Video of the Day | Wayne Rostad - "Rideau Street Queen"

We can't always premiere white-hot contemporary videos at ION. Sometimes we have to remember the past, because it's peculiar. It's funny how pop music ages. Songs our parents would roll their eyes to in the 70s are often enjoyed by today's younger generation, while the music they considered "boss" at the time, is often cringeworthy to revisit. It'll happen to you too. Think about the music you listened to at hip parties in your early twenties. You balked at the idea of Gwen Stefani's new-at-the-time solo career, and flailed your asymmetrical electroclash hairdo to dance-punk. Today, "What You Waiting For" is an enjoyable nostalgia trip, but you can't get through two verses of a song by the Faint without getting all-over douche chills.

Anyhoodle, do you know who Wayne Rostad is? Over-thirties who grew up in Ontario probably do. He was like an off-brand Gordon Lightfoot who wasn't big enough to turn down gigs at your local catfish festival, and as we see in "Rideau Street Queen", he was the casualty of early 80s video culture; being one of those artists who were shoehorned into making a video clip without being properly equipped to at all. The song and video's theme is of a young girl from presumably the Ottawa Valley who brings her wide-eyed enthusiasm to the seedy (lol) shopping district of downtown Ottawa only to (SPOILERS) become a prostitute. Cut between performance scenes of Rostad and his pressed hair + Ned Flanders moustache, and featuring such magnificent lines like "The memories of daddy/In old Renfrew County", "Rideau Street Queen" is a nugget of gold for anyone who enjoys a bit of yesteryear schadenfreude, or follows the brilliants bastards at Retrontario, seeking to fulfill their desire for Heather Conkie #content.

Photo: RTP Stores