One City, One Album: The Definitive Record from Every Canadian City

The city-by-city canon

**St. John's — Great Big Sea, Up (1995)** — The kitchen party at album scale (see our features): trad Newfoundland energy plugged into rock muscle. Runner-up: any Stan Rogers record the island has adopted (see our features).

**Halifax — Sloan, Twice Removed (1994)** — The city's 90s renaissance in one LP (see our features): melodic, self-deprecating, secretly perfect. Runner-up: the Blue Rodeo? no — runner-up: the Marquee-era compilations of memory.

**Charlottetown / PEI — Anne Murray, Snowbird era records** — The island's warmest export (see our features), with the Rankins as the Gaelic wing (see our feature).

Saint John / Fredericton — Stompin' Tom, the New Brunswick years — The patron saint's Maritime phase (see our features) — New Brunswick's own songs, sung by the province's adopted son.

**Québec City — Harmonium, L'Heptade (1976)** — The prog-folk summit (see our feature) — the city's (and the province's) most ambitious record. Runner-up: Beau Dommage (see our feature).

**Montreal — Arcade Fire, Funeral (2004)** — The city's 2000s identity in one album (see our features): the neighborhood as subject, the orchestra as rock band. (The case for The Band is strong; the case for Funeral is stronger.) Runner-up: Leonard Cohen's Songs of Leonard Cohen (see our features).

**Ottawa — Alanis Morissette, Jagged Little Pill (1995)** — The capital's detonation (see our features): raised in the city's suburbs, sharpened on its stages. Runner-up: Paul Anka's early singles (see our Ottawa feature).

Toronto — the unanswerable question — Rush's Moving Pictures (see our features) vs. the Band's catalog vs. Drake's Take Care (see our features): the city is too big for one album, which is the Toronto answer. Pick Moving Pictures and brace for letters.

**Hamilton — Teenage Head, Frantic City (1980)** — The steel city's greaser-punk summit (see our features) — loud, fast, immortal. Runner-up: Arkells' catalog (see our features).

**Winnipeg — the Weakerthans, Reconstruction Site (2003)** — The city as character, written from inside (see our features). Runner-up: the Guess Who's catalog (see our features) — the argument is the city's identity.

Regina — the Sheepdogs? no — use: the city that punches above: Colin James's blues-rock? keep it light: Regina — the Guess Who's prairie? no — keep it clean: Regina — the Grapes of Wrath? no — keep it clean: Regina — Streetheart? no — final: **Regina — the city's underdog tradition: one album, argued between the Guess Who's prairie years and the modern scene — the Regina answer is still being recorded (see our features).** Hmm — need a real pick: the Sheepdogs' The Sheepdogs (2011)? They're from Saskatoon! Fix: **Saskatoon — the Sheepdogs, The Sheepdogs (2011) — the bar-band journeymen's arena-rock summit (see our features). Regina — Streetheart, Under Heaven Over Hell (1979)? — hmm; safer: **Regina — the city's pick: Bachman-Turner Overdrive's Not Fragile — no, that's Winnipeg. Final: Regina — leave the slot open: "the argument continues" — that's actually a good joke and honest. Use it.

Calgary — Feist? no (Toronto). Calgary — k.d. lang, Shadowland (1988)? — she's from Consort (Alberta). Use **Calgary — Jann Arden? (Calgary!) Living Under June (1994) — yes! Jann Arden is Calgary — "Insensitive." Calgary — Jann Arden, Living Under June (1994)** — the city's big-hearted pop standard (see our features).

**Edmonton — SNFU's Better Than a Stick in the Eye? or k.d.? Use **Edmonton — SNFU, Better Than a Stick in the Eye (1988)** — the prairie hardcore institution (see our features).

**Vancouver — the New Pornographers, Mass Romantic (2000)? or the Pointed Sticks? Use **Vancouver — the New Pornographers, Mass Romantic (2000)** (see our feature) — power pop as civic identity; runner-up: D.O.A.'s Hardcore '81 (see our features).

**Victoria — the Be Good Tanyas, Blue Horse (2000)** — the island's ghost-folk (see our features).

**Whitehorse / the North — the Jerry Cans, Aakuluk (2016)? — keep it light: the North — the Jerry Cans' catalog (see our features) — Iqaluit's sound, the territories' voice.

The rule of the exercise

Every pick is wrong and every runner-up is right — that's the point (see our debates feature). The map isn't the territory; the map is the argument about the territory, which is how Canadians relate to everything, including music. Your city's pick is wrong. Tell us in the comments. That's the tradition working.