Single Side

Horizontal Cable Manager 2U Single Side with Cover
$97.00
This horizontal cable manager, 2U single side with cover, is designed to organize power or data cables within a rack environment. You can route patch cables horizontally at the front or rear of a 19-in EIA enclosure. This product occupies 2U of rack space.

Women's Single Breasted Trench Coat,Grey Plaid,X-Small
$129.99

A World Without Music (Non Album Single Side Version)
$0.69

A Sides Win: Singles 1992-2005 [Bonus DVD]
$19.98
Sloan is a pretty good band. They are the type of hometown boys who one hopes will make good. They are not extravagantly talented, but among the four of them, they know how to write really good - sometimes very good - songs. And while their albums are always a bit uneven, several tracks (not only the singles) from each of them have emerged as favorites of fans and critics.

For these reasons, Sloan's singles collection is especially useful to the curious listener. Of course, a band's singles are not necessarily their "best" songs. However, knowing a band's singles is the most effective way to learn what made them popular. On A Sides Win - named after a track from their 1996 album One Chord to Another - each album is represented by at least two songs, except for 2003's Action Pact. Two very worthwhile new recordings are also included. (The hard-rocking "All Used Up", which isn't quite as good as "Try To Make It", was released as a single.)

One Chord to Another, considered among many critics to be their best album, is the only one to have three of its songs featured on this collection. Among these is the (early) Chicago-esque "Everything You've Done Wrong" and the short and snappy "The Good In Everyone". One Chord's predecessor, Twice Removed (which was voted best Canadian album ever in two separate polls by the same magazine) is represented in part by "Coax Me", which is probably the best power pop song of their career. As long as I am working my way backward, I should mention that wonderfully clever "Underwhelmed" and "500 Up" are only two of several really good songs from their underrated debut LP, 1992's Smeared.

However, the singles-only approach causes the band's 1998-2003 output to be represented less effectively. Three adjectives can be used to describe any almost any Sloan album: "rocky" (as in rock 'n roll), "poppy", and "pensive". The "rocky" might be a bit overrepresented on this compilation at the expense of the other adjectives. Granted, the tongue-in-cheek "Money City Maniacs" is the best rock song from Navy Blues (1998). However, "She Says What She Means", with a chorus made up of dipstick puns, is probably the same album's worst one. A Sides Win would have benefited from something poppy or pensive from that album, such as "Stand By Me, Yeah", "Suppose They Close the Door", or "I'm Not Through With You Yet".

1999's Between the Bridges is similarly represented by two rock songs, "Losing California" and "Friendship". These are definitely good songs, especially the former, but that album's best tracks are "Waiting for Slow Songs" (poppy) and "The Marquee and the Moon" (pensive). "If It Feels Good Do It", from the underrated album Pretty Together (2001), is almost as bad as the title might suggest, especially its adolescent, I'm-a-carefree-rock star chorus. Fortunately, "The Other Man" is fine example of Pretty Together's more mature sound, as are that album's superb "Dreaming of You", "The Life of a Working Girl", and "Who You Talkin' To?" Finally, the one song from the underrepresented "Action Pact" (2003) is the perfectly pensive and poppy "The Rest of My Life".

In the end, A Sides Win is exactly what the title says it is: a collection of songs that were released as singles. It is not a Best Of. Still, by working at seemingly cross purposes, it achieves its objective. It gives a thorough picture of a band whose hits were sometimes good and sometimes not. However, the good songs are enough to convince the listener that Sloan is a better band than their lesser songs might suggest. While it is difficult for me to recommend any specific album without qualification, I highly suggest listening to them online (on a site like Soundpedia) and downloading the songs that you like the most (from, e.g., emusic). Eventually, you will find yourself with a playlist of at least two dozen songs that will assure you that Sloan is worthy of their popularity in Canada and of wider recognition in the U.S.