Book Review – Mark Teo’s Shine: How a MuchMusic Compilation Came to Define Canadian Alternative Music and Sell a Zillion Copies

I was introduced to Mark Teo’s Shine: How a MuchMusic Compilation Came to Define Canadian Alternative Music and Sell a Zillion Copies by accident. I was in the car, flipping stations and randomly heard Alan Cross talking about the book on The Edge 102.1 – and I was instantly hooked on the idea.

Here’s why…

When I was 15-years old I got my first discman. It was bulky and skipped on the long bus ride to high school, but it was mine. And since I had a discman, naturally, I needed CDs. My first compact disc purchase was a twofer that resulted in me going home with Bush X’s Razorblade Suitcase and Big Shiny Tunes. It was a great haul for a rural kid that was exploring alternative music for the first time.

I played the 18 tracks on Big Shiny Tunes (referred to as the Yellow Album in Teo’s book) over and over and over again. Sometimes I skipped tracks, sometimes I put tracks on repeat. It became an important album that lead to my everlasting love for Foo Fighters, a lifetime of singing along to Sloan and the giddiness that came from covering their set at WayHome 2015, and an appreciation for various genres of music.

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With that nostalgia bubbling over, I cracked the cover of Teo’s 166-page discovery of the Big Shiny Tunes series’ original album. And over two days I found myself diving deep into the text, learning more about the origins of the disc than I would have ever imagined.

Mark Teo (The Toronto Star, AUX, Fast Forward Weekly) admits that he didn’t think there would be much to writing this book, and that he was wrong. And thank goodness he was, because the work he did in talking to people like Alan Cross, Josiah Hughes, and David Kines along with musicians including Jay Ferguson, Ryan Dahle, and Mike Trebilcock (but not David Usher, for reasons explained in the book), make all the difference in understanding the machinations, impact, and influence of the Yellow Album.

The stories of what the album did or didn’t do for the Canadian bands involved were interesting, and to hear it from those involved was a nice bonus to simply learning it. To understand that Big Shiny Tunes became a defining series not because it wanted to, but as a more nuanced byproduct of the music and the times was insight I didn’t expect to have in my lifetime.

But more than anything, the presentation of the material had me pulled all the way in. Mark Teo wrote this book the way I wanted to read it. He wasn’t precious or married to the ideas he had going in. He was legitimately surprised to be told things he didn’t know or expect to learn. He made great use of both mid-90s and current pop culture references to tie things together. And his lighthearted, personal, off the cuff ability to convey all of the research, interviews, and insight as if it were like a blog (which he thought writing the book would be like) made for a read I enjoyed.

As far as non-fiction goes, this was as far from stuffy as it gets.

As far as Canadian music history goes, this was the story that I didn’t know I needed until I found out I could have it.

Note: The day after I heard Alan Cross talking about Shine on the radio, I emailed Eternal Cavalier Press asking for a copy of the book to review. I truly was all-in from the word go. Thanks to Joshua for mailing me a copy and making this happen.

It’s true that Shine: How a MuchMusic Compilation Came to Define Canadian Alternative Music and Sell a Zillion Copies, may have started as a tongue-in-cheek idea pitched to a publisher in an east-end Toronto bar. But it turned into a quality look at the start of a 17 volume series (14 editions plus 2 Big Shiny 90s volumes and Big Shiny 80s) that lives on in the music-loving hearts of Canadians – and for a moment, was bigger than Nirvana’s Nevermind.

Find Mark Teo’s Shine: How a MuchMusic Compilation Came to Define Canadian Alternative Music and Sell a Zillion Copies on Amazon and the Eternal Cavalier Press website, or talk to the folks at your local independent bookstore about getting a copy for you. If you remember Big Shiny Tunes from the beginning, if you sang along to Angry Johnny, Queer, and Tinfoil like I did, and if you have that nostalgic yearning for a look at what it was… you won’t be disappointed.

Big Shiny Tunes – The Yellow Album Tracklist & Playlist

1. One More Astronaut – I Mother Earth
2. Machinehead – Bush X
3. Tahitian Moon – Porno for Pyros
4. Queer – Garbage
5. Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) – Marilyn Manson
6. Scooby Snacks – Fun Lovin’ Criminals
7. Just A Girl – No Doubt
8. Aeroplane – Red Hot Chili Peppers
9. The Good In Everyone – Sloan
10. King Of New Orleans – Better Than Ezra
11. Tinfoil – Limblifter
12. Alone + Easy Target – Foo Fighters
13. Ophelia – Moist
14. Just – Radiohead
15. Angry Johnny – Poe
16. Rave + Drool – The Killjoys
17. Paste – Pluto
18. Novacane – Beck

Author profile

Joshua Murray

creator of content, daddy blogger, writer, coffee drinker, fan of the Batman. proud mo bro. prouder dad.