Broken Social Scene is the third studio album by Broken Social Scene

Broken Social Scene

Broken Social Scene is a Canadian indie rock band, a musical collective including as few as six and as many as nineteen members, formed in 1999 by Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning. Most of its members currently play in various other groups and solo projects, mainly based around the city of Toronto...

, 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

Pangaea

Pangaea, Pangæa, or Pangea is hypothesized as a supercontinent that existed during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras about 250 million years ago, before the component continents were separated into their current configuration....

, 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

You Forgot It in People

You Forgot It In People is a 2002 album by Broken Social Scene. It followed Feel Good Lost, and was the band's commercial breakthrough...

, new contributors on Broken Social Scene include k-os

K-os

Kevin Brereton , better known by his stage name k-os , is a Canadian rapper, singer, songwriter and record producer...

, Jason Tait

Jason Tait

Jason Tait is a Canadian musician. He is the drummer for the Canadian indie rock band The Weakerthans, and has also been a contributing member of Broken Social Scene and The FemBots. He also played drums for the Painted Thin album Small Acts of Love and Rebellion, released in 1995...

 (The Weakerthans

The Weakerthans

The Weakerthans are a four-piece Canadian indie rock band.-History:The band was formed in 1997 in Winnipeg, Manitoba by John K. Samson, after he left the punk band Propagandhi to start a publishing company. Samson joined forces with bassist John P...

) and Murray Lightburn

Murray Lightburn

Murray Lightburn is a Canadian musician, best known as the lead vocalist and principal songwriter for The Dears.Lightburn has been called "the black Morrissey" due to his vocal similarity to the former The Smiths lead singer. Incidentally, The Dears toured as Morrissey's opening act during...

 (The Dears

The Dears

-History:The band formed in 1995 and released their first album, End of a Hollywood Bedtime Story, in 2000. Their orchestral, dark pop sound and dramatic live shows cemented The Dears at the foundation of the then-emerging Canadian indie renaissance...

).

The initial domestic pressings of the album were issued with a seven-track bonus EP

Extended play

An EP is a musical recording which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as a full album or LP. The term EP originally referred only to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play records and LP records, but it is now applied to mid-length Compact...

, EP To Be You and Me, a play on Marlo Thomas

Marlo Thomas

Margaret Julia “Marlo” Thomas is an American actress, producer, and social activist known for her starring role on the TV series That Girl . She also serves as National Outreach Director for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital...

' children's record album Free to Be… You and Me

Free to Be… You and Me

Free to Be… You and Me, a project of the Ms. Foundation for Women, is a record album and illustrated book first released in November 1972 featuring songs and stories sung or told by celebrities of the day including Alan Alda, Rosey Grier, Cicely Tyson, Carol Channing, Michael Jackson, and Diana Ross...

. 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

Ibi Kaslik

Ibolya "Ibi" Kaslik is a Hungarian-Canadian novelist, freelance journalist, and teaches creative writing at the University of Toronto.-Early life:Kaslik attended high school at Etobicoke School of the Arts...

, a friend of the band. It is also suggested that Broken Social Scene is used as basis for a band that appears in Kaslik's second novel The Angel Riots, about a rising indie rock band from Montreal

Montreal

Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

. Kaslik attended the Etobicoke School of the Arts

Etobicoke School of the Arts

The Etobicoke School of the Arts is a specialized public arts-academic high school located in Etobicoke area of Toronto, Canada. Founded on September 8, 1981, the Etobicoke School of the Arts has the distinction of being the oldest, free standing arts focused high school in Canada...

 with members of the band and helped them on their first tour of Canada and the United States. Although Kaslik says "It's definitely based on a world that I know", she has brushed off claims that the connection goes very deep, saying "it would be mistaken and scurrilous to try to identify individual people". She warns against "scouring the pages for thinly disguised characterizations of […] Kevin Drew

Kevin Drew

Kevin Drew is a Canadian musician and songwriter who, together with Brendan Canning, founded the expansive Toronto baroque-pop collective Broken Social Scene...

, […] Emily Haines

Emily Haines

Emily Haines is a Canadian indie rock singer-songwriter. She is the lead singer and keyboardist of the band Metric and a member of Broken Social Scene. As a solo artist, she performed with her own name and under the alias Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton...

 or […] Amy Millan

Amy Millan

Amy Millan is a Canadian indie rock singer and guitarist. She records and performs with the bands Stars and Broken Social Scene as well as having a successful solo career. Her second solo album, Masters of the Burial, was released by Arts & Crafts Records in September 2009.- Early life :Amy Millan...

".

Awards and reviews

At the 2006 Juno Awards it won the award for Alternative Album of the Year

Juno Award for Alternative Album of the Year

The Juno Award for Alternative Album of the Year is presented annually at Canada's Juno Awards to honour the best album of the year in the alternative rock and/or indie rock genres...

. It was also shortlisted for the 2006 Polaris Music Prize

2006 Polaris Music Prize

The inaugural edition of the Canadian Polaris Music Prize presented on September 18, 2006, at Toronto's Phoenix Concert Theatre. The winning album was Final Fantasy's He Poos Clouds.-Nominees:...

.

However, the album divided critics more than its predecessor, 2002's You Forgot It in People

You Forgot It in People

You Forgot It In People is a 2002 album by Broken Social Scene. It followed Feel Good Lost, and was the band's commercial breakthrough...

. 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. Nevertheless, the album reached the number one position on American college charts and received widespread critical acclaim in the U.K.

Track listing

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

EP To Be You and Me

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)

Despite the EP having a limited release, two music videos were made for the songs:

• Her Disappearing Theme
• Major Label Debut (Fast)

Singles

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")