''Apologies to the Queen Mary'' is the 2005 first full-length album by

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

indie rock Indie rock is a Music subgenre, subgenre of rock music that originated in the United Kingdom, United States and New Zealand in the early to mid-1980s. Although the term was originally used to describe rock music released through independent reco ...

band

Wolf Parade Wolf Parade is a Canadian indie rock band formed in 2003 in Montreal. The band released three full-length albums before taking a five-year hiatus in 2011. They announced their return in 2016, releasing a self-titled EP in May of that year, and ...

Background

Songwriting and vocals are split between guitarist

Dan Boeckner Dan Boeckner (; born 5 February 1978) is a Canadian singer, songwriter, guitarist and podcaster. He is best known as one of the frontmen of Wolf Parade, which he helped found in 2003. Since 2013, he has also been a member of the Montreal-based ba ...

and keyboardist

Spencer Krug Spencer Krug ( ) (born May 4, 1977) is a Canadian musician. He is the singer, songwriter and keyboardist for the indie rock band Wolf Parade and has recorded solo under both his own name and the name Moonface. He has also performed with other Ca ...

. According to interviews with the band, the album is named after an incident in which the band was removed from the

ocean liner An ocean liner is a type of passenger ship primarily used for transportation across seas or oceans. Ocean liners may also carry cargo or mail, and may sometimes be used for other purposes (such as for pleasure cruises or as hospital ships). The ...

'' Queen Mary'' for breaking down the door of a ballroom and staging a violent séance. The song "Dear Sons and Daughters of Hungry Ghosts" refers to

Preta ''Preta'' (, ''yi dags''), also known as hungry ghost, is the Sanskrit name for a type of supernatural being described in Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Chinese folk religion as undergoing suffering greater than that of humans, particularly ...

s of

Buddhist mythology The Buddhist traditions have created and maintained a vast body of mythological literature. The central myth of Buddhism revolves around the purported events of the life of the Buddha. This is told in relatively realistic terms in the earlie ...

. The "Hungry Ghosts" – beings who, because of actions in their past lives, are always hungry and thirsty, but cannot eat or drink – are used by Krug as a reference to his generation. The songs "Killing Armies" and "Modern World (Original)" were added to the iTunes Music Store release. ''Killing Armies'' is taken from the 2004 EP and ''Modern World (Original)'' is from the 2003 EP. The songs "Fancy Claps", "Same Ghost Every Night", and "This Heart's On Fire" were not originally from an EP. All of the other songs, including "Killing Armies", came from the three previous EPs, except "I'll Believe In Anything". This song appeared on the album '' Snake's Got a Leg'' by

Sunset Rubdown Sunset Rubdown is a Canadian art rock music group from Montreal. The band began as a solo project for Spencer Krug of Wolf Parade, who released his debut, '' Snake's Got a Leg'', in early 2005. By the next year the project expanded to become a f ...

(another Spencer Krug project), which was recorded in 2004 and released in July 2005. Krug has stated that "You Are a Runner" is "more about who I am in relation to my family, my father. That song is just about, well, I'm not going to get into great detail, but my father is a certain way, and there are days when it's obvious to me that I could turn out that way, and that's not a way I want to be, and it has a certain effect on the people who are close to him, and then I see the people that are close to me getting affected in the same way. That's it on a basic level, I sort of…I don't want to get into it beyond those vague terms. "Grounds for Divorce" is just about breaking up. The divorce is symbolic, it's not a real divorce." The music video for "I'll Believe in Anything" was named "Music Video of the Year" at the PLUG Awards.

Reception

''Apologies to the Queen Mary'' is widely considered one of the most influential

albums of the 2000s. As a result of the rave reception of the album, many music magazines feature ''Apologies to the Queen Mary'' in their best of the decade lists. The album achieved a score of 83 out of 100 on Metacritic, appeared in the Canadian edition of ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'' magazine's list of "Canada's Most Anticipated Indie Albums of the Year", and was shortlisted for the

2006 Polaris Music Prize The inaugural edition of the Canadian Polaris Music Prize presented on September 18, 2006, at Toronto's Phoenix Concert Theatre. The winning album was Final Fantasy's '' He Poos Clouds''. Nominees The prize's list of 10 finalist albums, chosen ...

Online music magazine An online magazine is a magazine published on the Internet, through bulletin board systems and other forms of public computer networks. One of the first magazines to convert from a print magazine format to an online only magazine was the computer ...

Pitchfork A pitchfork or hay fork is an agricultural tool used to pitch loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves. It has a long handle and usually two to five thin tines designed to efficiently move such materials. The term is also applie ...

'' placed ''Apologies to the Queen Mary'' at number 89 on their list of top 200 albums of the 2000s and placed "I'll Believe in Anything" at 95 on their list of The Top 500 Tracks of the Decade. Cokemachineglow named the record the 5th greatest album of the 2000s. ''LAS Magazine'' placed it at spot #38 of the greatest records of 2000-2009 while

Stylus magazine ''Stylus Magazine'' was an American online music and film magazine, launched in 2002 and co-founded by Todd L. Burns. It featured long-form music journalism, four daily music reviews, movie reviews, podcasts, an MP3 blog, and a text blog. Addi ...

and

PopMatters ''PopMatters'' is an international online magazine of cultural criticism that covers aspects of popular culture. ''PopMatters'' publishes reviews, interviews, and essays on cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, ...

placed it on spot #19 and #16 on their list of the best albums of 2005, respectively. It was also featured on the list of No Ripcord, taking spot number 12. As of 2006 it has sold 67,000 copies in United States.

Track listing

Personnel

– guitar, vocals *

– piano, keyboards, vocals * Arlen Thompson – drums * Hadji Bakara – keyboards, electronics * Tim Kingsbury – guitar (tracks 4 and 5), bass (track 7) *

Isaac Brock Major-General Sir Isaac Brock KB (6 October 1769 – 13 October 1812) was a British Army officer and colonial administrator from Guernsey. He is best remembered for his victory at the Siege of Detroit and his death at the Battle of Quee ...

– producer (tracks 1–3, 6, 8–12) *

– producers (tracks 4, 5, 7), mixing *

Jace Lasek Jace Lasek is a Canadian musician and producer living in Montreal. He and his wife Olga Goreas are the principal songwriters for the Montreal-based indie rock band The Besnard Lakes. Lasek plays guitar, bass, drums and keyboards. He is also the b ...

– mixing (tracks 1–3, 6, 8–12) * Chris Chandler – engineer * Jacob Hall – assistant engineer *

Harris Newman Harris Newman is a mastering engineer working out of Grey Market Mastering in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. His studio shares a building with the Hotel2Tango recording studio, as well as Constellation Records. Newman has mastered hundreds of album ...

– mastering * Dusty Summers – design * Matt Moroz – illustrations

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Apologies To The Queen Mary 2005 debut albums Wolf Parade albums Sub Pop albums