Is Twice Removed Still The #1 Canadian Album?

Back in 1996 Chart Magazine published the first Top 50 Canadian Albums Of All-Time and created a ton of controversy with the eventual #1 album, Sloan's Twice Removed. Many peaple thought we rigged the results in order to to favour a band we covered in the magazine. The contributers to the poll were industry folks ranging from label publicists to music critics from print, radio and television. We even received a number of artist contributions too without one band picking themselves.

We asked over 200 hundreds media people to choose their top ten Canadian albums of all time. We discouraged votes for greatest hits packages and live releases, unfortunately disqualifying The Guess Who's  Live At The Paramount (but that's the subject of another blog entry...). All of the contributors were keen to add their vote. We used them happily. In fact, we received a number of complaints from folks who hadn't been asked for their lists.

As the Charts Editor, I was responsible for the compiling of the results, weighting the top ten entries giving 10 points for a #1 album on a list, dropping down to 1 point for a #10 album listed. If someone didn't rank their selections we gave all entries the aggregate of five points each.

As the result began to pour in it was both surprising and obvious who the #1 album was going to be. Almost every other top ten list included Twice Removed and the lead the album had over the runner-up albums, Neil Young's Harvest and Joni Mitchell's Blue. Sloan received at least 30 per cent more points than Harvest. It was a runaway victory that completely surprised all of us involved in the poll. We knew immediately that the results would stir up a hornet's nest of controversy and a lot of positive media coverage. 

Now that Twice Removed is 15 years old, the album continues to surprise. As I began to be tally the results of that poll, I began to listen to the album for the first time. Eventually I listened to Twice Removed every work day for the month of that January. The album grew on me so much I had to put it in my own top ten list at #10. 

When I first heard the album, it was "Coax Me" and "Penpals" that were my favourites. Soon I fell in love "Snowsuit Sound." Then for a long time Andrew Scott's People Of The Sky." Now it's "Worry Now," and a vocal duet with Jale's Jennifer Pierce on "Can You Feel It." The best part being that these songs were sung and written by four distinct personalities — Chris Murphy, Jay Ferguson, Patrick Pentland and Andrew Scott. In the end it's a brilliant album featuring a band of four personalities expanding their songwriting talents way beyond where they had been before. A giant step forward in the growth of Canada's best band of the past two decades.