Why does all the good music come from Canada?<\/p>\n
Used to be we looked across the pond, now if we want to see who’s testing the limits, who’s satiating us while expanding our horizons, we look up north.<\/p>\n
Somehow the U.S. has devolved, it’s like we’re a living Devo record, it’s the lowest common denominator, all a dash for fame and cash…how otherwise to explain the Black Eyed Peas?\u00c2\u00a0 They’re rich and famous today, and will be completely forgotten tomorrow, just a marginally larger footnote than Vanilla Ice.<\/p>\n
You can blame MTV, it killed the alternative.\u00c2\u00a0 Used to be we had the mainstream and the alternative.\u00c2\u00a0 Suddenly, we lived in a monoculture, where it was all about beauty and money, everybody selling out, with supposed societal approval.\u00c2\u00a0 Huh?<\/p>\n
Today’s music is so far from what blew up the business in the baby boom era, it’s laughable.<\/p>\n
We had Top Forty tunes.\u00c2\u00a0 Which were based on SONGS!\u00c2\u00a0 Melodies, bridges, structures!\u00c2\u00a0 Now we’ve got a beat-driven "mainstream" that’s really a backwater (cesspool?) that few pay attention to.<\/p>\n
And then we had underground FM radio.\u00c2\u00a0 Where the only criterion was that something be good.\u00c2\u00a0 Didn’t have to be under three minutes, didn’t have to be catchy, just had to be ear-pleasing…and if it also had something to say, fantastic!<\/p>\n
We got to the era where if you didn’t have a single, no one with any cash was interested.<\/p>\n
But now you no longer need any cash to get started in the music business.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, if you take the cash, you’re immediately compromised.\u00c2\u00a0 Those fucks have to feed their lifestyle, the same way the bloated touring acts do.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re not about music, they’re about the bottom line.\u00c2\u00a0 And if we’re gonna pay, we’d rather pony up for something with more value.\u00c2\u00a0 Like an iPhone, whose apps exhibit more creativity than anything on the iTunes chart.<\/p>\n
And in America, we end up with the popsters insulting the audience, as if they’re entitled to their "exalted" sell-out state.\u00c2\u00a0 And "alternative" musicians who no one wants to listen to other than their friends and a few like-minded losers.\u00c2\u00a0 To the point where so much of the audience has tuned out.<\/p>\n
But it’s different in Canada.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe because there’s not quite the desperation.\u00c2\u00a0 You can quit your corporate gig without fear of losing your health care.\u00c2\u00a0 And your odds of becoming rich and famous are low.\u00c2\u00a0 Ever notice that most of the successful Canadian musicians are not teenagers?\u00c2\u00a0 Not even in their twenties? This isn’t something they’re cashing in on, this is a calling!<\/p>\n
But don’t give up your day job.<\/p>\n
That’s what stunned me when I went to Vancouver.\u00c2\u00a0 The guy from Jets Overhead was working a 9-5.\u00c2\u00a0 Put out an album in the U.S. and you feel you’re entitled to a tour bus and an audience.\u00c2\u00a0 And endorsements from all those corporations the rest of us hate.<\/p>\n
But the opportunities are fewer in Canada.<\/p>\n
But that doesn’t mean you can’t make music.<\/p>\n
Before Lee Abrams codified FM radio, it was an aural adventure.\u00c2\u00a0 You could tune in a station and let it play all afternoon.\u00c2\u00a0 Commercials were few and the songs were mind-expanding.\u00c2\u00a0 "No Nations" is a throwback to that era.\u00c2\u00a0 Drop the proverbial needle and the everyday world will fall away.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ll be immersed in a bath of warm oil.\u00c2\u00a0 If you want to turn off your mind, relax and float downstream, this is the soundtrack.<\/p>\n