Listening In


  • LISTENING IN: In praise of Hozier
    by Michael Baginski - Andrew John Hozier-Byrne (aka Hozier), the thoughtful Irish singer-songwriter, sure gets his money’s worth out of his music – not syrupy ballads or inane love songs for him. His breakthrough smash “Take Me to Church” in 2013 was an audacious indictment of the Catholic church’s homophobic doctrine; and the song we covered previously, “Nina Cries Power,” was an homage to the legacy of protest songs and singers who were there at the beginning of the movement.

  • LOOKS LIKE WE’RE IN FOR NASTY WEATHER
    by Jen Savedra - John Fogerty is a brilliant songwriter – composing such celebrated hits as Proud Mary, Down on the Corner, Have You Ever Seen The Rain, and many, many more, generally performed by Creedence Clearwater Revival, but covered by artists around the world. However, this song has been an earworm in my mind for the past few weeks. I can’t get rid of it, so I’m passing it along. With an apology to our editor Mike Baginski for bumping his choice, here we go...

  • LISTENING IN: America through the looking glass, Styx’s prescient classic
    by Michael Baginski - Dennis DeYoung called it the Styx song that the record company “missed.” The Chicago band’s ultimate masterpiece, “Suite Madame Blue,” anchored the 1975 album Equinox, challenging and encouraging a “changed” America to “lift up your heart and make a new start” to be a mature and worthy world leader once again.

  • LISTENING IN: An Apple a day keeps Fats at play
    by Michael Baginski - On almost every level It’s hard to compare Fiona Apple with Fats Domino, but that doesn’t mean the exceptional American singer doesn’t do justice to the great early rock and roller. From John & Yoko to Cheap Trick, plenty of artists have covered “Ain’t That a Shame,” but Apple and her collection of talented friends give it their own rootsy treatment, which is fun and refreshing.

  • LISTENING IN: Don’t fear Blue Oyster Cult
    by Michael Baginski - Blue Oyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper” is a rock classic, but has always seemed a little creepy, nonetheless. Which is to say, the perfect song for Halloween this year! Having said that, we’ll take the edge off a little (and mostly because all the BOC videos are quite long), with a version by the rather more wholesome Choir! Choir! Choir!, a Canadian-based initiative we introduced recently doing Bowie’s “Space Oddity.”

  • LISTENING IN: New Hall of Famer Peter Frampton shows us the way
    by Michael Baginski - If you grew up in the ‘70s, odds are that “Frampton Comes Alive” in some way penetrated your existence – if not spinning hundreds of times your turntable, then certainly on the radio and TV. The double album came out of nowhere in 1976 and went on to be the best-selling live album of all time (at the time), and ultimately setting in motion the wheels that led to the English singer-songwriter being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last weekend.

  • LISTENING IN: Bon’s bagpipe shows another side of AC/DC
    by Michael Baginski - Recently we ran an early-days clip of U2 when the band were hardly recognizable as what they would become. Here’s another – of AC/DC – from 1976 on Australian TV, though the band isn’t so much unrecognizable as just kinda funny.

  • LISTENING IN: Burton Stands Tall
    by Michael Baginski - Any conversation about rock’s best vocalist typically begins and ends with Freddie Mercury. But those of a Canadian persuasion sometimes tentatively proffer an alternative: Burton Cummings, the legendary Guess Who frontman, and subsequent solo star.

  • LISTENING IN: Remembering Kris Kristofferson
    by Michael Baginski - Kris Kristofferson, a Rhodes scholar with a deft writing style and rough charisma who became a country music superstar and an A-list Hollywood actor, died earlier this week. Starting in the late 1960s, the Brownsville, Texas native wrote such country and rock ‘n’ roll standards as “Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down,” “Help Me Make it Through the Night,” "For the Good Times" and "Me and Bobby McGee."

  • LISTENING IN: For the love of Streetheart
    by Michael Baginski - One of the great Canadian band of the classic rock era, Saskatchewan’s Streetheart scored several hits in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, including covers of Them/Van Morrison’s “Here Comes the Night” and “Under My Thumb,” which in my humble estimation improved on the Stones’ original. My favourite, however, was/still is “What Kind of Love Is This?,” arguably their most memorable hit.

  • LISTENING IN: New musical takes audiences on a ‘Joyride’ with Roxette
    by Michael Baginski - Furthering the ‘90s musical revival, Malmö Opera in Sweden is hosting ‘Joyride the Musical,’ a new feel-good production paying tribute to the music of Swedish pop band Roxette. The musical takes audiences on a joyful, humorous journey that since its debut Sept. 6 has received rave reviews from audiences, comprised in large part by international visitors.

  • LISTENING IN: I want to know, have you ever seen John Fogerty?
    by Michael Baginski - An appropriate song for this soggy summer, perhaps, “Have You Ever Seen the Rain” was according to its author John Fogerty, a metaphor for impending change – in particular in respect to his, at the time, troubled band, Creedence Clearwater Revival.

  • LISTENING IN: You’ve got to hand it to Alanis
    by Michael Baginski - “Jagged Little Pill” catapulted Alanis Morisette into music superstardom in 1995, with the album going on to become one of the highest selling albums of all time (more than 33 million and No. 7 on the all-time Billboard 200 chart) and forever ensuring that the Ottawa-born singer would be one of Canada’s most famous.

  • LISTENING IN: A look back in anger, and forward with hope
    by Michael Baginski - You might have heard this week that Oasis is getting back together – 15 years after the battling brothers Gallagher busted up, seemingly for good after years of sometimes amusing/ sometimes just-plain-nuts escapades by and between Liam and Noel that continually suggested that real life was quite the opposite of the band’s name.

  • LISTENING IN: Let’s get together and feel all right
    by Michael Baginski - War in middle east and eastern Europe, US politics, cats and dogs living together! (to quote Bill Murray in Ghostbusters) … It seems we should all just get together and feel all right, which I tend to do when listening to Playing for Change, the amazing collective of world music practitioners who creatively re-interpret favourite songs in the name of peace, love, unity – and charity – through song.

  • LISTENING IN: A Canadian Slug fest, still doing it without Doug
    by Michael Baginski - The late ‘70s and ‘80s was a golden age for Canadian bands, even if the success of many didn’t make it beyond our borders. But who can forget bands like Trooper, Prism, Streetheart, Chilliwack, Honeymoon Suite, and… the legendary Doug and the Slugs?

  • LISTENING IN: We’re Cryin’ for Steven Tyler
    by Michael Baginski - One of rock’s greatest singers, Steven Tyler, has called it quits, succumbing to permanently damaged vocal cords, of which Aerosmith says, “it is clear that a full recovery is not possible.” The band’s legendary frontman injured his vocal cords while on tour in September and said at the time that the injury caused bleeding, but that he hoped the band would be back after postponing a few shows.

  • LISTENING IN: This is ground control to C!C!C!
    by Michael Baginski - Regular readers will know there’s nothing Listening In likes better than a good choir. And suggestions from the flock. This week the two come together with Elvi Cal’s (TravelBrands) introduction to us of Choir! Choir! Choir! (C!C!C!), a unique Toronto-based initiative that started in 2011 as a singing event that interprets popular songs like David Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” performed here at the Art Gallery of Ontario.

  • LISTENING IN: The gospel according to Jon Bon Jovi
    by Michael Baginski - Big Bon Jovi hits can fill up most of your fingers, but we’re going to stretch that onto the toes this week with “Keep the Faith,” a lesser hit spawned from the 1992 album of the same name, an effort that was notable as the last recording by the original lineup of the New Jersey band, but also a turning point when the Jon Bon Jovi pop-rockers are deemed to become a little more serious.

  • LISTENING IN: Surrender to Cheap Trick
    by Michael Baginski - Great concerts can become the stuff of legend, but those performances rarely make great records – usually unable to truly capture an electric live atmosphere, convey sound quality comparable to a studio setting, or, of course, present the artists’ visual hijinks. As such, it’s even rarer then when a band makes its breakthrough because of a live album.