Canning's Gonna Make It
Anand Wilder of Yeasayer once told me: “Once you’re in a band that people have heard of, you’re afforded so many more opportunities.” He said it with a sense of romance and excitement, like someone whose combo's rising acclaim had suddenly made the musical world —and its solo albums, side-projects, and off-the-cuff collaborations— his oyster. There is, of course, a downside to this land of opportunity: every artist’s right to abuse it.
Broken Social Scene are a big enough behemoth that every one of their core members could put out a solo record and there’d be an audience. And that’s apparently what’s happening. Bilking the notoriety of their band name, the Toronto collective are letting their main members take charge of solo albums under the ‘Broken Social Scene Presents:’ banner. In truth, it’s murky territory they’re working in, here. Sure, almost all of Broken Social Scene (and Stars and Metric and Land of Talk) play on this, guitarist Brendan Canning’s solo debut. But using the family celebrity to sell the work of one of its more anonymous entrants seems slightly shady.
Though Canning is the bedrock upon which Broken Social Scene was born —it was the cash he earnt working on novelty-rap/pop combo Len’s one-hit-wonder “Steal My Sunshine” that paid for BSS's debut Feel Good Lost— he has, in their complete discography, only taken lead three times. Once on You Forgot It In People (“Stars and Sons”), once on their bloated, money-bleeding opus Broken Social Scene (“Handjobs for the Holidays”), and once on a throwaway b-side (“Market Fresh”).
Feelgood Lost to Formula
Something for All of Us is his chance to shine, and he comes out looking kind of dulled. Not resembling a ‘solo’ work in any sense, Canning’s debut is a big, dense, fussed-over, overproduced album. Canning comes off as a fretful parent, a smothering figure who, in an inability to ‘let go,’ multi-tracks his songs to a suffocating death.
Where early Broken Social Scene albums seemed alive with sense of space —there something in the air shared by its communal crew— here everything is flat, lifeless, squashed down with every new layer of instrumentage. Ironically enough, the musical mode is ‘life-affirming,’ as if by formula: “Churches Under the Stars” all drunken-chorus vocals, ‘goodtime’ caterwauls, handclaps en masse, propulsive push-beat bass, and salivating guitar licks.
There are a few curveballs: “Love is New” dares dabble in disco-funk, and “Snowballs & Icicles” fingerpicks and mewls through some faux-folk blues reminiscent of the sad-songs-with-whooshy-sound-effects stuff Beck did on his overcooked breakup album, Sea Change. But mostly the cuts come off like pale variations on Canning’s musical dayjob. Something for All of Us, even if you're being kind, plays like a lesser version of that already-mediocre, self-titled, death-knell-sounding Broken Social Scene set.
Record Label: Arts & Crafts
Release Date: 22 July 2008
