2008 Song Of The Year

There were a lot of great songs last year - a quick look at the back of any of our top ten albums reveals at least a dozen. Asking your friends will bring on dozens more. Despite all these options, Cadence Weapon kept us coming back time and again to "Do I Miss My Friends?", the lead off song from Afterparty Babies.

Last fall it was announced that the American economy was officially in a recession, but the news had been all over the financial press for well over a year. As the housing market bubble looked ready to burst throughout the summer of 2007, the question was on everyone's lips, even as prices and the stock indices climbed higher. As Ozymandius from The Watchmen informed us, a recession turns people's thoughts to nostalgia.

So in a way, it is fitting that a song about "Back In The Day" is on the top of our lists. But Cadence Weapon goes beyond simple nostalgia. For us, a significant part of "Do I Miss My Friends?"'s allure is the tension that exists within individuals who have forced to choose between a stable and boring future and the wilder promises of their youth. Having cut our teeth in Calgary's Northeast and later Victoria Park, we have had many friends who've "skipped the rent" and thrown notorius damage deposit forfeiting last day of occupancy house parties. As careers and mortgages have come our way, those friends have fallen down to that particular circle of Facebook where we keep old acquaintances to be seen and heard, but not touched, where their behaviour continues unabated.

When Rollie Pemberton, a.k.a. Cadence Weapon asks, "Do I miss my friends?" for us the question is whether we miss those specific persons from our past and the relationships we had with them, or do we miss the freedom from responsibility that they represent? Is a kind of question that really has no answer, but the search is always deep.