31 March 2021 - Sarah McLachlan - O Canada / Céline Dion - O Canada

Good evening. This is Wicked Guilty Pleasures, an owned and operated blog of the Wicked Guilty Pleasure Broadcasting Corporation, with a picture signal strength of 77,000 watts and a sound signal strength of 7,500 watts. Our principal transmitter is somewhere inside a Google datacenter, which broadcasts to metropolitan Toronto and areas throughout the world. Repeat transmitters extend our broadcast area to include Wawa, White River, Hornepayne, Manitouwadge, Beardmore, and Geraldton. If you have any comments or suggestions about our programs, please address them to info@wickedguilty.com. We hope you've enjoyed this month's programming. 

And now, our national anthem.

Bonsoir. Il s'agit de Wicked Guilty Pleasures, un blog détenu et exploité par Wicked Guilty Pleasure Broadcasting Corporation, avec une puissance de signal d'image de 77 000 watts et une puissance de signal sonore de 7 500 watts. Notre émetteur principal se trouve quelque part dans un centre de données Google, qui diffuse vers la métropole de Toronto et des régions du monde entier. Les émetteurs de répétition étendent notre zone de diffusion pour inclure Wawa, White River, Hornepayne, Manitouwadge, Beardmore et Geraldton. Si vous avez des commentaires ou des suggestions sur nos programmes, veuillez les adresser à info@wickedguilty.com. Nous espérons que vous avez apprécié la programmation de ce mois.

Et maintenant, notre hymne national.

(Special thanks to CLBT-TV, whose sign-off from the 1990s we shamelessly lifted)

31 March 2021 - Armistice - Mission Bells & City Lights Cry

We are closing this month of nothing but Canadian music the same way we started.

Not just with a band the American audience here had never heard.   I mean, yes, that.  

Wait.  You did figure out the Canadian music thing before now, right?  Every artist I posted in March was Canadian - even the covers.  I was explicitly clear in every post.  EVERY post contained the word "Canada" or "Canadian" - except for the one that contained the word "canadien" and was all in FRENCH.  I spelled the word "favourite" several times.  I pretty much beat you over the head with the damn maple leaf.

Which also brings us back to ending this month exactly like we started. You see, Armistice was a group - a duo, really, comprised of a man from Toronto band Bedouin Soundclash, named Jay Malinowski, and his girlfriend at the time, a Montreal musician named Béatrice Martin.

She is better known by her stage name.

This collaboration was very much has a 60's mariachi band feel, which is very different than the reggae/ska sound of Bedouin Soundclash and the sound (although not the lyrical depth) of the chanson française of Cœur de Pirate (are you happy that I had to write the œ AGAIN?!).   

Jay and Béatrice, while on tour together in 2011, performed a couple of songs on the streets of Paris.  For reasons that will become clear in a minute and you can already guess, I decided to feature their song "City Lights Cry", which also tells a story in mariachi.  The couple clearly had a lot of fun doing this.  

And they were a couple - meeting at the Olympics in 2010 in Vancouver - but when that relationship ended, Armitice persisted long enough for some promotion of their EP, and then they went their separate ways.  Thankfully, the songs didn't die with the relationship, as they have been performed by Cœur de Pirate regularly.  Granted, they don't sound quite as mariachi on a piano.... but the songs still work.  

30 March 2021 - The Weeknd - Save Your Tears

I know many of you were underwhelmed by The Weeknd's Super Bowl performance.

It is difficult, however, to be underwhelmed by the impact this Canadian singer has had on music.  His combination of soul and electronic music is somewhat groundbreaking - and I can understand that not translating well to a weird national broadcast performance.

So we're clear, this was his current single during that Super Bowl, and it is a top 20 hit worldwide, so I think he's doing something right.  The song initially charted in April 2020, a full 8 months before it was released as a single - because it is such an infectious song.

The Weeknd also performed the song during the 2020 iHeartRadio Jingle Ball.  In a few years, we're going to look back upon performances like this, without crowds, and remember our little pandemic.  For now, just enjoy this live performance. 

29 March 2021 - Drake ft. Majid Jordan - Hold On, We’re Going Home

I'm a little surprised it took me this long to post anything by this Degrassi: The Next Generation alum.   That's right.  Aubrey Drake Graham was best known for his role on the Canadian drama before he was a musician.  

Yes.  He was billed as Aubrey Graham.  

On this song, which is more soul and less hip-hop than some of Drake's other tunes, he is joined by R&B duo (singer + producer) and fellow Canadians Majid Jordan - and had a worldwide hit, both commercially and critically.  

 

In case it isn't clear, here are Drake and Majid Jordan on Ellen, with Majid Al Maskati clearly singing significant vocals on this song.  

28 March 2021 - Barenaked Ladies - Be My Yoko Ono

I couldn't in good conscience let Klaatu stand as your Wicked Guilty Pleasure today.

For a good percentage of you, this was your first exposure to BNL.

For me, this was the song, playing on CFNY, a radio station from Toronto.  It's clearly a tongue-in-cheek love song, referring to the romance of John Lennon and Yoko Ono in somewhat amusing terms.  Their debut single, it was a minor Canadian hit and cemented their charm and appeal across the country.  

By the way, Yoko Ono has heard the song, and enjoyed it.

28 March 2021 - Klaatu - Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft

The Carpenters did a lot of covers.  This was one of them.

But we're not talking about the cover.  We're talking about the Klaatu original.  You see, Klaatu was a band, formed in 1973, whose style had them dubbed "the Canadian Beatles".  It was even rumoured that they WERE The Beatles for a while.  Clearly, they weren't, but they had a few hits in their own right.  

And they sure did write some offbeat music.  However, the title was lifted from an actual 1950's UFO society who used that phrase to start every transmission.  

27 March 2021 - Stompin' Tom Connors - The Hockey Song

I dare you not to smile during this song. 

A classic played at many many hockey games, especially in Canada (as it references a Canadian win, and I don't think he means the Canadiens), the single, released in 1973, became a posthumous Canadian Top 30 hit for Connors in 2013. 

And me standing in the Saddledome in Calgary at a Flames game in late 2019 singing this song with a lot of Canadians is among my best memories of Canada.  It's truly moving to hear thousands of people singing such a joyous song.