Broken Social Scene (album): Difference between revisions

Broken Social Scene is the title of Broken Social Scene's third studio album. It was released on October 4, 2005. The album was originally to be titled Windsurfing Nation.

The original artwork was to be a cartoon rendition of Pangaea, which was later scrapped in favor of the current artwork drawn by lead singer Kevin Drew.

In addition to the musicians who contributed to the band's prior release You Forgot It in People, new contributors on Broken Social Scene include k-os, Jason Tait (The Weakerthans) and Murray Lightburn (The Dears).

The initial domestic pressings of the album were issued with a seven-track bonus EP, EP To Be You and Me, a play on Marlo Thomas' educational special Free to Be… You and Me. The Japanese release is still issued with the EP. The vinyl pressing was released on two records, the first three sides being the album and the fourth being the EP.

The song "Ibi Dreams of Pavement (A Better Day)" refers to Canadian novelist Ibi Kaslik, a friend of the band, who reciprocated with her 2008 novel The Angel Riots, about a rising indie rock band based in part on BSS.

At the 2006 Juno Awards it won the award for Alternative Album of the Year. It was also shortlisted for the inaugural Polaris Music Prize in 2006.

However, the album divided critics more than its predecessor, 2002's You Forgot It in People. Whereas the earlier album had received almost universal critical praise, Broken Social Scene's looser, less structured songs were praised by some critics, but derided by others as self-indulgent and sloppy. Notably, however, the review in the New York Times, which fell into the latter category, also misidentified the band as being from Montreal (later corrected), and speculated in depth on the effect of Montreal's indie scene on the band's sound despite the fact that the current Montreal scene has little, if anything, to do with BSS's cultural or artistic context.^[1]

1. "Our Faces Split the Coast in Half" – 3:42
2. "Ibi Dreams of Pavement (A Better Day)" – 4:27
3. "7/4 (Shoreline)" – 4:53
4. "Finish Your Collapse and Stay for Breakfast" – 1:24
5. "Major Label Debut" – 4:28
6. "Fire Eye'd Boy" – 3:59
7. "Windsurfing Nation" – 4:36
8. "Swimmers" – 2:55
9. "Hotel" – 4:35
10. "Handjobs for the Holidays" – 4:39
11. "Superconnected" – 5:39
12. "Bandwitch" – 6:58
13. "Tremoloa Debut" – 0:59
14. "It's All Gonna Break" – 9:55

1. "Her Disappearing Theme" – 2:54
2. "Canada vs. America" – 6:08
3. "Baroque Social" – 3:02
4. "No Smiling Darkness/Snake Charmers Association" – 5:37
5. "All My Friends" – 2:42
6. "Major Label Debut (Fast)" – 3:12
7. "Feel Good Lost (reprise)" – 3:02
8. "All the Gods" - (Japanese release only)

1. "Ibi Dreams of Pavement (A Better Day)" b/w "All the Gods" (2005, 7")
2. "7/4 (Shoreline)" b/w "Stars and Spit" (2006, 7")
3. "7/4 (Shoreline)" b/w "Stars and Spit" & "Death Cock" (2006, CDS)
4. "Fire Eye'd Boy" b/w "Canada vs. America (Exhaust Pipe Remix)" (2006, 7")