What grabs you as a kid listening to songs on the radio may still grab you as an adult… but the nuances often come out after you’ve had years to process them, all informed by life experience. This was true for Rob and Steely Dan’s 1972 debut record Can’t Buy a Thrill. It was an Read more about 6.6: Steely Dan – Can’t Buy a Thrill (1972)[…]
As is often the case with music, love can grow in increments. The Deeper Cuts trio touched on that in our discussion on Tom Waits’ Mule Variations album all the way back in Season Two when Shannon first saw the artist’s incendiary performance of “Chocolate Jesus” on Letterman. But even as listeners grow into a Read more about 6.1: Tom Waits – The Heart of Saturday Night (1974)[…]
Why are there so many songs about rainbows? In this last episode of our fourth season, the Deeper Cuts trio indulge in some comfort listening, true to our well-established Muppet Agenda. This time, it revolves around the soundtrack album to 1979’s The Muppet Movie. Saving his money from a paper route, a young Graeme bought Read more about 4.6: The Muppet Movie (Original Soundtrack) (1979)[…]
Welcome to Deeper Cuts: the COVID Sessions — a three episode miniseries which finds the Deeper Cuts trio taking deep dives into music with deep meaning for us right now as we shelter in place during the COVID-19 pandemic. Right now during the COVID-19 lockdown, a lot of us find ourselves waiting. We’re waiting for Read more about The COVID Sessions 2: Bruce Cockburn – Night Vision (1973)[…]
Spirituality. It’s a pretty open-ended term. But one thing common across the faith spectrum (or the absence thereof) may be the sense of becoming part of something bigger than yourself and experiencing mystery and wonder. It isn’t easily defined and categorized as some systems of faith might have us believe. But it’s significant all the same. Read more about 2.9: Bruce Cockburn – Dancing in the Dragon’s Jaws (1979)[…]
Your parents’ music. It can shape your own taste in various capacities. Or it can give you something to rebel against. Sometimes, it can be both. Either way, the music your parents put on when you were a kid isn’t just a soundtrack to your childhood; it’s a part of the tapestry of their personalities, Read more about 2.3: Anne Murray – Let’s Keep It That Way (1978)[…]
Sometimes you find your favourite music. But in those rarer moments, that music seems to find you. That’s the experience Rob had with 1971’s Bryter Layter by singer-songwriter Nick Drake. The record was Drake’s second album, exploring English folk-rock textures with some chamber pop and jazz thrown in, and with some interesting lyrical content to Read more about 2.2: Nick Drake – Bryter Layter (1971)[…]
They say that music is the international language. Sometimes, melodies, tones, and atmospheres that music can create can transcend everything even if the lyrics are in another language. That’s this week’s Deeper Question, Deeper Cuts fans: What piece of music, song, or even whole album had immediate impact even when delivered in a language that Read more about Deeper Questions: Foreign Language Favourites![…]
At one time, and even still for some today, the radio served as the primary vehicle for discovering the world of pop music that we continue to love throughout our lives even as our tastes change. So the Deeper Question this week is: What’s the first pop song on the radio that you remember hearing Read more about Deeper Questions: Early Radio Faves![…]
What is it about Christmas and holiday music? One thing’s for sure, it definitely takes us back to our childhoods. That’s precisely where Graeme, Shannon, and Rob went on this special holiday episode of Deeper Cuts; specifically, to the 1979 album John Denver and The Muppets – A Christmas Together. They discuss favourite tracks, common Read more about Holiday Special: John Denver and the Muppets – A Christmas Together (1979)[…]
Pop music; we all have to start somewhere. For Graeme, pop music was a big part of his journey as a pre-teen, skipping a grade in school and finding himself surrounded by the monstrous reality known as Junior High School. During that time of awkwardness and alienation, it was Supertramp’s massively popular 1979 album Breakfast Read more about 9: Supertramp – Breakfast In America (1979)[…]
For every great record, there is almost always another great one behind it. Sometimes, there’s even an entire body of work that helped to inspire it. Shannon, Graeme, and I aren’t the only ones who have albums that hold deep meanings! This idea is absolutely true of XTC’s Apple Venus, Volume 1, a record that Read more about XTC Apple Venus, Volume 1 Addendum: The Influence of Judee Sill[…]
If you listened carefully to our “3 minutes more or less” summary of The Sesame Street Record, you might notice that there was one final track in that that’s not in our Spotify Playlist. That’s because the original release of The Sesame Street Record was an LP, on a vinyl record with two sides. The Read more about Bonus Content: The Sesame Street Record’s deleted final track[…]
Chances are, our first encounters with music was that which was aimed right at our hungry little learning minds and dancing little feet. For generations of kids, including our own Graeme Burk, a heavyweight in this department was the original cast recording The Sesame Street Record, released in 1970. Like the groundbreaking TV show it was Read more about 3: The Sesame Street Record (1970)[…]