Broken Social Scene Mix Group and Solo Songs for Sprawling Set

Compensating for the absence of its most famous member (Feist), Broken Social Scene showed that brass high-school band instruments do belong in rock. With Amy Millan serving as the token female representative, the predominately dude version of the Canadian collective zipped through dark solo-album gems by defacto leader Kevin Drew ("Pressure Kids," "Frightening Lives") and breezy offerings from bearded weirdo Brendan Canning ("Hit the Wall," the disco-driven "Love Is New") as well as a handful of BSS favorites ("Fire Eyed Boy"). Visually, the group resembled a cross between Miami Vice chic and thrift-store special, but there was nothing ironic about its liberating tunes. And lest anyone think that our neighbors to the north aren't nervous about America's decline, Drew reminded everyone that, "you're not just voting for your country, you're voting for every country."

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Song Stories

“Help Me”

Joni Mitchell | 1974

Joni Mitchell wrote and recorded this song for her album Court and Spark, but she had to switch from her regular band to make the song sound exactly the way she wanted. "I had attempted to play my music with rock & roll players," she told Rolling Stone. "They’d laugh, 'Awww, isn't that cute? She's trying to teach us how to play.'" Mitchell switched to a jazz band, Tom Scott’s L.A. Express, and scored the biggest hit of her career in the process.

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