Jay Baruchel Says Godspeed You! Black Emperor's 'Yanqui U.X.O.' Is His Favourite Album of All Time

"For stoners like me it scratched the itch that I suspect Phish scratches for other people."

BY Josiah HughesPublished May 6, 2021

Most of us know Jay Baruchel as a comedy figure who steals scenes from his buddy Seth Rogen and brought us the wonderful Goon franchise. But did you know he's also a big-time post-rock head? In fact, the Montreal native just revealed that his favourite album of all time comes from his hometown heroes Godspeed You! Black Emperor.

In a recently resurfaced 2020 piece for Under the Radar, Baruchel revealed that he's a big-time Godspeed head. And not just a crescendo-loving Godspeed basic, either: his favourite album from the band is 2002's divisive Yanqui U.X.O., which many fans consider a low point for the band.

Not Jay, though. In the piece, he calls the album a "fucking mental odyssey" and explains precisely why Yanqui in particular tickles his brain:

They were film students from Montréal that just started making the craziest, darkest, heaviest music ever recorded and I had listened to a few records and I'd always listen to them with the caveat from my friends that there's no record of theirs that sounds like what it's like to see them live. But I still dug it and you still fucking vibed on them hard and it was great music to write to. It was great music to just smoke weed to. It was great music to do fucking everything. For stoners like me it scratched the itch that I suspect Phish scratches for other people. This is jam music for me, for people who have a chip on their shoulder, who read a lot of sci-fi and comics. My connection to it was pure and explainable by two things. I've always loved guitar rock and I've always loved film scores. And when you kind of put those things together in the Gen X, hipster, Montréal film school context, you get Godspeed You! Black Emperor.

He went on to describe seeing the band play at the Rialto Theatre in Montreal and perform a "20-minute fucking ode to the apocalypse." He added that the "entire place reeked of marijuana," saying, "Oh, fuck, this is the thing. This is whenever I heard old farts talking about going to see a concert with crazy iconic moments, I'm living one."

With the piece making the rounds again, Jay shared his own thoughts about a perceived backlash on Twitter:
 


Read Jay Baruchel's full ode to Godspeed here. The band recently released a brand new album called G_d's Pee AT STATE'S END!

 

Latest Coverage