23919 <a href="http://www.exclaim.ca/index.asp?layid=23&csid1=6763" target="_blank">read full review on their site</a> Ten; Ten is 71 minutes and 21 tracks of quirky yet fun and catchy rock pop tunes by artists from Canada, the U.S. and Japan compiled by Lil' Red Wagon and the champions of obscure music gems, My Mean Magpie. Most of the musicians on this comp would be known by only the most informed of music savants. The better-known names on this comp are Oval Teen, Mean Red Spiders and Royal City. The Music on Ten; Ten tends to embrace a lo-fi aesthetic, adding charm and character to all the songs, which have a youthful and passionately rendered quality to them. Some really cool tunes on this comp (not that there are any un-cool tunes) are Georgia's "George Orwell," Lunchbox's "Love Is All Around," Kim Bliss's "I Fall" and "Forget That Girl" by Jumprope. Georgia does a great musical tribute to George Orwell, in particular 1984, utilising various slogans from the text to construct their lyrics. A rather timely tune, come to think of it. Lunchbox's tune, incidentally, has nothing to do with a Troggs tune by a similar name, but more with the theme song to the Mary Tyler Moore Show. Kim Bliss's "I Fall" is the best-produced song on this album, which is just as well, since she has a gorgeous voice and some serious piano playing abilities to boot. And Jumprope offers some good advice in "Forget that Girl." The obvious love for the contributors' craft resonates on every tune here, and I can honestly say that one would be hard pressed to find so much consistently good music emerging from another comp, or label, for that matter. Hopefully, the artists on Ten; Ten will not remain obscure for much longer. -- By I. Khider December 10, 2002 From Exclaim Magazine Five Seventeen 2004-10-31 17:49:48 2004-10-31 17:48:38 4 Five Seventeen 24265 Long ago, My Mean Magpie & Lil' Red Wagon, two small labels from Ontario, had conspired to co-release a compilation celebrating their respective tenth release. Well, it's five years later, and the compilation has finally surfaced to find My Mean Magpie nearing thirty releases and Lil' Red Wagon long gone. Many of the bands have also broken up since contributing their tracks. This comp is a hodge-podge of all sorts of indiepop (Salteens, Kisswhistle, Oval-Teen, Jumprope), Japanese pop (De Kooning, Aikagi, Strawberry Land), and general oddness (Kymbliss & a ten minute opus from Telegraph Melts). There are a fair amount of winners on here, including Kisswhistle (who also perform the hidden track at the end), Georgia, Lunchbox (covering the Mary Tyler Moore theme song), Recycled Pop!, and the afore-mentioned Aikagi & Oval-Teen. Despite the fact that these tracks are all quite old, I don't think that many of them found release elsewhere (not counting the different versions from the Salteens, Telegraph Melts & Oval-Teen). This is a nice five year old time capsule that doesn't sound very dated at all (well, except that the Japanese pop fad faded a couple years ago)... MTQ=13/21 From Indiepages.com Chris Mac 2004-11-04 21:46:54 2004-11-04 21:46:54 3 Five Seventeen 36982 Lunchbox - love is all around. The sound of sunshine. Great. Thou. Shall. Listen. indie nuggets Soulissimo 2005-03-31 12:16:26 2005-03-31 12:16:26 4 There are bound to be a few duff tracks in any various-artists compilations, and there are one or two here, but mostly this is a really nice eclectic collection of tracks, with a few real gems. MMM is turning into my favourite label, and not just because of the pricing policy! Hell, I'd have given this 5 stars if ANYONE working on this material knew ANYTHING about ID3 tagging! You lose one star because you made me edit the tags myself - "Unknown artist, Unknown track, Unknown genre" does not make for a good playlist! Get it Boggins 2007-05-16 12:52:07 2007-05-16 12:52:07 4 4 3.75