So many Canadian indie-rock figures were born out of the greater Broken Social Scene hive mind that the whole enterprise should be studied - or at least theme an episode of the podcast Sounds Like A Cult. Nowhere is this carousel of talent better exemplified than on the band’s astounding sophomore album, You Forgot It In People, which turns 20 this Saturday. (Fun fact: Canning was once a member of Len, of “ Steal My Sunshine” fame.) Some of those early names included the Leslie Feist, Amy Millan and Torquil Campbell of Stars, Emily Haines and James Shaw from Metric, the trio of Charles Spearin, Julie Penner, and Ohad Benchetrit from Do Make Say Think, plus Apostle Of Hustle, KC Accidental, Jason Collett, and others that I’m no doubt leaving out.

(No offense to the ska community.)īeginning in 1999 as a musical partnership between Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning, Broken Social Scene would eventually see close to 30 members cycle through their ranks, with players rotating in and out depending on availability. More than two decades after forming, Broken Social Scene have come to symbolize a maximalist musical time where indie-ensemble bands ruled - the more instruments, the better! Almost like a ’90s ska band, except no one was getting paid just to skank onstage. Broken Social Scene have always been less a band than a collective - a onetime incubator of Canadian indie mega-stars that put Toronto on the map around the same time fellow supergroup the New Pornographers were doing the same thing for Vancouver, and Arcade Fire (*cringe emoji*) for Montreal.

Social scene