ART OF SONG
The Powergoats
“Emily Haines (On My Car Stereo)”
Moonlit Crimes
Jampops Records (Self-Released) | 2010

I’m a sucker for clever song titles. I think it’s the only reason I listened to Fall Out Boy. Oh yeah, that and because me singing “This Ain’t A Scene” REALLY annoyed my friends. Anyway,  “Emily Haines (On My Car Stereo)” is not the MOST clever name for a song in the world, but it certainly paints a picture. We all know Emily Haines. At least….I hope we all do. In case you haven’t been paying attention, she’s a part of Broken Social Scene, lead singer of Metric , AND she has a solo career. Girl gets around.

But this isn’t about Emily Haines. This is, instead, a song FOR Emily Haines by fellow Canadians The Powergoats. Lead singer Jamie Douglas is pouring on the sex with a capital S-E-X in his vocals, because he’s “just a man/and you’re impossibly beautiful” and the slow, almost Santana-esque guitar flares up in-between the verses.

If I had to write a love song to Emily Haines, I definitely think it would be more electronic. But this isn’t my love song, and The Powergoats decided to slow it down and blues it up. The organ is enough in the background to not be a distraction, but it really adds to the overall tone of the song, the sort of late night, last call, jukebox-in-a-dive-bar feel that the entire song has. I know Emily Haines is apparently on the car stereo, but I’m imagining the bar that Wolverine is in during the beginning of the first X-men movie.

And after that sentence, I’m sure I will have no more Canadian friends.

There are some breathy Emily Haines-esque female backing vocals on the track, so if you close your eyes and wish real hard, you can almost pretend it’s the real Emily. This isn’t the kind of song you can really rock out to. It’s slow and sensual, and honestly? You could probably slow dance to it. Just close your eyes and pretend it’s with Emily Haines.

by allison levin

TOP DOG
What is the current relevance of baroque-supergroup (that’s an oxymoron) Broken Social Scene? Yesterday, Kevin Drew and Co. tore through the blogs, having released a cover of Joy Division’s beloved 1980 single, “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” that is set to appear in the upcoming Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana tearjerker, The Time Traveler’s Wife.

I know what you’re all thinking – this is awesome; Broken Social Scene covering Joy Division should have happened a long time ago. Kevin Drew already writes about dreamy, lurid, sexual self-deprecation, and who did that better than Ian Curtis? That may be the case, and I want to stress how much I love 2002’s You Forgot It In People, and 2005’s Broken Social Scene.

Consider though, that BSS hasn’t released anything as BSS since. Leslie Feist has gone on to become as associated with the iPod as its forward thinking design model, white color, and fundamental ability to play music (specifically, Feist’s music). Emily Haines has recorded three times as many albums solo or with Metric as BSS has released in total. Every player outside founders Brendan Canning and Kevin Drew have refocused their attention onto other projects (Apostle of Hustle, Stars, Do Make Say Think, the list goes on).

So in 2009, two mediocre Broken Social Scene Presents… albums later, we start hearing from Broken Social Scene as a whole, again. First, a new album was announced back in April, and is currently being recorded. Then, BSS played a free show at Toronto’s Harbourfront Center and everyone was there; the entire band played a massive setlist, and anyone who likes BSS wishes they would’ve seen this. The group announced they would be working on a new film called This Movie Is Broken, about two fans trying to get backstage at a BSS show. All of a  sudden, BSS got loud, and again seemed like the collective behind those first albums (I challenge anyone not to get chills from those videos at Harbourfront; the band seems genuinely in love with each other).
More on Broken Social Scene: The Time Traveler’s Wife