email: letters@nowtoronto.com
A Toronto top-50 music list without Moxy
I expect you’ll get a lot of “How could you have missed…” letters about your 50 Best Toronto Albums Ever cover (NOW, January 3-9). Well, here’s mine.
I’ve long thought Moxy Früvous’s 1993 CD Bargainville the quintessential Toronto album. References to Pizza Pizza and SkyDome aside, Bargainville’s blend of upbeat and melancholy, youthful hope and suburban angst captures the essence of this city of immigrants for me.
“Once I was the King of Spain…. Now the Leafs call me up to drive the Zamboni!”
Tom Sommerville
Toronto
Smart musical choices and R&B omissions
Congrats to NOW for compiling the list of the 50 Best Toronto Albums Ever. A tough task indeed, but there were some glaring omissions on the R&B/soul front.
Granted the Weeknd has talent and the Wayne McGhie selection was a smart choice, [but] other seminal Toronto albums and singles should have made the list, too. To wit: Jacksoul’s Absolute (R.I.P., Haydain Neale).
But the biggest omission was not including at least one song from our top R&B female export, Deborah Cox, who has almost a dozen Billboard number-one singles to her credit.
Thanks again for initiating this great discussion. Toronto artists can hold their heads high with any city on the planet when it comes to music and culture.
Jude Kelly
Chair, Juno Awards R&B/Soul Committee, 2003-2005.
Ron Sexsmith: “I haven’t made any great albums yet.”
Just wanted to clarify I was asked a few months ago to put together a list of 10 Toronto albums (of the last 50 years) that were important to me, and so it was a bit of a surprise to see my name on the cover saying I helped select the final list. No big deal. Also, I don’t think my first album should’ve been included on your top-50 list. I haven’t made any great albums yet, although I keep trying.
Ron Sexsmith
From nowtoronto.com
Just a pretty bad miss
I don’t see Goddo anywhere on your top-50 list, but as Greg Godovitz or Gino Scarpelli, Pretty Bad Boys themselves, would have said, “Who cares?!”
Larry Swatuk
From nowtoronto.com
No Pallett not palatable
Shocked and horrified to see none of Owen Pallett’s brilliant masterpieces on the best-albums-of-Toronto list. Seriously.
If his music isn’t some of the most inventive, meticulously executed stuff you’ve heard coming out of this city ever, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.
He Poos Clouds won a Polaris Prize. And Has A Good Home even has a track entitled CN Tower!
Hannah Palindrome
Toronto
This movie lover thrown for a Looper
All your movie critics’ top 10 movie choices in the Year In Review Issue (NOW, December 27-January 2) ignored the most original and thought-provoking sci-fi movie of the year: Looper. Instead we’re given Oscar bait that is a snooze to sit though.
Aaron L.
Toronto
Curbing Sherbourne bike lane enthusiasm
One thing struck me about Dan Egan’s comment in Ben Spurr’s piece on the opening of the Sherbourne bike lanes (NOW, December 19): “The mountable lane design (which makes it all too easy for any vehicle to scamper over) was necessary because emergency vehicles need to access buildings on Sherbourne.”
I have seen enough fire trucks, ambulances and police cars to know that they’re not worried about parking rules they can park where they choose, including live traffic lanes. So why they need access to bike lanes/tracks is a mystery.
I continue to grimly use Jarvis, testing the forlorn hope that “sharing” the road with Rosedale speed demons is a viable option.
Geoff Rytell
Toronto
Make more of Idle No More manifesto
I have been a NOW reader for as long as the energizing weekly has been around. The appearance of a new NOW can put an upswing in the workweek, opening the horizon on intriguing events.
But I was prompted to write when I saw the Idle No More Manifesto (NOW, January 3-9) in a skinny sidebar on the Newsfront spread. Surely an actual manifesto would be presented in a visual form to dazzle hungry minds like my own.
Now that we’ve been provided with what amounts to an appetizer, I think NOW should put this item in the appropriate spot. The manifesto belongs on the front cover.
Douglas Moore
Toronto
What’s eating Chief Theresa Spence
Thank you for publishing HarperCons Playing Hunger Games (NOW, January 7).
I wish more journalists took the time to research the treaties and Indian Act so the government and media wouldn’t get away with putting the blinders on Canadians. Far too many believe natives are simply handed a golden chest of money to booze and drug away each year.
Why would Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence be eating fish broth in a cold tent in the middle of winter if she could be living like a princess in Hawaii with all her millions? It’s absurd the garbage that’s being peddled these days!
Thanks to you, I have some faith left in media to take the time to see through the BS.
Jason Haney
From nowtoronto.com
