Before Google Play Music and iPods, there was the compilation CD. Released by Much Music in 1997, Big Shiny Tunes 2 (BST2) is still a talking point for many Canadians in their late 20s and early 30s. 

On March 20 at 7 p.m., The Good Will Social Club will open its doors and allow patrons to hear the album performed front to back by local musicians Kevin Roy and Daniel Peloquin-Hopfner. 

Peloquin-Hopfner has a soft spot for the album, as growing up in St. Rose Du Lac, Man. limited his music exposure. 

“For new stuff it was pretty few and far between,” Peloquin-Hopfner says. “We had AM radio, mostly country music, and that didn’t really speak to me. I remember seeing (BST2) on tape at the local gas station and thinking the graphic design on it was really rad. Then my friend’s older brother bought it the very same day.”

It was this album that inspired Peloquin-Hopfner to save up for a discman, a story familiar to other Generation Y kids. 

“I was a competitive curler in junior high and high school,” Janelle Desrosiers, owner of Bloom + Brilliance web design, says. “And my team won this bonspiel. One of the prizes was a No Doubt CD. It’s kinda funny because now I would have thought that was awesome, but I went to the mall to trade it for Big Shiny Tunes 2. It was the only CD I had for a while. I saved up forever for a CD player.”

Desrosiers says the album was the soundtrack to her early teenage years.

“It was such a pivotal time for me when it came out. It was the first year that I was a teenager, and it was the first year that I started developing my own personality and standing on my own,” she says.

Peloquin-Hopfner has been hearing similar stories since announcing the event. 

“We’ve had a lot of all caps responses,” he says. “Which I thought was pretty great. The conversations around it have been hilarious. It was a seminal time for Canadian rock music.”

Though ’90s teens are sometimes criticized for being too nostalgic, Desrosiers doesn’t see the issue.

“We didn’t start nostalgia. It was the Baby Boomers who made Dirty Dancing and Grease in the ’70s and ’80s. It’s natural.”

The Big Shiny Tunes tribute is the third in a series of throwback rock concerts Peloquin-Hopfner and Roy have put on at The Good Will. The first was Green Day’s Dookie followed by Blink 182’s Enema of the State.

The duo will start by performing the entire album. After an intermission, they will perform audience requests sent to them through the Facebook event page. 

“What other ridiculous bands have we missed?” Peloquin-Hopfner says. “Every request is considered, but request soon so we have time to learn them.”

Published in Volume 70, Number 23 of The Uniter (March 10, 2016)