It’s a common conceit amongst media bigwigs that they can make or break artists. That their valuable publicity machine and coveted approval must be sought at all costs “if you hope to make it in this biz”.
That without CBC’s Radio 2 on the air promoting tomorrow’s emerging musical artists we wouldn’t get the next Anne Murray or k.d. lang.
So millions have to be spent to create radio shows that play Canadian records, in order that Canadian musicians may thrive, and eventually get that big break in the States, and move out of Cabbagetown.
Away from Canada.
(no, we don’t blame you, Niel, Joni, Avril …)
But public taste can only be manipulated up to a point.
When the audience gathers, that musical act had better be able to deliver the Matthew Goods.
The bottom line is, either you’ve got it or you don’t, and a radio interview with Jian or Mainstay Molly isn’t going to give it to you.
Rock and rap don’t rely on Radio 2 for exposure. They rely on a video and Much and MTV to make themselves stand out.
And yet it’s easy to make a case that all the money spent on Radio 2 is useful because it means more exposure for Canadian musical performers, even if hundreds of other radio stations across the country are already required to do the same.(!)
And easy to declare that Canada is made culturally better and stronger with the funding and presence of Radio 2.
What’s harder to do is to make the case that all of our artists couldn’t possibly succeed without it.
13 Comments
Beethoven is over-exposed.
Do you know how hard it is for the average Canadian artist to get their music on the radio? Pretty near impossible. How about an interview or background information? Your name better be Nickleback.
Good on Radio2. I love Canadian music and it’s about time. Isn’t it CBC’s mandate to promote Candian culture anyway?
uh, no. That might be interesting.
I have a good feeling I already know roughly how the music sounds.
Four of the entries are sonatas for tape loops and amplified fishing line, and the fifth one is some white guy repeating the N word over and over again through a vocoder – am I right?
I have a good feeling I already know roughly how the music sounds.
Four of the entries are sonatas for tape loops and amplified fishing line, and the fifth one is some white guy repeating the N word over and over again through a vocoder – am I right?
I have a good feeling I already know roughly how the music sounds.
Four of the entries are sonatas for tape loops and amplified fishing line, and the fifth one is some white guy repeating the N word over and over again through a vocoder – am I right?
I too am happy to have ended the classical music stranglehold. This crowd has dominated airtime and funding agencies for too long.
But the current schedule manages somehow to be worse than before. That’s quite an accomplishment.
And the classical music protection racket is still there. “The Signal” has a composition competition going on, but all five competitors are doctoral students in composition. No one else is composing music? I have a good feeling I already know roughly how the music sounds. Which means I can’t be bothered to listen.
… our version of World Beat
Ah, Mary. If ‘they’ don’t dress in tradtional costume and sing ‘dey-o’, ‘they’ surely are gangsters that keep repeating the ‘N word’ over and over again through a vocoder aren’t ‘they’?
The new Radio 2 offers almost nothing that isn’t watered down, overhyped, or bundled as ‘non-knowy’ in its fucked up bureaucrats’ definition of contemporary music, true.
BUT – at least it has finally shown the door to elitist, Eurocentric composed music types and their holier-than-thou evaluations of all genres. The ‘serious’ listeners who think that they can get off telling everyone what music is valid or not always end up being the people with the most myopic record collections, anyway.
So long, snobs! There’s a (hypothetical) kid in rural New Brunswick somewhere making electronic music as deep and innovative as Hugh LeCaine. Just because it wasn’t recorded for 2 New Hours to an audience of fogies on some university campus, doesn’t mean it ain’t a masterwork!
With that in mind, giving that hypothetical New Brunswick kid a New Music Canada profile and having to make her live in the fluffy song-centric morass of the Radio 3 indie farm system is pretty lazy on the CBC’s part, too.
Come on CBC, take music to the next level for frig sakes!
… our version of World Beat
Ah, Mary. If ‘they’ don’t dress in tradtional costume and sing ‘dey-o’, ‘they’ surely are gangsters that keep repeating the ‘N word’ over and over again through a vocoder aren’t ‘they’?
The new Radio 2 offers almost nothing that isn’t watered down, overhyped, or bundled as ‘non-knowy’ in its fucked up bureaucrats’ definition of contemporary music, true.
BUT – at least it has finally shown the door to elitist, Eurocentric composed music types and their holier-than-thou evaluations of all genres. The ‘serious’ listeners who think that they can get off telling everyone what music is valid or not always end up being the people with the most myopic record collections, anyway.
So long, snobs! There’s a (hypothetical) kid in rural New Brunswick somewhere making electronic music as deep and innovative as Hugh LeCaine. Just because it wasn’t recorded for 2 New Hours to an audience of fogies on some university campus, doesn’t mean it ain’t a masterwork!
With that in mind, giving that hypothetical New Brunswick kid a New Music Canada profile and having to make her live in the fluffy song-centric morass of the Radio 3 indie farm system is pretty lazy on the CBC’s part, too.
Come on CBC, take music to the next level for frig sakes!
… our version of World Beat
Ah, Mary. If ‘they’ don’t dress in tradtional costume and sing ‘dey-o’, ‘they’ surely are gangsters that keep repeating the ‘N word’ over and over again through a vocoder aren’t ‘they’?
The new Radio 2 offers almost nothing that isn’t watered down, overhyped, or bundled as ‘non-knowy’ in its fucked up bureaucrats’ definition of contemporary music, true.
BUT – at least it has finally shown the door to elitist, Eurocentric composed music types and their holier-than-thou evaluations of all genres. The ‘serious’ listeners who think that they can get off telling everyone what music is valid or not always end up being the people with the most myopic record collections, anyway.
So long, snobs! There’s a (hypothetical) kid in rural New Brunswick somewhere making electronic music as deep and innovative as Hugh LeCaine. Just because it wasn’t recorded for 2 New Hours to an audience of fogies on some university campus, doesn’t mean it ain’t a masterwork!
With that in mind, giving that hypothetical New Brunswick kid a New Music Canada profile and having to make her live in the fluffy song-centric morass of the Radio 3 indie farm system is pretty lazy on the CBC’s part, too.
Come on CBC, take music to the next level for frig sakes!
‘Serious music’. What does that mean?
What kind of music are they being programmed to play? What listeners can get elsewhere or really intersting Canadian music? Bring back more serious music (of all kinds from baroque to our version of World Beat to Bach) to Radio Two and the many, many listeners who have stopped listening will return,even if a computer programs it.
M
Oh, and what is that?
A time sorting, or a list to prevent any piece from being
played more than twice a month?
Several Radio 2 shows in the current line-up are
LITERALLY PROGRAMMED BY COMPUTER which spits out a playlist. I’m not just talking about the overnight filler music, I’m talking middle of the day.
This shows equal disrespect for staff and audience.