Toronto Mike

Music

Total 769 Posts

Of Curried Soul and Edwin Starr

I was just watching the Raptors lose to the Bulls, and caught a Gatorade ad featuring Usain Bolt, Dwayne Wade and others called "Moving the Game Forward". As ads go, it was pretty cool, but it was the distinctive music that captured my attention. I was hearing "Curried Soul" by
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Hidden Tracks

Do you remember the first time you spun Nirvana's Nevermind? I do. I'd pop it in the CD player, and after "Something in the Way", I'd start it again. At some point I realized there was a whack of time left in the final track, after "Something in the Way"
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Three Hits You Didn't Know Were Covers

Last week, I disappeared down the rabbit hole of one-hit wonders, and this afternoon I dove into the world of songs you didn't realize were covers. I'm blaming this article for lighting the spark. Here are three songs I didn't realize were cover songs. I'm betting you didn't know, either.
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One-Hit Wondering

I spent some time heading down the one-hit wonder rabbit hold this morning. It all started with this interesting article about the death of one-hit wonders. Since 1958, Billboard has released a weekly “Hot 100,” which ranks the “most popular songs across all genres.” Over the years, their ranking methodology
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Teddy Bear Picnic

When I was a toddler, one of my go-to albums was There's a Hippo in My Tub by Anne Murray. My favourite cuts were "Animal Crackers" and "Teddy Bears' Picnic". For the longest time I thought that last one was an Anne Murray original. I was way wrong. The music
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Best Songs for the Days of the Week

There are many great songs about Sunday. Think about it. In fact, there are many great songs entitled "Sunday Morning". Vocativ studied 57 years of Billboard charts to see which days of the week get the most love from songwriters. As you'd likely guess, Sunday, Saturday, Monday and Friday are
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Baby, It's Cold Outside

My buddy Erin Davis wrote an interesting blog entry about Baby, It's Cold Outside, a song you'll hear often at this time of year. Baby, It's Cold Outside isn't a Christmas song, but a "cold weather" song, and since it's so good, it gets lumped in with holiday favourites like
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Everyone Loves Red

I just heard Treble Charger's Brand New Low on the radio. As I was singing along I thought, "I dig this tune, but it's no Red". With Treble Charger on the mind, I quickly thought of American Psycho, Friend of Mine and Even Grable, all great tracks (especially the fantastic
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Questions for Jeremy Taggart

I will be sitting down next week with Jeremy Taggart, best known as the drummer for Our Lady Peace from 1993 - 2014. He'll be dropping by to record an episode of my podcast Toronto Mike'd, and I get an entire hour to ask him anything I want. I know
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Bob Geldof and the Telex Machine

I've been listening to Scot Turner's Spirit of Radio Sunday on 102.1 the Edge and it's great.  Earlier today, they played I Don't Like Mondays by the Boomtown Rats, a song that references a telex machine. If you're my age or younger, you've likely never seen a telex machine.
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Of Sheriff, Alias and Frozen Ghost

Remember Sheriff?  They were a Canadian rock band that scored a big US hit with When I'm With You years after they disbanded. Sheriff was vocalist Freddy Curci, guitarist Steve DeMarchi, keyboardist Arnold Lanni, bassist Wolf Hassel and drummer Rob Elliott. Sheriff - When I'm With YouWhen Sheriff broke up,
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The Power of Song

I caught an interesting discussion on CBC Radio this morning about the power of music as therapy.  Music can be used to soothe and revitalize those suffering from dementia, for example. A popular example of this can be seen in this clip of Henry that made the rounds a few
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