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Sainthood (album)

2009 album by Canadian rock duo Tegan and Sara

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 3, 2026
Entity authorityQ540444 ↗
Source-derived summary

Sainthood is the sixth studio album by the Canadian indie pop duo Tegan and Sara, released in the UK on October 26, 2009, and in the US on October 27, by Sire Records.

The album was a shortlisted nominee for the 2010 Polaris Music Prize.

Background

This is the first album by Tegan and Sara to feature a song co-written by the pair, as they usually choose to write separately. However, it was not written while Tegan and Sara stayed together in New Orleans as an attempt to write together. No songs from that time made it on to the album, although one such song lends its title to that of the record. The album title was inspired by a Leonard Cohen lyric. The record also includes co-written songs from Tegan's side project with Hunter Burgan, bassist of AFI.

The album is described by the band as such:

Tegan and Sara's sixth studio album – Sainthood – addresses secular themes of devotion, delusion, and exemplary behavior in the pursuit of love and relationships. Inspired by emotional longing and the quiet actions we hope may be noticed by the objects of our affection, Sainthood is about obsession with romantic ideals.

In the service of relationships we practice being perfect. We practice our sainthood in the hope that we will be rewarded with adoration.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Sainthood (album)” is 2009 album by Canadian rock duo Tegan and Sara. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Sainthood, album and Canadian, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful identification and reception guide that helps separate the work itself from editions, performances, ownership and later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2009, 2010—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2009-10-27. For this dossier, Sainthood, album and Canadian is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “2009 album by Canadian rock duo Tegan and Sara” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q540444. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2009 and 2010.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

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  • Tracing reception history
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  2. Expand the search: follow Sainthood (album) primary sources, Sainthood (album) archive and Sainthood research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Sainthood (album)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.