2020’s 10 Best Canadian Songwriters
For the month of December, I’m posting a few Top 10 lists to try to wrap up this schizophrenic year. From music to books, film, and TV, this is how I saw 2020.
Of all the artforms out there, songwriting might be the one Canada has made the most lasting impact on in the last century. Leonard, Joni, and Neil, our “holy trinity” of the craft, have left some pretty intimidating shoes to fill. The following ten people have done the best job of doing so this year, in my humble opinion.
Dan Bejar (Destroyer)
Bejar began serving us music under his Destroyer moniker in the ‘90s, but for the last decade, his mythic yacht rock and knotty wordplay have marinated like a Belgian tripel in a slow-cooking stew. Bejar’s lyrics are the type that continue offering new images after the fourth and fifth listen. This year’s Have We Met is no exception. The album opens with this doozy:
“I was like the laziest river, a vulture predisposed to eating off floors. No wait, I take that back; I was more like an ocean stuck inside hospital corridors.”
Not too many people can simultaneously conjure images from A River Runs Through It and The Shining to my mind. No wait, I take that back. No one else can do that.
Helena Deland
Listening to Someone New, Helena Deland’s full-length debut, makes you want better headphones. The album’s 13 songs tickle your eardrums like the best alternative records always do. But despite the studio gymnastics, the thing that sticks after a full listen-through is the lyrical content. Deland perfectly toes the line between confessional and abstract, intimate and eerie, in her illustrations of the selves we discover through our relationships with others.
Linnea Siggelkow (Ellis)
Every now and then, someone comes along to remind us all that, yes, some people are born talented. This year’s reminder was Linnea Siggelkow, who released her album Born Again under the name Ellis. Siggelkow seems to innately know how to put a song together. Get a load of this line, from the title track:
“I was puking in the bathroom; I was trying to be pretty.”
Does that not perfectly encapsulate the insecurities of being young? Two thoughts that hold little emotional weight apart land with a thud when slapped together like that. It’s the kind of line that makes 30-somethings like me jealous and excited for what this new face will do next.
Sydney Hermant (Hello Blue Roses)
I confess I did not know who Sydney Hermant was until yesterday, but she quickly made it onto this list with her ability to burrow words and melodies into the brains of others. Wild Nights!, the newest addition to her Hello Blue Roses project, feels less like walking through a conventional story and more like getting lost in an art gallery. It’s still fresh—I’m still trying to get my head around it—but tracks that stand out so far are Patti Smith-like “Moonstruck” and “Wild Angels,” and “Child of the Kindly West,” which is remeniscent of ‘70s era Joan Baez but through the kaleidoscope of Nico. No matter the track though, one thing is clear: these songs are arriving from a deep well.
Jordan Klassen
Under normal circumstances, this would be a shameless plug for a good friend, but Jordan Klassen’s 2020 release, Tell Me What To Do, is a clear career highlight. Klassen could always turn a phrase, but songs like “Surprised/Not Surprised,” “None of My Answers,” and “Identivacation” are so delicate while maintaining emotional complexity that they have fans asking themselves, ‘Is this guy getting even better at this?’ The answer is yes—yes he is. We’ve all watched artists run out of ideas. Jordan Klassen is not one of those artists.
Aidan Knight
You know you’re good at something when you can disappear for half a decade and still hold on to your fanbase. Hopefully Mr. Knight realized this after releasing his self-titled LP earlier this year. Of course, it helped to return with some of his best work yet. Adding a few dashes of “Abbey Road”-esque dad rock to his familiar, melancholy baritone, Knight scores some knock-out performances in songs like album opener “Julia in the Garden” and moody rocker “Veni Vidi Vici.” All together, the album leaves old hits like “Jasper” in the dust.
Jon McKiel
Bobby Joe Hope, the fifth album from Halifax’s Jon McKiel, is different than the other records highlighted in this list. While other artists weave tales and images together and tinge them with emotion through instrumentation and melody, McKiel hypnotizes with rhythm and hook. These songs sweat. They’ve been out in the sun too long. But like ice cream, some things are better once they’ve melted a little.
Meghan Remy (U.S. Girls)
Heavy Light, this year’s release from U.S. Girls, belongs in the category “perfectly named albums.” Meghan Remy sounds like a southern Baptist preacher tag teaming with her all-female choir with the energy expected from that comparison. But the subjects of her sermon-songs are all hard truths - violence inflicted on people by family and strangers, violence inflicted by us all on the world we live in - truths that weigh heavy. Heavy light.
Andy Shauf
If The Sun Also Rises took place in Toronto rather than Spain, it would be called Neon Skyline, and it would be Andy Shauf’s 2020 release. No bullfighting, just unrequited love, regret, and bar hopping. Like Jordan Klassen, Shauf consistently gets better from album to album. From the individual short stories of 2012’s Bearer of Bad News, to The Party’s vignettes from 2016, to this year’s record-long play, staged scene by scene, track by track, Shauf has developed a talent for storytelling few of his songwriting cohorts can lay claim to. When describing him to others, you want to reference Fitzgerald and Salinger as much as Dylan or Newman. All the tracks on Neon Skyline do what you want them to, but “Living Room” is a perfect example of his straight-forward style that shows you Andy Shauf can write a song about anything.
Colter Wall
Western Swing & Waltzes and Other Punchy Songs is all vintage. It’s the type of thing you’d find in the abandoned prairie home you can just make out from your passenger seat as you head down Hwy 101. Some of these old-timey exercises can cause your eyes to roll, but Colter Wall transcends tastemaker pretension by doing it so well. He transports you to into his time capsule with his voice and subject matter. There’s an elegy to an “old paint” on this record. Do I need to say much more than that?
If you’re not convince yet, check out this opening verse:
“East of beautiful Alberta, North of old Montan’,
the living’s fine when the springtime’s kind
to a bovine raising man.”
Wall wields no bells or whistles, just words and music that would make Steve, Merle, and Willie proud.
