Sloan Based on the Best Seller LP (Clear Gold Vinyl)

Based on the Best Seller, the 2025 album from power pop auteurs Sloan, is a star-studded showcase of songwriting from the quartet of Andrew Scott, Chris Murphy, Patrick Pentland and Jay Ferguson. From hooks of "Live Forever" and "No Damn Fears" that cut like a director's final edit, to the hooky harmonies of "Dream Destroyer" and "Capitol Cooler" that deserve top billing, this alt-rock blockbuster proves once again: Sloan never skips the reel magic.

"It's not a challenge to make a 14th album," Sloan's Jay Ferguson says, "But sometimes it's a challenge to think of a new overarching theme for a 14th album (and The Kinks' 14th album was Soap Opera, essentially a TV play and complete story arc set to music, so clearly Ray Davies didn't have that problem). Our band has the capability to perform different styles within the rock/pop (or pop/rock) sphere, but it's often hard to harness the group to adhere to one particular style or theme. That's okay though. With four songwriters, we tend to make music that perhaps doesn't always naturally hang together under one (opened) umbrella but that's our style, and that style is continued on Based on the Best Seller. Nevertheless, whether it's Chris harmonizing on my songs, Patrick harmonizing on Chris' songs or Chris and our keyboardist Gregory vocally backing-up Andrew, I think those elements help tie together this (and previous) Sloan albums."