Okay, okay, okay! I hear you! Lemme make some amends here.
In spring 2026, I set out to explore alt-rock one-hit wonders. It was a five-episode series in six parts (very Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, that) on the biggest songs of that sort since 1976, which is year zero for the whole alternative thing… more or less. Let’s not get bogged down here.
The first five episodes covered ten songs each, all ranked using a complicated logarithmic formula designed by my friend, Walter the mathematician. A lot of effort went into that top 50 list—but it wasn’t enough.
That’s where the sixth episode came in. It was an addendum, an erratum, really, of songs that maybe should have made it into the original top 50 list. Fine. I’m big enough to admit when I’ve made an error or left something out.
I did the sixth episode, and I thought, “Well, that’s over. We’re done here.” But apparently not. In the weeks and months that followed, I got hundreds of emails and DMs from people pointing out even more alt-rock one-hit wonders that should have made the cut.
This left me uneasy. The job wasn’t done, and I hate loose ends. So let’s do the one-hit-wonder thing one more time, incorporating some of those missed tracks. And I’ll explain why several acts who are thought to be one-hit wonders really aren’t.
So, clean-up on aisle three, I guess. Here we go…
Songs heard on this show:
Voice of America, The Story of Love
When in Rome, The Promise
4 Non-Blondes, What’s Up?
Tripping Daisy, I Got a Girl
Jars of Clay, Flood
Primitive Radio Gods, Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Hand
Dog’s Eye View, Everything Falls Apart
Len, Steal My Sunshine
Here’s Eric Wilhite’s playlist.
The Ongoing History of New Music can be heard on these stations:
An album can be both tremendously influential and a commercial failure—at least at first. Here are a tw0 examples.
The Clash’s London Calling came out in December 1979. It didn’t officially sell 500,000 copies until 1991, a gap of 12 years, despite hit singles like the title track and “Should I Stay or Should I Go.” It would finally go platinum five years later.
And The Ramones released their self-titled debut album on April 23, 1976. It launched a million punk bands, yet it didn’t sell its 500,000th copy until May 2014, thirty-eight years after its release. By that time, three of the original Ramones had died, and within three months, the final one would pass away. The thing that sustained The Ramones for most of that time was relentless touring and t-shirt sales.
Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker had his psyche completely wrecked on September 19, 2008, when he was in a fiery crash of a private plane in South Carolina. He barely survived with severe burns to over 65% of his body.
He’d wanted to cancel this trip to stay home with the family, but he’d committed to a solo gig and couldn’t back out. As he left home, his three-year-old daughter was inconsolable, pleading that he not go. She said to him, “The roof’s gonna come off!”
When it came time to fly home, Travis called his father and said, “Pa, I have an awful feeling … like, I just don’t know. This plane’s small. I feel weird. Please make sure my kids are taken care of.” Less than an hour later, the plane crashed on takeoff, ripping away a large part of the fuselage.
No wonder Travis still has a fear of flying. Wouldn’t you?
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA - AUGUST 07: Vocalist Rivers Cuomo of Weezer performs at Shoreline Amphitheatre on August 7, 2018 in Mountain View, California. (Photo by Miikka Skaffari/Getty Images)
There are plenty of strange conspiracies in the music world, with a large number of them having to do with Kurt Cobain. Some people believe that Kurt faked his death and assumed a new identity, one that he’s still using today.
Kurt died on April 5, 1994. On May 10, Weezer, featuring frontman and songwriter Rivers Cuomo, released their debut album on DGC, the same label as Nirvana. Rivers professed his admiration for Nirvana from the very beginning, citing the band as a major influence when it came to the raw style of that first record.
The internet has since speculated that Rivers is actually Kurt operating under a new identity. The satire was lost on far too many people, and the story started to have legs. Rivers thinks this is funny, by the way, and has often joked about the conspiracy being true.
Record charts can be strange things, but few things are weirder than the tale of a 1979 song called “Ready’n’Steady” recorded by an artist only known as “D.A.” What makes it weird is that it reached number 102 on the American singles charts without ever being released. Then it disappeared.
This was unprecedented. The origin and fate of “Ready’n’Steady” and D.A. were mysteries for decades. In 2016, a chart researcher named Paul Haney cracked the case. D.A. was Dennis “D.A.” Lucchesi, a part-time musician and mortgage broker in California. Through murky means, a record promoter was able to get it on the Billboard charts without a single copy ever appearing in stores.
The only time we know of it being played on the radio was on July 8, 2016, 37 years after it was charted and 11 years after D.A. died. “Ready’n’Steady” remains the only song to ever hit the charts without being released.
WATCH: Select Canadian goods hit by new U.S. tariffs
Michael Harrington never thought his art was something that would be subject to tariffs at the Canada-U.S. border.
The Ottawa-based narrative painter has been working with galleries and dealers to show and sell his work full time for roughly three decades. He said the industry has felt like a rollercoaster from the 2008 recession to the COVID-19 pandemic and now unprecedented tariffs on Canadian goods.
“Art, it’s always traveled without tariffs, without tax. It’s because art is so complicated, like what is art and what’s original art,” Harrington told Global News.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff regime has become his biggest worry. As part of a new round of tariffs imposed at the end of April, a 50 per cent tariff now applies to a range of visual arts, crafts and natural materials made in Canada, including paintings. Other items that became subject to tariffs include drawings, original prints, original sculptures, jewelry, textiles and items made from raw furskins, leather, bone, horn and antler.
Harrington has held exhibitions in the U.S. before, but when he was offered the opportunity to do a show at a Boston gallery in November, he was especially excited to expand his reach. That was until he found out that someone would be on the hook to pay tariffs on each piece of art that crossed the border, even before it was sold.
Michael Harrington is an Ottawa-based narrative painter.
Courtesy: Michael Harrington
“I wasn’t going to do that and I certainly wasn’t going to accept if were to do that,” he said.
Harrington has connections with art dealers in Canada and said they sell his pieces across the country and in Europe. But losing barrier-free access to the U.S. market still hurts.
He isn’t letting that stop him from creating.
“If you just sit around and let anxiety take over, it’s debilitating and causes creative paralysis,” he said. “So you just start trying to keep motivated and keep working and believe that things are going to go back to normal.”
Trump initially imposed a 25 per cent blanket tariff on Canada in March 2025, with an exemption for products that comply with the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA). Following more than a year of trade negotiations that ended without a deal, and retaliatory tariffs imposed by Canada, the U.S. president doubled down in August with 50 per cent tariffs.
For some artists, the Canada-U.S. trade war has created new opportunity.
Working from a home studio in Portugal Cove, N.L., Karyna Parsons creates pottery with a little bit of what she calls “snark.”
Her work often features characters or popular icons, with political themes.
Parsons told Global News 95 per cent of her followers are women, and since she has started using her art as political commentary on Trump’s presidency, 80 per cent of her orders have actually come from south of the border.
“I have found my target market,” she said, adding she refuses to let tariffs upend that.
Parsons said details around how the tariffs are actually charged are unclear. She said she adds a flat rate for shipping and a 10 per cent tariff surcharge when her products are purchased online, but she said she has been told by some of her customers that they have received a bill from U.S. customs after receiving their purchase.
Regardless, she said her American customers have been supportive.
“There’s really this prevalent attitude of ‘we got ourselves into this mess this is not your fault. We as Americans will pay for it,'” she said.
She’s also taken the opportunity to share a bit more Canadian culture with her American buyers. She said with every American purchase, she sends a package of Canadian-owned Hawkins Cheezies to thank them for paying the duty.
“We can be pissed off and we can be defiant, but also we’re connecting,” she said while noting that the whole ordeal has been emotional. “It has to get better and let’s try to find some joy and brightness in it.”
Artists, among others, have felt an “impetus” to act as Canada has repeatedly been targeted by the U.S., Ana Serrano, president and vice-chancellor at OCAD University, told Global News in an interview.
“The need to respond to this moment of existential crisis for Canada was so strong,” she said, alluding to projects like the “Canada is not for sale” hat that was designed by an OCAD alum.
But even for work that is not necessarily political, Serrano said there is a direct link between Canadian artwork and the assertion of a Canadian culture.
“There is an absolute correlation between the work of artists and the work of how a nation defines itself,” she said.
Artists who sell their work require the government to treat it as “intellectual property” and promote it in the same way they would energy or critical minerals in foreign markets, Serrano said.
“Culture and creative industries are Canadian intellectual property. needs to be looking at export strategies,” she said, emphasizing the idea that Canada needs to develop artistic ties with markets in Europe and other locations across the globe.
“In the same way when our Prime Minister says the world wants what Canada has. That includes our art.”
The Visual Arts Alliance is calling on the Canadian government to take measures to protect artists’ livelihoods.
“Canadian art is not simply another category of merchandise. It carries cultural knowledge, history, identity, and relationships between communities,” the alliance said in a statement.
Jenna Paye Powell, interim executive director of Canadian Artists’ Representation (CARFAC), said individual artists can work on developing contacts within the Canadian arts space and host local studio sales, but ultimately the onus is not on them.
“Artists are researching and adapting their practices to the best of their ability, to strengthen relationships with Canadian audiences, but individual entrepreneurship and resilience cannot solve broader trade barriers, increased costs, border disruptions, or the loss of access to important markets,” Paye Powell told Global News.
CARFAC and the Visual Arts Alliance are calling for targeted financial relief for artists, galleries and Indigenous-owned businesses, along with a GST exemption for buyers of Canadian-made art and the creation of clear customs policies for temporary art exports, touring exhibitions and loans.
A year after his disappearance, the family of Darius MacDougall still returns to the campsite where he was last seen in the Crowsnest Pass, hoping answers will one day come to light. Justin Sibbet reports.
On Sept. 21, 2025, six-year-old Darius MacDougall vanished from a public camping area near the Alberta-British Columbia border in the Crowsnest Pass.
Almost at once, police, search and rescue crews and other first responders began a full-scale search of the mountainous terrain in an effort to find Darius.
Now, one year later, with no answers, Darius’ family has returned to that camping spot, holding out hope that he is still out there, somewhere.
“Darius, we still love you, miss you. We’re never going to stop searching for you, buddy,” said Leslie Tallmadge, Darius’ grandfather. “I come here and I walk and I look, (I’d) look anywhere for you.”
The search effort was extensive, with drones, dogs, helicopters and hundreds of crew members, including specialized teams such as underwater divers, all taking part in the hopes of finding Darius.
After more than a week, RCMP called the search off.
On Monday, one year after Darius went missing, officers released a statement saying they haven’t stopped their investigation.
“The Alberta RCMP recognizes that Darius’ disappearance continues to weigh heavily on his family and those who know and love him. The passage of time does not lessen the importance of finding answers, and investigators remain committed to pursuing information that may help bring clarity to what happened to Darius.”
They say investigators remain focused on reviewing information, pursuing viable leads and identifying any information that may help provide answers about Darius’ disappearance.
“To date, RCMP has received just over 70 tips from the public regarding this investigation, and every tip was fully investigated. Unfortunately, none have led to finding Darius. However, we will continue to investigate.”
For Darius’ family, the concern is that he was never lost in the mountains, but kidnapped instead.
“Somebody had to have taken him. There’s just been too many people out here, too many searches not to find anything. To me, somebody as come and taken him,” said Tina Herron, Darius’ grandmother.
Tallmadge agrees, believing search crews exhausting all efforts should have yielded results.
“11 days straight with 200 plus searchers every day — there’s no way we missed anything,” said Tallmadge.
At the time, RCMP said there was no evidence of a kidnapping and an Amber Alert was never issued, something that has never sat well with Herron.
“No matter who it is, it’s a child. They should have an Amber Alert, whether it meets the criteria or not, he should have it.”
A few days after Darius went missing, a Change.org petition was started to change how Amber Alerts are issued.
As of Monday, it has more than 20,000 signatures.
Darius would be seven years old now and his family is still urging anyone with any information to contact RCMP.
“If you see something or you know something, call the police. He’s out there somewhere. If you see him, call the police,” said Tallmadge.
RCMP have the same public message.
“The Alberta RCMP continues to encourage anyone who may have information about Darius’ disappearance or whereabouts to come forward. You can contact the Crowsnest Pass RCMP at 403-562-2866. Information that may seem insignificant could be important to the investigation, and investigators will assess any new information provided.”
On Tuesday evening, a candlelight vigil will be held at Lethbridge City Hall to bring greater awareness to the ongoing search efforts for Darius MacDougall.
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As fall rolls in, cashmere starts making a strong case for a spot in your wardrobe. The soft, insulating fabric instantly makes everyday layers feel a little more luxurious, whether you’re adding a simple beanie to your outfit or investing in an oversized sweater. Ahead, seven cashmere finds from brands including Uniqlo, Quince and Simons, with options for every budget.
The under-$50 find
A little cashmere can go a long way, especially when it comes in the form of a cozy beanie. This 100 per cent cashmere style keeps things simple with a classic knit texture that adds a little visual interest, while the unisex design makes it an easy pick for anyone. At under $50, it’s an easy way to bring a little luxury to your cold-weather wardrobe.[/product_listing]
The oversized scarf
If your ideal winter outfit involves wrapping yourself in something impossibly soft, this oversized cashmere scarf is calling your name. Quince’s Mongolian cashmere is designed to be incredibly warm while remaining lightweight, making this a versatile layer to throw over everything from a wool coat to a chunky sweater. The generous size also means plenty of ways to wear it.[/product_listing]
The everyday luxury
Cold-weather accessories don’t have to be an afterthought. These Simons-exclusive gloves are knitted from 100 per cent cashmere for a soft, insulating feel, with a ribbed elastic cuff that helps keep the cold out. They’re polished enough to pair with your favourite wool coat but cozy enough for everyday errands.[/product_listing]
The elevated crewneck
This is the kind of sweater that makes everyday dressing feel a little more special. Made from Aritzia’s airy Mesh Cashmere, the 100 per cent cashmere knit has an oversized silhouette and open-knit texture that gives a classic crewneck a more elevated feel. It’s the kind of layer you’ll want to live in all season.[/product_listing]
Cashmere pants might sound like the ultimate indulgence–and honestly, they kind of are. This LilySilk pair is made from 100 per cent Grade A cashmere sourced from Inner Mongolia, with a lightweight, soft feel that brings a little luxury to lounging. Wear them at home with a cashmere sweater or style them with a sleek top for an elevated take on off-duty dressing.[/product_listing]
The short-sleeve staple
Cashmere doesn’t have to mean a chunky winter sweater. This Pilcro style puts a warmer-weather spin on the classic fabric with elbow-length half sleeves, a relaxed silhouette and a fuzzy brushed finish. The 100 per cent cashmere knit makes it an easy transitional piece to layer now and wear well into the colder months.[/product_listing]
The splurge-worthy turtleneck
If you’re going to splurge on cashmere, an oversized turtleneck is a pretty compelling place to do it. Reformation’s Dove sweater is designed with an oversized fit, a cozy ribbed trim and the kind of relaxed silhouette that makes even the simplest jeans feel elevated–and we’re obsessed with the ruby red hue.[/product_listing]
A Colorado Avalanche team dressing very few NHLers may not be the best test for the Winnipeg Jets without their former MVP.
But Stuart Skinner held up his end of the bargain, stopping 31 shots in a 3-1 preseason win Jets Monday night.
Not much happened until Winnipeg earned the game’s first power play just over nine minutes in. The Jets’ top unit had a lot of zone time and shot attempts but was unable to break through.
But with just over a minute to go in the first, Winnipeg broke the deadlock.
Vlad Namestnikov won a puck battle in the corner in Colorado’s end, freeing it up for Isak Rosen. He slid a pass along the ice to Gabriel Vilardi for a one-timer that eluded Scott Wedgewood to make it 1-0.
The Jets outshot Colorado 9-4 in the opening period.
The Avalanche got a power play try early in the second but mustered minimal pressure thanks to a lack of NHL firepower.
The best chance on the man advantage came from Winnipeg’s Cole Koepke, who undressed Sam Malinski before firing a fairly weak shot that was stopped by Wedgewood.
The Avalanche nearly got on the board around the nine minute mark of the second when Logan O’Connor snuck in on a partial breakaway but he was denied by the glove of Skinner, then missed the net on his follow-up attempt.
Skinner, who received a huge cheer when introduced before the game, was serenaded with chants of “Stuuuuu” every time he made a save.
The Avalanche found themselves on a 4-on-3 power play with just under eight minutes left in the second, but the Jets killed it again with some help from Skinner, who had to make a handful of saves over the two minutes.
Much like the first, the Jets were able to strike with just over a minute left in the middle frame.
Koepke sent the puck back to the point to Josh Morrissey, who quickly located Mark Scheifele streaking down the middle of the ice. He took a pass and made a nice move before sliding it across to a wide-open Cole Perfetti for a nice tap-in, making it 2-0 with 69 seconds left in the period.
Colorado outshot the Jets 11-6 in the period but trailed 2-0 going to the third.
The Avs finally got one past Skinner with 13:51 to go when a point shot from Gustav Stjernberg eluded the Jets’ netminder, who immediately complained to an official that his glove hand was disrupted by an Avalanche player in the crease.
Winnipeg challenged the goal, arguing that there was goalie interference and they won the challenge, taking the goal off the board.
Not even 30 seconds later, the Jets made it 3-0 when Dylan DeMelo beat Nabokov with a point shot through traffic.
The Avalanche broke through for real with 5:26 to go when Skinner couldn’t quite corral a loose puck in the crease before Georgii Merkulov poked it home.
Colorado got a power play with 2:39 to go and pulled the goalie to make it a 6-on-4 but the Jets killed it off and run out the clock.
Skinner finished with 29 saves to earn the win, standing tall in the third as the Avalanche outshot the Jets 17-4 in the final period.
The Jets continue their preseason schedule with their second of two home games Tuesday night against Edmonton. Pregame coverage on 680 CJOB begins just after 5 p.m. with the puck dropping a little after 7 p.m.
Transcona city councillor Russ Wyatt has confirmed to Global News he will be running for re-election despite facing sexual assault charges.
Transcona city councillor Russ Wyatt has confirmed to Global News he will be running for re-election despite facing sexual assault charges.
Wyatt has been charged with sexual assault twice since March. He has denied the allegations and has not been convicted in court.
Earlier this year, he was removed from the council committees he was a member of, but has maintained his seat in Transcona as Winnipeg’s Charter does not prevent a councillor from continuing their role if they’ve been charged with a crime, only if they’re convicted.
In a statement to Global News, Wyatt says “Time and time again, I have stood up to the powers that be and they would love to get rid of me. But I see the mess this city is in today.”
He goes on to say, “More than ever we need a truly independent voice at City Hall that will not cave into power and who will consistently stand up for Transcona and working people.”
The deadline for candidates to register is Tuesday. Wyatt says he did file his paperwork Monday afternoon although it does not yet show on the city’s website.
The confirmed candidates in Transcona include the area’s former councillor Shawn Nason, along with Chris Giesbrecht, Lora Meseman and Nathine Dagdick.
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