"Life" | ||||
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Single by Our Lady Peace | ||||
from the album Spiritual Machines | ||||
Released | December 20, 2000 | |||
Recorded | September – November 2000 | |||
Genre | Alternative rock, post-grunge, pop rock | |||
Length | 4:23 (Spiritual Machines) 4:44(A Decade) | |||
Label | Columbia | |||
Songwriter(s) | Raine Maida | |||
Producer(s) | Arnold Lanni & Raine Maida | |||
Our Lady Peace singles chronology | ||||
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Music video | ||||
"Life" on YouTube |
"Life" is a song by Canadian rock group Our Lady Peace. It was released in December 2000 as the second single from their fourth studio album, Spiritual Machines and the most successful from that album. The song was nominated for "Best Single" at the 2002 Juno Awards, losing to Nickelback's "How You Remind Me". A sample can be heard in the Trailer Park Boys episode "Say Goodnight to the Bad Guys". It can also be heard in the show's 2006 film adaptation.
This song, like the rest on the album, was partially inspired by Ray Kurzweil's book The Age of Spiritual Machines. While directly following the track "In Repair" on the studio album, on the band's 2006 compilation album, A Decade , the track is immediately preceded by a spoken excerpt by Ray Kurzweil titled "R.K. Jack" that was recorded during the Spiritual Machines sessions and previously unreleased.
In a 2001 interview in Billboard , Maida said of the lyrics for "Life": "That song to me was such a simple premise. It's really about positive energy. Everybody deals with simple things that get people down, like money problems. You just have to deal with stuff and turn any negative energy into positive energy. That's the way to get through life." [1]
The first video for "Life", shot at Montreal's Mirabel Airport, was never released due to the band's creative differences with the director. [2] [3]
Two versions of the Marcos Siega directed music video for "Life" were released, one in the United States and the other for Canada. The Canadian version premiered on Muchmusic on April 5, 2001, and hit number-one on the Muchmusic Countdown on August 3 of that year. [2] It is the original and features the band playing in an all white room. Various scenes with distressed people are shown throughout the video. In the American version, released on April 20, 2001, the scenes with the people are cut out. Both videos begin with the Chinese representation of "Our Lady Peace" and the Chinese symbol for life. The Chinese symbol for "courage" appears to be painted on the side of Raine Maida's head which is then repeated at the end of both videos.
The music video received two nominations for "Best Post-Production" and "Best Cinematography" at the 2001 MuchMusic Video Awards. [4]
Columbia CSK 16436
Epic EPK 6718742
Chart (2001) | Peak position |
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US Billboard Modern Rock Tracks | 27 |
Chart (2001) | Position |
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Canada Radio (Nielsen BDS) [5] | 55 |
Our Lady Peace is a Canadian rock band formed in Toronto, Ontario in 1992. Led by lead vocalist Raine Maida since its formation, the band currently also features Duncan Coutts on bass, Steve Mazur on guitars, and Jason Pierce on drums. The band has sold several million albums worldwide, won four Juno Awards, and won ten MuchMusic Video Awards—the most MMVAs ever awarded to a band. Nineteen of their singles have reached the Top Ten on one of Canada's singles charts. Between 1996 and 2016, Our Lady Peace was the third best-selling Canadian band and the ninth best-selling Canadian artist overall in Canada.
Raine Maida is a Canadian musician best known as being the lead vocalist and primary songwriter of the alternative rock band Our Lady Peace. He has come to be known for his unique countertenor nasal falsetto singing voice, as well as his cryptic and poetry-influenced song lyrics. He occasionally plays certain instruments, such as the acoustic guitar, while performing with Our Lady Peace. Following guitarist Mike Turner's departure from Our Lady Peace in 2001, Maida is the only remaining original member of the band.
Spiritual Machines is the fourth studio album by the Canadian alternative rock band Our Lady Peace, released by Columbia Records in December 2000. Although not initially intended, the project evolved into a conceptual interpretation of futurist and inventor Raymond Kurzweil's 1999 book The Age of Spiritual Machines. Short tracks of spoken dialog from Kurzweil himself are interspersed among the actual songs on the album. The Kurzweil K250 keyboard, one of his inventions, was utilized throughout the recording of the album.
Clumsy is the second studio album by the Canadian rock band Our Lady Peace, released on January 23, 1997, by Columbia Records. The album is the band's most successful to date, achieving diamond status in Canada and strong sales in other countries, including platinum status in the U.S. for another 1 million sales. In 2007, it ranked No. 76 on "The Top 100 Canadian Albums" by Bob Mersereau and No. 33 on The Top 102 New Rock Albums of All Time by 102.1 The Edge. The album features five hit singles: "Superman's Dead", "Automatic Flowers", "Clumsy", "4am" and "Carnival". Each single except "Carnival" has a music video.
Happiness... Is Not a Fish That You Can Catch is the third studio album by Canadian alternative rock band Our Lady Peace. It was released on September 21, 1999, by Columbia Records. The album was very successful in Canada, debuting at #1 on the Canadian Albums Chart. The album was certified 3× Platinum in July 2001. Hit singles from the album include "One Man Army", "Annie", "Is Anybody Home?", and "Thief". The final track on the CD, "Stealing Babies", features Elvin Jones, a prominent post-bop jazz drummer. The photo shoot for this album took place around Staten Island in New York State.
Gravity is the fifth studio album by the Canadian rock band Our Lady Peace. It was released on June 18, 2002 by Columbia Records in North America. The album became a worldwide success, charting highly both in Canada and the United States with the hit singles "Somewhere Out There" and "Innocent".
Healthy in Paranoid Times is the sixth studio album by Canadian rock band Our Lady Peace, released on August 30, 2005, by Columbia Records. The disc was released on a standard CD as well as a DualDisc, with the reverse side containing a documentary on the making of the album. The album fared well in both Canada and the U.S., but didn't match up to the success of its 2002 predecessor, Gravity. The first single was "Where Are You", released in Canada during June 2005 and released in the United States a month later. The second and third singles were "Angels/Losing/Sleep" and "Will the Future Blame Us", respectively.
Michael A. Turner, also known as Emtee, is an English-born Canadian musician and producer. He is best known as the former lead guitarist and founding member of the band Our Lady Peace and current member of alternative rock supergroup Crash Karma.
"Superman's Dead" is a song by Canadian alternative rock group Our Lady Peace. It was released on January 16, 1997 as the lead single from their second album Clumsy, preceding the album's release by a week. This has become one of Our Lady Peace's most popular songs in both Canada and the U.S., as well as many other parts of the world.
"4am" is a song by Canadian alternative rock band Our Lady Peace. It was released in December 1997 as the fourth single from their second album Clumsy. The band has described the title of the song as having a double meaning. The band wrote the entire song at 4 am. Also, the band's lead vocalist's father's name was Anthony Maida. The song being written at 4am and the initials of Raine's father give meaning to the song's name. Raine has confessed that the song was triggered by a dream about his father. The dream was about their relationship and the fear he had about his father supporting his musical career. The meaning has resonated with many of the band's fans. The song has a steady upbeat tempo throughout, with poetic lyrics.
A Decade is Canadian alternative rock band Our Lady Peace's first compilation album, released on November 21, 2006, in Canada, and November 28, 2006, in the United States. In addition to songs from the band's first six albums, the set included two unreleased songs, "Kiss on the Mouth" and "Better Than Here".
"Somewhere Out There" is a song by Canadian alternative rock group Our Lady Peace. It was released on April 1, 2002, as the lead single from their fifth studio album, Gravity. It was the most successful single from the album, reaching number 44 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and peaking inside the top 40 on five other Billboard charts. "Somewhere Out There" was the ninth-most played song on radio in Canada in 2002. It is also their most successful single in the U.S.
"The Birdman" is Our Lady Peace's first single off their debut album Naveed. Because of the Naveed cover, Saul Fox is best known for being the Birdman. The chorus of the song originates from an early demo that the band cut in 1992 called "Nobody's Wrong" with a completely different meaning.
Naveed is the debut studio album by Canadian rock band Our Lady Peace. It was produced by Arnold Lanni, and was released on March 22, 1994, by Sony Music Canada. Naveed became a success in Canada, being certified 4× Platinum in the country. There were five singles released for the album, including "The Birdman", "Starseed" and "Naveed". This is the only album to feature bass player Chris Eacrett, who was replaced by Duncan Coutts in 1995.
"In Repair" is a song by Canadian alternative rock group Our Lady Peace. It was released in November 2000 as the lead single from their fourth studio album Spiritual Machines.
Burn Burn is the seventh studio album by Canadian alternative rock band Our Lady Peace, released in North America on July 21, 2009. The album's title is based on a quote by Jack Kerouac from his 1957 novel On the Road.
"Automatic Flowers" is a song by Canadian alternative rock group Our Lady Peace. It was released in July 1997 as the third single from their second studio album, Clumsy.
"Right Behind You (Mafia)" is a song by Canadian alternative rock group Our Lady Peace. It was released in July 2001 as the third and final single from their fourth studio album, Spiritual Machines. The single underperformed, ultimately causing its release as well as that of its music video to be aborted. It was also their last single released with founding guitarist Mike Turner in the band. Matt Cameron of Pearl Jam performed the drums on this song while Our Lady Peace's own drummer, Jeremy Taggart, was recovering from injury.
Curve is the eighth studio album by Canadian alternative rock band Our Lady Peace (OLP), released on April 3, 2012. The album was recorded from 2010 through 2012 at vocalist Raine Maida's home recording studio. Curve's first single, "Heavyweight", was released on December 20, 2011. The music from Curve has been touted by lead singer Maida as being "more experimental and ambitious" than the band's 2000 concept album Spiritual Machines. The album's cover features Canadian heavyweight boxer George Chuvalo, whose vocal excerpts are featured in the album's tenth and final track "Mettle".
Spiritual Machines 2 is the tenth studio album from Canadian alternative rock band Our Lady Peace, a sequel to their 2000 art rock concept album Spiritual Machines. The album was produced by Dave Sitek, and released through BMG's Shelter Music Group in the form of a non-fungible token (NFT) on October 29, 2021. All 500 NFTs were reported sold out in January 2022. A traditional release of the album was planned for 2022, and a multi-media tour was scheduled to begin in June 2022.