Calgary Herald from Calgary, Alberta, Canada • 36

C4 CALGARY HERALD Thursday, October 18. 2007 ENTERTAINMENT Calgary's Top 10 Music Source: SoundScan Country Alternative Current Hard Rock This Last La5 1 This iaa This week National Artist week week National Artist week week Nationa Natona Last 1 3 Matchbox Twenty 1 1 JoshGroban 1 2 Foo Fighters 1 1 1 KayneWest 1 Exile On Mainstream (Best Of) Noel Echoes Silence Patience Grace Gradual 2 2 Foo Fighters 1 2 2 Bruce Springsteen 1 i 2 1 Kid Rock 2 4 Timbaland Echoes Silence Patience Grace A Rock Roll Jesus Timbaland Presents Shock Value 3 4 Annie Lennox 3 5 Reba McEnMre 2 3 3 UnkinPark 3 3 3 Jennifer Looez Songs of Mass Destruction Reba Duets Minutes to Midnight Brim 4 1 Kid Rock 4 6 KayneWest 644 Daughtry 5 4 5 SOCent Rock Roll Jesus Graduation Daughtry Curtis 5 8 Eddie Vedder 6 5 9 Rascal Flatts 3 i 5 7 Dashboard Confessional 2 5 2 Rihanna a Music for the Motion Picture: Still Feels Good Shade of Poison Trees Good Girl Gone Bad 6 7 Puddle of Mudd 6 12 Matchbox Twenty 7 6 5 Nightwish 4 6 6 Justin Timber lake 5 Famous Exile on Mainstream (Best Of) Dark Passion Play FuturesexLove Sounds 7 5 UnkinPark 5 7 3 James Blunt 5 7 6 Nickelback 7 7 7 Amy Winehouse fi Minutes To Midnight All the Lost Souls All the Right Reasons Back to Black 8 11 Feist 2 8 14 Timbaland 11 8 8 Finger Eleven 6 8 8- SeanKinoston Reminder Timbaland Presents Shock Value Them Vs. You Vs. Me SnKinn 9 12 Daughtry 10 1 9 10 foo Fighters 4 9 10 OzzyOsbourne 8 9 9 Akon in Daughtry Echoes Silence Patience A Grace Black Rain Konvtoed 10 9 MaroonS 8 10 18 Annie Lennox 9 10 26 Dropkick Murphys 10 10 Will I Am 7 It Won't Be Soon Before Long Songs of Mass Destruction Meanest of Times SongZ Abort Girls Last week 1 2 PERFORMANCE This week National Artist 1 1 Reba McEntire Reba Duets 2 2 Rascal Flatts Still Feels Good 3 3 George Canyon Classics 4 8 Paul Brandt Risk 5 4 Faith Hill Hits 6 7 Sara Evans Greatest Hits 7 6 Brooks Dunn Cowboy Town 8 5 Leann Rimes Family 9 11 Kenny Chesney Just Who I Am Poets A Pirates 10 14 Jessie Farrell Nothing Fancy Leo living with We've never been a particularly or cool band to like litically and socially minded songs. Leo has always laced his work with a certain degree of (albeit subtle) commentary, but in the time between 2004's Shake the Streets and his new album, more and more artists had gone political.

Social commentary and political criticism had become, not trendy, but more commonplace. "That's exactly one of those moments. It's not like hip politics Bomb Repeat Bomb, is the most explicit example of this. "Bomb Repeat Bomb is meant to be understood in the context of what's happening right now, but it's not actually about Iraq," explains Leo. "It's about the CIA's coup in Guatemala (in the 1950s), in which there are obvious parallels to draw, but there's a larger point that goes beyond that and goes beyond the Leo now, which is that there are some fundamental questions that need to be asked about how we as a society deal with the rest of the world." In short, Leo is a songwriter, not a politician, and he isn't running for office in 2008.

"I wound up in my mind, engineering the songs to hopefully have a life beyond the immediate," he says. "You can get so burned out on just banging your head against the wall talking about the immediate." jL CanWest News Service Archive Ted Leo graduated from the post-hardcore scene to become an "indie" success story, but he chafes against "meaningless" labels. regions, "trademarks of I US. artist laces songs with subtle commentary DAN YATES CanWest News Service A veteran performer, Ted Leo has been called many things, and most of them he'll tell you are true. "The only thing that I really get bummed out by is when people use the term indie too much.

I just think it's a meaningless term at this point," Leo said on the phone from his Rhode Island home. SPOTLIGHT "That's a frustrat Ted Leo and the ing term to me and the only one that I've been called that I bristle at, but at the same time, we all wish that the state of journalism was held to some incredibly high standard, but Pharmacists perform tonight at Mount Royal College's Liberty Lounge. Tickets available at Ticketmaster the fact of the matter is we're talking about popular art here." Leo got his start in what music nerds have labelled the post-hardcore scene of the late 1980s, but a lot of his success has come in recent years alongside the increasing popularity of so-called "indie" rock. However, unlike many of his musical peers, Leo's status has been elevated beyond a passing trend. With the five albums Leo has released under his own name, he's shown an aptitude for crafting smartly written pop songs which seemingly transform upon repeated listens and a dedication to touring, earning him a considerable and loyal following.

"In some towns we may actually play to more people than like what a hipper band might draw," says Leo, "but we've never been a particularly hip or cool band to like. "On any given night, in whatever town we're playing, it's not necessarily like the cool event that all the cool kids are going to." As an artist, Leo is part performer, part poet and part political philosopher, and while he's found success on his own terms, he is still cognizant of how his work relates to his contemporaries. "I will have those moments (when writing a song) when I am like, 'I can't do that because now all those other people are doing but I think that it's a little egotistical to think anybody cares. The people that we play to generally, I rJiink, don't care. "People who are at our shows, buy our records and pretty much know who we are already." On his most recent effort, 2007's Living with the Living, Leo was confronted with this very situation when penning some of the album's more po- UP TO 10 DISCOUNT FOR Rogers Communications Incustd under lianstC 2007 Roger Wiretess.

Ted hesitation, but the thought does cross through your mind," says Leo. "That's a perfect example of when you absolutely should not back down, because everybody is doing it. "In some sense, you have to be glad that everybody is doing that." However, Leo's work (and words) aren't mired in surface-level anger, nor are they bogged down by a lack of context or foresight. Living with the Living's lead single, 11 gjr- fa" 'i h'i 11 -rwinrr: 'j ra fl UJ1 tuiljiliiiiiu -mumatljalLLji ULnJL CUSTOMERS WITH MULTIPLE ROGERS PRODUCTS HOME PHONE, WIRELESS PHONE AND INTERNET. ml lot eacn engioie service, uo 10 rogers.comDunoies rot details.

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