history of canadian music 1970’s to 2000’s

Canada’s music has mirrored the history and culture of the country. From early British-style patriotic songs and the folk traditions of the many founding cultures, to the international success of cutting-edge alternative music bands, music has been an ever evolving part of Canada‘s cultural life. The country’s tradition of folk music, with its basis in every region and community in the country, is complemented by strong domestic and international contributions to popular music.

From artists like country singer Hank Snow in the 1950s, to the hard rock of bands like Rush and The Guess Who in 1960s and 1970s, to worldwide pop stars like Bryan Adams, Céline Dion, Shania Twain in the 1980s and 1990s, to the promise of the current wave of Canadian musicians typified by performers as diverse as Arcade Fire, Billy Talent, k-os, Avril Lavigne and Alexisonfire, Canada’s music is a valuable contribution to global culture

The History of Canadian Music

 1970s

In 1970, the Canadian government passed Canadian content legislation. On January 18, 1971 regulations came into force requiring AM radio stations to devote 30 per cent of their musical selections to Canadian content. Although this was (and still is) controversial, it quite clearly contributed to the development of a nascent Canadian pop star system. The Juno Awards were first held in 1971, partially as an attempt to revitalize the Canadian pop industry.

The most immediate effect of the Canadian content regulations was the sudden rise to fame of Anne Murray, whose 1970 “Snowbird” was a multi-million selling record. Led by The Guess Who, Murray, Lighthouse, the Poppy Family and The Irish Rovers, the early 1970s were a golden age for Canadian music. Following in these pioneers’ footsteps was a wave of new bands, including April Wine, The Bells, Triumph, The Stampeders, Five Man Electrical Band, Crowbar, Trooper, FM, Fludd, Saga, Prism, and Chilliwack.

The Canadian music industry was still nascent, however, with little independent music media and a limited distribution infrastructure. The two most internationally renowned bands to arise from this industry were Rush and Bachman-Turner Overdrive, both dominated by powerful managers. Bachman-Turner Overdrive’s manager, Bruce Allen, went on to Loverboy and eventually manage such major pop stars as Bryan Adams, Martina McBride, and Anne Murray.

Diversification in the late 1970s

Canadian pop music evolved with the times, reflecting worldwide trends. In the late 1970s, as punk rock and disco ruled the landscape, Canadian punkers such as The Diodes, D.O.A.., The Viletones, The Forgotten Rebels, Pointed Sticks, Rough Trade, Teenage Head, The Demics, and The Young Canadians were there, along with disco divas like Patsy Gallant, Lisa Dalbello, France Joli, and Claudja Barry.

Rockers such as Sweeney Todd, Nick Gilder, Red Rider, Doucette, Triumph, Dan Hill, Trooper, Prism and Max Webster were also significant in the late 1970s.

Number one in a field of one was avant-garde electronic rocker Nash The Slash, whose first EP Bedside Companion was released in 1978.

Canadian cultural critics have noted that in general, the late 1970s were a lesser era for Canadian music. Many of the acts who had defined the earlier half of the decade were no longer recording, and the new artists emerging in this era simply didn’t seem to be able to capture the Canadian pop zeitgeist in the same way. Many of them, in fact, were only “one-hit wonders“.

However, a number of established Canadian acts, including Rush, Bruce Cockburn, Gino Vannelli, April Wine and Neil Young, remained influential and recorded some of their most popular material of all during this period, and former Guess Who lead singer Burton Cummings emerged as a popular solo artist. Another of this period’s most influential and popular rock bands, Heart, resulted from the collaboration of two sisters from Seattle with a supporting band from Vancouver.

When New Wave became popular in the early 1980s, acts such as The Parachute Club, Rough Trade, Spoons, Trans-X, Rational Youth, Men Without Hats, Norman Iceberg, Images in Vogue, and Martha and the Muffins were along for the ride. (Rough Trade were particularly notable for “High School Confidential“, one of the first explicitly lesbian-themed pop songs to crack the Top 40 anywhere in the world.)

Hardcore punk, a term first used by Vancouver’s D.O.A., briefly upset the New Wave hegemony in the period between 1981 to 1983 with groundbreaking acts such as zeroption dominating North American underground radio.

The 1980s also produced mainstream rockers such as Bryan Adams, Tom Cochrane, Platinum Blonde, Glass Tiger, Honeymoon Suite, Coney Hatch, Headpins, Helix, Toronto, Sheriff and Corey Hart. As well, the era produced the quirky art-pop of Jane Siberry—who never exactly became a pop star, but remains one of Canada’s most enduring cult artists—and the country cowpunk of k.d. lang, who did eventually become one of pop music’s biggest names. Lisa Dalbello, who had emerged in the late 1970s as a dance-pop singer, also transformed herself into a darker, edgier art-rocker, shedding her first name and becoming simply Dalbello in 1984. Another musician from this period, Annette Ducharme, has had more success as a songwriter for other musicians than as a recording artist.

In the late 1980s, the Canadian recording industry continued to produce popular acts such as Alannah Myles, Tú, Blue Rodeo, Andrew Cash, Barney Bentall, Jeff Healey, Chalk Circle, Kim Mitchell, Frozen Ghost, Sass Jordan, and Colin James. However, alternative rock also emerged as an influential genre, with independent artists such as 54-40, The Tragically Hip, Sarah McLachlan, Spirit of the West, The Waltons, Cowboy Junkies, The Pursuit of Happiness, and The Grapes of Wrath all gaining their first widespread attention during this time.

Also notable is Canadian progressive thrash metal band Voivod, who were and are highly respected in the metal community

1990s

While the alternative revolution of the 1990s was kicked off in the United States by Nirvana and in the United Kingdom by The Stone Roses, in Canada it was ignited by an unassuming demo tape by the Barenaked Ladies. After The Yellow Tape became the hottest item in Canadian record stores in the fall of 1991, Barenaked-mania took the country by storm — in turn, paving the way for an explosion of Canadian bands to rule the airwaves.

The roster of artists emerging in this decade includes The Tea Party, Matthew Good Band, Sloan, The Gandharvas, Change of Heart, Skydiggers, Eric’s Trip, the Doughboys, Crash Test Dummies, The Lowest of the Low, 13 Engines, Odds, The Killjoys, I Mother Earth, Econoline Crush, Age of Electric, The Rankin Family, Alanis Morissette, Rheostatics, Ashley MacIsaac, Susan Aglukark, The Cowboy Junkies, Limblifter, Great Big Sea, Our Lady Peace, The Philosopher Kings, Junkhouse, Treble Charger, Deborah Cox, Jann Arden, Ron Sexsmith, Hayden, Céline Dion, Rufus Wainwright, Crash Vegas, Loreena McKennitt, The Watchmen, and Shania Twain. The Barenaked Ladies didn’t just clear the way for alternative bands, but for a whole new Canadian pop landscape, defined by a national pride and self-confident distinctiveness that had never been seen before in Canadian music.

Few bands benefited more from that landscape, however, than The Tragically Hip. Unlike the Guess Who, The Tragically Hip’s lyrics proudly wore their Canadian perspective on their sleeves. And while the Hip have yet to achieve the level of success outside of Canada, it finally didn’t matter: their Canadian fan base alone was enough to sustain a long, healthy career.

Alanis Morissette, too, kicked off another revolution in Canadian music. Just as Dalbello had a decade earlier, Morissette began as a dance-pop artist before transforming herself into an alternative rocker in 1995, releasing the album Jagged Little Pill that year. The album was only expected to sell about 250,000 copies at the most, however it went on to sell over 30,000,000 worldwide, becoming the best selling debut album in history as well as the second best selling album by a female artist and the tenth best selling album of all time. The album stayed in the top ten charts longer than any other album in history except Michael Jackson‘s Thriller. However, Morissette’s transformation launched an era in which Canadian women ruled the pop charts worldwide.

In the late 1990s, Morissette, Shania Twain, Céline Dion and Sarah McLachlan were among the most popular and influential recording artists in the world, but several other Canadian women made waves of their own. Deborah Cox’s 1998 single “Nobody’s Supposed to be Here” was the longest-running chart topper in the history of Billboard‘s R&B charts, Jann Arden scored an international hit with “Insensitive”.

Also in the late 1990s, Elton John‘s 1997 re-recording of “Candle in the Wind” in memory of Diana, Princess of Wales spent almost two years on the Canadian Top 40 charts, substantially longer than in any other country. This was, in fact, a structural quirk of the Canadian market rather than a reflection on Canadian tastes in music—whereas some countries combine radio airplay and sales into a unified hits chart, in Canada these are separate charts. So few CD singles are available in Canadian record stores, in fact, that in some weeks, a single that is available on CD can chart on sales of fewer than 100 copies.

2000s

The 2000s have provided a number of new Canadian rock and pop stars as well, with such acts as Skye Sweetnam, Nelly Furtado, Avril Lavigne, Sam Roberts, Nickelback, Shawn Desman, Simple Plan, Jacynthe, Hawksley Workman, Lindy, Neil Leyton, John Southworth, Melissa Auf der Maur, Jarvis Church, Hot Hot Heat, Sarah Harmer, Prozzak, Sum 41, Pilate, The Trews, Billy Talent, Marie-Mai, The Black Halos, Crash Kelly, Alexisonfire, Extreme metal group Strapping Young Lad, Bedouin Soundclash and Kathleen Edwards emerging during this era. Canadian hip-hop, which is discussed more extensively in a previous section, also finally made its mainstream breakthrough with the 2001 debut of Flow 93.5, Canada’s first urban music radio station, in Toronto.

The decade has also been notable for a surprising number of ambitious indie rock albums by bands such as Tegan and Sara, The New Pornographers, Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, The Hidden Cameras, The Dears, Constantines, Metric, The Weakerthans, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Stars, Death from Above 1979, Feist, Duchess Says, We Are Wolves, Wolf Parade, The Stills, Final Fantasy, The Unicorns, Royal City, Cuff the Duke, Black Mountain, The Luyas, Wax Mannequin, Chad VanGaalen, The Meligrove Band, Jim Guthrie, Veda Hille, Tokyo Police Club, Islands, Frog Eyes and Sunset Rubdown. Canada has also produced acts of a more avant-garde nature; better known acts such as the new-wave slanted Les Georges Leningrad and AIDS Wolf, comprised of members of the printmaking collective, Serigraphie Populaire, or Seripop. These two acts have achieved a certain notoriety in circles embracing a more noise-oriented aesthetic, similar to that of international acts such as Lightning Bolt or Boredoms. Each of these bands has attracted a large following by pursuing unique interpretations of pop and rock music, subverting many of the conventions of the genres in a way that is still fresh and accessible. The Canadian indie rock scene has been the focus of national and international attention in many publications, such as Spin, The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, as well the Canadian edition of Time