A to Z 2017: OUR LADY PEACE

Our Lady Peace is another Canadian band (like Matthew Good Band) that is high on my favorite list. I first heard the group when I was in high school. Unfortunately, I missed the opportunity to see them live at a free outdoor concert in my area, because a friend mentioned who the headliner was — stating they weren't that good and only had one radio song — and that he was disinterested in seeing them. He wanted to beat the traffic. Being I wasn't very good at matching bands with songs at the time, I trusted him and off we all went.

Skip ahead a few days, while driving around, a friend and I hear "Superman's Dead" on the radio. We are singing along because we love it and after it wraps up we hear "And that was Our Lady Peace with 'Superman's Dead'" and we both looked at each other and then screamed to the Heavens, because we had obviously been betrayed! I never forgot that tragic event! Here's that song from their second studio release Clumsy:

So after that, I became a lot more aware of what bands sang what songs, as to ever avoid a similar mishap.

Somewhere out there... there may be video of me attempting to sing that song (horribly) from memory, through a speaker as a mic? I think it's locked away from the public, thankfully. It's just one of those songs that make me want to belt out and join along! So, I picked up Clumsy and their debut album Naveed and realized I even knew a song or two from that previous release.

I would love to visit that first album, but I think we will skip that and their third and fourth CDs, Happiness... Is Not a Fish That You Can Catch and Spiritual Machines (both great by the way!), and go straight to Gravity. Up until this point, I felt that Our Lady Peace and lead singer, Raine Maida, had a very unique sound. I still recall one of my step fathers talking about how a friend sounded just like Raine, but was obviously ahead of his time. With Gravity, however, I felt the band took a much more mainstream style. Their first single off the fifth album was "Somewhere Out There":

Don't get me wrong, his voice is always amazing, but the entire sound, the band's style, even the music video itself, seems mainstream cliche. Maybe I'm being too harsh, but I just became worried that they had "sold out" in a way. I still really liked the album, and obviously so did many others. It was one of their most successful and solidified their presence in the music industry. I mean, I guess if you want to make it you kind of have to go mainstream, and they succeeded in doing that.

Their next release, Healthy in Paranoid Times, wasn't as popular, but still put out some good singles. Apparently during the production of this album, there was a lot of stress and strife between the band members. They almost broke up over the process. After completed, the band eventually took a hiatus. Here's "Angels/Losing/Sleep":

Supposedly there were over forty songs written for Healthy in Paranoid Times and they struggled picking which songs they wanted to be featured on the album. I'm curious which hit the cutting room floor. For some reason this sounded a lot closer to their earlier work than Gravity. Maybe a hybrid when looking at all the elements.

The hiatus was short lived and Our Lady Peace independently released Burn Burn. This is about the time I stopped following the band as closely as I used to. I know I was excited about the album, but not caring much for the first single "All You Did Was Save My Life". I think I thought that they had made a religious shift and I just avoided the rest of the CD. Despite that, I recall becoming equally excited about their 2012 release, Curve, but completely overlooking it when it finally came out.

I really like their first single, "Heavyweight", from their eighth album:

A lot of that song/video reminds me of Our Lady Peace's earlier career, so I will be diving into that (and I suppose Burn Burn too). I am a bit concerned, however, to learn that the original drummer left the band 2014 and they appear to be on another hiatus. At least with releasing a follow up.

I doubt that this will be the last we hear of Our Lady Peace, but in the meantime I will catch up on their latest releases. Raine Maidi did some solo work in the middle of all of this and I'd very much to hear that as well.

Did you enjoy the songs/videos? Are you familiar with Our Lady Peace? Do you have a favorite song and/or album? Have you ever seen them live? If so, how was the performance? Do you think Our Lady Peace will put out another album? Have you heard Raine Maidi's solo work? Who is a musician you've enjoyed their solo career just as much as their work while in a band?