Barlow is a Canadian musician from Toronto, Canada. The name is used in the input for more than one act, including a shoegaze band from Erie, Pennsylvania and a Nova Scotian dark hardcore band based in Halifax, but the detailed material here concerns Tom Barlow as a solo artist.

Background

Tom Barlow says he comes from Toronto and describes himself as a solo musician with four indie albums to his name. He also says he belongs to no fixed band in this phase of his career, after earlier playing in Thinktank Fish, a political ska punk band.

Career

Barlow says he wins the 2001 MIX 99.9 Songwriting Competition in Toronto. He also says he opens for Pearl Jam, performs for the Sandanista Army in Nicaragua as part of a social justice brigade, and is part of the first Canadian band to perform in China in 1989. He signs to Sony Music Canada after the indie song “Married By Elvis” reaches the Top 10 and after the band wins the Rising Star award at the 2001 Canadian Indie Music Awards.

His record is produced by Mladen, who also co-writes and co-produces the songs and edits his written material. Barlow says he would have stopped at ten songs, but Mladen pushes the project to 35 songs, which he presents as the result of a longer creative process.

Songs and themes

Barlow discusses several songs directly, including “Cruise”, “Walk Away”, “Billion Dollar Rockets”, “Perfect Wave”, “LA”, “Married By Elvis”, and “Bullets and Bombs”. He describes “Cruise” as a song about a teenager in a first car, “Walk Away” as focused on sudden events that change a life, “Billion Dollar Rockets” as dealing with the cost of missile defence and social spending, and “Perfect Wave” as using the idea of turning up guitars and singing about booze and sex as a response to darkness.

“Married By Elvis” addresses same-sex marriage and is later used in The Matthew Sheppard Story after the producers ask for permission to include it. “Bullets and Bombs” is presented as a critique of commodification in music and art, while “LA” is co-written with Tawgs.

Style and associations

The tags attached to Barlow’s name include shoegaze, indie, noise pop, comedy and hardcore. In the autobiographical material, he quotes Oscar Wilde, refers to his own writing as art, and frames his songs as direct, sometimes political or satirical commentaries on everyday life, sexuality, war spending and the commodification of culture.