We debuted this new (and possibly recurring) feature back in late July – an idea formed from my sudden post-pandemic recall to the physical office environment. While my employer continues to provide a hybrid work schedule that splits time between working from home and the office, for those days that see me driving in to the city, I am finding time to spin several of the many CDs already purchased over the year. With this feature, rather than concentrate on an entire album review, the idea was to select just three tracks that stand out, and to offer some thoughts behind the picks.
Winnipeg, MB-born, and now Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter Chantal Kreviazuk has been on our listening radar seemingly forever – back from the days when “CBC Sonica” was a staple of the SXM radio line-up. Oh, how we miss you Sonica – talk about a station that provided us with a solid education about the Canadian music scene on satellite radio here in the US. Thanks to Sonica, it would be the track “Wayne,” that introduced me to the music of this 3xJUNO Award winning artist – heard maybe circa 2010, even though this tune originated on Chantal’s 1996 double platinum debut “Under The Rocks And Stones” album. Discovering the CD at a local music store shortly after, I became acquainted with other popular cuts, such as “Surrounded” and “God Made Me,” adding further albums from her early catalog during subsequent Canadian adventures.
More time would pass before I had one of those “lightbulb” moments – connecting dots between this artist and one of her popular songs that I had encountered long before I actively explored the Canadian music scene. Of course, I’d seen that unforgettable scene in the 1999 movie “Armageddon” when actor Ben Affleck cringe-worthily recites lines from John Denver’s “Leaving On A Jet Plane” – before a much more appropriate cover version from an unknown-to-me female voice quickly replaced the butchery. A little over a decade would pass before being dealt with the realization that Canadian artist Chantal Kreviazuk was the source of that unknown voice and cover when finding a copy of the CD single.
Having accumulated Chantal’s albums from her 1999-2006 years, I must confess that they saw a few spins before being stored away in our CD archives. A copy of her 2009 “Plain Jane” album was found a few years back too, which received our same short attention span. All are good albums – they just never seemed to break into our more frequent listening rotation. And then we discovered “Since We Met: The Best of 1996-2006” this past spring in an Ontario thrift store – and while we didn’t really ‘need’ this ‘early hits’ compilation – we simultaneously could not leave an unloved, unwanted compact disc sitting on the store shelf. The album returned with us to PA, and recently found itself loaded into my CD player to accompany me on my commute for a couple of weeks – and while there are several great cuts on this collection of hit tunes, three in particular did very quickly separate themselves from the pack.
“In This Life” – the powerful and emotive piano strokes to open this song very quickly remind us that Chantal is a classically trained pianist – and it shows. “Let me tell you who you really are / You’re my comfort / You’re not a superstar / I can reach up and bring you back down to the ground / And give you everything you dream about.” I’m confident that the placement of this tune was more than just a random choice too, with this potent piano ballad from her 2002 “What If It All Means Something” album exploding from the car speakers, Chantal’s raspy vocals wrapped with instrumentation that intensifies as the song progresses. It truly is hard to believe that this song is already twenty years old – it sounds so fresh in the here and now as it did back in its piano-ballad heyday. “You can run from me / And you can hide from me / But I am right beside you / In this life.”
“All I Can Do” – Co-written with musician/husband Raine Maida (Our Lady Peace), the fifth offering on this compilation was originally found on Chantal’s 2006 “Ghost Stories” album – which I must confess is my personal favorite from her musical catalog. “When you’re on your own / When you’re at a fork in the road / You don’t know which way to go / There’s too many suns in our rows / You haven’t laughed in a while / When you can’t even fake a smile / When you feel ashamed / The uniform don’t make you brave.” This is mid-2000s power-pop at its absolute finest – the combination of piano and strings kicking in to commence the second verse always tug at the heartstrings, and Chantal’s vocals are truly unrivalled here. “What a lovely day to shape your dreams / And you don’t even have to sleep / You can make it what you want to be / You can fly away / You can change your name / You can have a happy face / It can be so real.”
“Ghosts Of You” – Also co-written with Maida, and once again taken from the “Ghost Stories” album, this moving piano and strings power-ballad fills the seventeenth spot on this collection – and frequently results in hitting the ‘up’ arrow on my steering wheel volume controls. “We could laugh out loud / And sing until the sun came out / We took a secret vow / That we would never change.” The string instrumental to open transcends the decades, before yielding to Chantal’s deliberate key strokes and slightly more up-tempo vocal pace and delivery. “I don’t want to live forever / But if we could be together / Then I wouldn’t mind infinity / I don’t want to live forever / Oh, but I can still remember / No, I wouldn’t mind infinity.”
Photo Credit: Artist Website
The British guy that crossed the ocean and crash landed in central Pennsylvania (to quote Greg Keelor, “And I wonder what am I doing here?”). As the youngest of four siblings, exposure to music from a very early age nurtured my passion and appreciation for many musical genres. Continuing to discover some amazingly diverse and talented musicians based in Canada, I gravitate to live music experiences and remain devoted to spreading the word about such a vibrant music scene.
