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The Box (band)

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For the British 1980s band, see Clock DVA.
The Box
The Box performing at the 2015 Festival of Friends
The Box performing at the 2015 Festival of Friends
Background information
Also known asBox
OriginMontreal, Quebec, Canada
GenresNew wave, rock, progressive rock
Years active1981–1992, 2002–present
LabelsAlert, Universal, Capitol
MembersJean-Marc Pisapia
Dan Volj
Guillaume Jodoin
Francois Bruneau
Martin Lapierre
Isabelle Lemay
Past membersGuy Florent
Jean-Pierre Brie
Guy Pisapia
Sylvain Coutu
Philippe Bernard
Claude Thibault
Luc Papineau
Denis Faucher
Eric Theocharides
Sass Jordan
Websitetheboxband.com

The Box is a Canadian pop rock band from Montreal, Quebec,[1] whose style evolved from synth-based new wave pop on their early albums toward prog-influenced guitar rock later in their careers.[2] Founded in 1981, they achieved commercial success in Canada, recording four charting albums and 10 charting singles between 1984 and 1990.[1]

The group broke up in 1992, but a new line-up was founded in 2004.[3] This iteration of the group has released two further albums.

Biography

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The band was formed in 1981 by Jean-Marc Pisapia, an early member of Men Without Hats.[1] He recruited guitarist Guy Florent and bassist Jean-Pierre Brie and, before they settled on calling themselves The Box, the group was known as Checkpoint Charlie.[3]

The band's first single attracted the attention of Montreal radio station CKOI-FM, leading to a deal with Alert Records.[3] Also that year, Jean-Marc's brother Guy Pisapia joined on keyboards.[1]

Their debut album The Box was released in 1984, and produced the singles "Must I Always Remember" and "Walk Away".[1] Drummer Sylvain Coutu joined the band for its supporting tour, but was replaced by Pierre Taillefer before the next album. Florent also left and was replaced by Claude Thibeault. Their shows to promote the album included some dates opening for British prog rock band Marillion on their Canadian tour.[4]

In 1985, The Box released All the Time, All the Time, All the Time.[5] That album, which included backing vocals by Sass Jordan and Marie Carmen, produced the singles "My Dreams of You" and "L'Affaire Dumoutier (Say to Me)". The latter song, in which Pisapia narrates, rather than singing, a tale of a murder committed by a man with multiple personality disorder, was opposed as a single by the record label due to its unconventional sound and strange subject matter, but the label relented due to the strength of its cinematic music video, which was constructed as a mid-century European crime thriller film with Pisapia playing the police detective.[6] Pisapia, who to this day considers it the best song he ever wrote,[6] was vindicated when the song became the band's first Top 40 hit.[1]

"L'Affaire Dumoutier", further, was one part of a trilogy of songs, with the album track "Evil in Me" and the non-album "For the First and Very Last" delving further into the murderer's story,[6] although they were released as B-sides to "L'Affaire Dumoutier" rather than separate singles.

They won the 1985 Félix Award for group of the year,[7] and were nominated for the Juno Award for Most Promising Group of the Year at the Juno Awards of 1985.[8]

1987's Closer Together was the band's most commercially and critically successful album.[9] Featuring the hit singles "Ordinary People", "Closer Together" and "Crying Out Loud for Love", the album was certified platinum. Backing vocals on the album were provided by Jordan and Martine St. Clair. The band's biggest hit, "Closer Together", was originally commissioned for a fundraiser for a anti-leukemia foundation.[10]

The band received a Juno nomination for Group of the Year at the Juno Awards of 1987,[11] and won the Félix Awards for Anglophone Group of the Year, Anglophone Single of the Year and Video of the Year.[12] In 1988, they won the Rock Express reader poll for Best Canadian Group and Best Canadian Album.[13]

After touring for more than eighteen months,[14] the band took six months off to recover before returning with 1990's The Pleasure and the Pain, produced by Martin Rushent.[15] That album was a commercial disappointment; Pisapia attributed this in part to the band's position as francophones who were performing in English instead of French, causing their fans in Quebec to turn against them in the increasingly polarized climate of the Meech Lake era,[16] and to the album having represented a compromise between his musical vision and label pressures to make a mainstream rock album that could break them into the United States.[17]

Pisapia also later asserted that the nearly two years of constant touring between Closer Together and The Pleasure and the Pain left the band burnt out and exhausted,[3] and he was further annoyed when the label forced the band to appear as an opening act for Sinéad O'Connor's Canadian concert dates to promote I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got in 1990, even though they were already a headlining act in their own right.[18]

The Box disbanded in 1992 after releasing the greatest hits compilation A Decade of Box Music.[17]

Hiatus and revival

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Pisapia released a solo album, John of Mark, in 1995, which was later reissued as a Box album in 2015.[17] He subsequently supported himself principally as a writer of television advertising jingles.[19]

Pisapia revived The Box with a new lineup in 2002, issuing two new Box tracks (recorded in 1996 and 2002) on a new hits compilation, Always in Touch With You.[19] This version of The Box was essentially Pisapia backed by session musicians,[17] but the line-up soon coalesced into steady group that had a decidedly more prog-rock orientation than the original incarnation of the band.[19]

In 2005, the band released Black Dog There, its first new album in 15 years.[20] The album, a concept album about a young man from the Canadian Prairies who becomes an astronaut but gets caught between parallel universes when his spaceship explodes, was inspired by Pisapia's love of progressive rock bands such as Genesis, Pink Floyd and Gentle Giant.[20]

This was followed up by the 2009 album D'Après le horla de Maupassant (or simply Le Horla for short), the first Box album sung entirely in French.[21]

By the 2010s, the music industry had changed so much that Pisapia felt no need to create entire albums. "Back in the 80s, it was very simple... Today, even the most experienced executive in a record company doesn’t know where to start."[22] Pisapia had begun painting, but still had his own recording studio for when he got "the urge" to make music. The Box released several singles (in both English and French) and a four song EP, Take Me Home during this decade.[22]

In 2024, the band performed at Quebec City's Festival d'été de Québec.[6]

Discography

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Singles

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Year Single Peak positions Album
CAN
[23]
1984 "Walk Away" 48 The Box
"Must I Always Remember" 82
"Dancing on the Grave" —
1985 "With All This Cash" — All the Time, All the Time, All the Time
"L'Affaire Dumoutier (Say to Me)" 21
1986 "My Dreams of You" 51
1987 "Closer Together" 13 Closer Together
"Ordinary People" 16
"Crying Out Loud for Love" 40
1988 "I'm Back" —
1990 "Carry On" 12 The Pleasure and the Pain
"Temptation" 39
"Inside My Heart" 20
2014 "Les plus belles années de ta vie" — (Single only)
2015 "Life is a Party" — (Single only)
2015 "Trop Loin" — (Single only)
2016 "Incredible Human Being" — (Single only)
"—" denotes releases that did not chart

Albums

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Original studio albums

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Release date Title Chart positions
Canada
RPM Album charts
May 1984 The Box 95
January 1986 All the Time, All the Time, All the Time 73
March 1987 Closer Together 25
March 1990 The Pleasure and the Pain 31
June 1995 John of Mark† -
March 2005 Black Dog There -
November 2009 D'Après le horla de Maupassant -
March 2018 Take Me Home (EP) -

† Originally issued as by "John of Mark"; reissued by The Box in 2015.

Compilation albums

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  • A Decade of Box Music (1992)
  • Always in Touch with You: The Best of the Box (2002)
  • The Best of the Box (2007) CD + DVD

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f "The Box". The Canadian Encyclopedia, September 4, 2013.
  2. ^ Chris Dafoe, "A mix of musical fun contained in The Box". The Globe and Mail, July 23, 1987.
  3. ^ a b c d Raphaël Gendron-Martin, "«On brûlait la chandelle par les deux bouts»". Le Journal de Montréal, May 13, 2017.
  4. ^ Matthew Fraser, "Band borrows liberally from Genesis". The Globe and Mail, June 15, 1984.
  5. ^ Craig MacInnis, "The Box patiently waits to stir up English passions". Toronto Star, March 16, 1986.
  6. ^ a b c d Cédric Bélanger, "The Box au Festival d’été de Québec: «L’affaire Dumoutier» a été sauvée par son vidéoclip". Le Journal de Québec, July 12, 2024.
  7. ^ Martin Siberok, "Year of the Box as group tops in Quebec rock". Montreal Gazette, November 23, 1985.
  8. ^ Greg Quill, "Adams wins Juno's triple crown". Toronto Star, November 5, 1985.
  9. ^ Howard Druckman, "The Box: a gust of fresh air with Closer Together". Music Scene, July/August 1987.
  10. ^ Craig MacInnis, "The Box singer skating to new tunes on video". Toronto Star, April 10, 1987.
  11. ^ Tim O'Connor, "Challengers nose to nose for 1987 Juno awards". Windsor Star, November 2, 1987.
  12. ^ John Griffin, "Marjo, The Box, Rivard top Felixes with 3 each". Montreal Gazette, October 26, 1987.
  13. ^ "The Box named top Canadian band". Toronto Star, March 3, 1988.
  14. ^ "More goodies found in The Box". Toronto Star, June 23, 1988.
  15. ^ Craig MacInnis, "The Box closes lid on Canada's two solitudes". Toronto Star, March 30, 1990.
  16. ^ Evelyn Erskine, "Rock band in the middle of Qubec language debate". Ottawa Citizen, May 12, 1990.
  17. ^ a b c d Keith Sharp, "The Box". Music Express, 2017.
  18. ^ Philippe Renaud, "The Box au FEQ, à notre bon souvenir". Le Devoir, July 12, 2024.
  19. ^ a b c Brendan Kelly, "Former Montreal pop star lives outside the box with TV jingles company". Canadian Press, November 4, 2002.
  20. ^ a b Brendan Kelly, "Quebec singer reopens The Box". CanWest News Service, March 31, 2005.
  21. ^ Jean-Christophe Laurence, "The Box : Le Horla à la sauce rock". La Presse, November 4, 2009.
  22. ^ a b "A conversation with Jean-Marc Pisapia of The Box". The Spill Magazine. January 22, 2020.
  23. ^ "Results - RPM - Library and Archives Canada - Top Singles". RPM. Retrieved August 26, 2011.
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