more exciting than a band that can combine a strong of marvelous hooks, catchy lyrics, and great musicianship to craft easily accessible and joyous pop songs. Sloan absolutely excels at this form. They have a sort of genius for hook-driven songs, with precisely the right enhancements to put the song over the edge towards perfection: a guitar riff here, some horns there, some tight harmonies, a thick and lush guitar chord, an organ or hand clap. On top of all this they are a wonderfully tight, talented group. They don't quite reach the level of the New Pornographers in their playing, but then who does?

Every song on this disc is stellar and the disc moves from one stunning gem to another. "Underwhelmed" starts the disc off marvelously, but instantly gives way to the equally superb and very upbeat "500 Up." The next song is the wonderful "Coax Me," and a couple of cuts later is "The Good in Everybody." As they say, the hits just keep on coming. Other highlights include "Friendship" about the end of a friendship, "The Rest of My Life" in which the singer expresses grown up thoughts about maturing, and the unusual "The Other Man," in which the singer tells a woman with a boyfriend but with whom he is sleeping while supposedly just a friend expresses his side of things ("I'm the other man/No one's rooting for me").

Music Album:

  1. Spine to Sea ~ The Stares
  2. Change of Living ~ The Only Children
  3. David Kilgour & the Heavy Eights ~ David Kilgour & the Heavy Eights
  4. A Testimonial Dinner: The Songs of XTC ~ Various Artists
  5. Gentle Sound ~ Railway Children
  6. Tim Finn ~ Tim Finn
  7. My Favorite Revolution ~ Eugene Edwards
  8. Relocation ~ Plankeye
  9. New Deal ~ The Waco Brothers
  10. Reflecter ~ Sun Dial

Music Album

Music Album

Music CD

Rio Nights ~ Victor Feldman

Metamorphosis: Jazz Meets the Symphony, No. 4 ~ Lalo Schifrin

Touching ~ Paul Bley

She Turns Me On ~ Tommy Ridgley

Chain of Events ~ George Genna

Paris Bossa ~ Mccoy Quintet Tyner

Art Ensemble ~ Olof Roter

Black Album ~ Akhenaton

Archives of Ages to Come

Rosso Amore ~ Filippa Giordano