Canrock Article

[emmit643]

http://m.music.cbc.ca/blogs/2016/4/Whatever-happened-to-the-Canrock-revolution

 

This was in my fb feed today from CBC.

[Prairieboy]

Wow....thx for posting this. Suddenly transported back to my youth. Good times! (Aaaaaaand now I feel really old again!)

[hoogie]

Good article.  Thanks for posting.

 

It does bring back good memories of those huge Canadian artists.  Those were definitely the good days for all of those bands.  

[emmit643]

It seems so long ago. I'm really glad that Canada had so much great music going on right around the time I started to become musically aware as a kid.

 

A different wave of it, but Canada's got quite a bit going on for it again in the music scene. A lot of the acts featured at the Junos, as well as the artists that won are getting a good amount of airplay. A lot of artists that people might not even know we're Canadian just based upon the degree of success they're achieving (as generally the assumption is Canadian artists don't "hit it big"). Like its a different generation of artists and a different vibe but Canada (imo) is back. Canada's on the map.

[IamNick]

I was a 90's kid and never realized that so much of the stuff on the radio back then was Canadian; this was a fun article to read.

[Prairieboy]

Speaking of Edgefest (which is mentioned in that article), this reminds me of the last concert festival that MGB was scheduled to play at that I had tickets for....I believe it was called Screamfest and was going to be in Saskatoon. But it was to be the weekend right after September 11th happened. Obviously the concert was cancelled (as were many things in September 2001 after the 11th). I don't know if MGB played another show that fall before the band broke up....

[Guest Idioteque]

Reading about the music scene in Canada during the 90's is like reading about Woodstock. Something really beautiful happened where a bunch of fed up Canadians said "Screw this, lets do our own thing up North", banded together to create probably one of the greatest movements of music within the last 30 years, in my opinion.

Then everyone grew egos and POOF, bye bye. 

[Prairieboy]

I just found some old Much footage re: Edgefest on a videotape....I forgot how many awesome Canadian bands they had on tour, plus a few US big names like Green Day and the Foo Fighters. Amazing.

[Outtahere]

This is an era that sadly died really quickly. Not because it didn't last (it lasted almost 10 years) but it seems to have disappeared overnight. There's was definitely a shift at the beginning of the century where everything changed. MGB disappeared, OLP, Holly McNarland and all the others. They all kept making music but were deemed not commercial enough by record companies. Since then, nothing has come out of Canada that was worth their bloody airwaves. And that's sad.

 

Maybe it was that kind of era that happens when it happens because all the pieces fall together. But it was a great one.

[Crusader]

CanRock may have died down but we still have folks like Drake and The Weeknd, both Canadians, who are super successful.

[hoogie]

I think it was because it all came together at once.  The mid-90s were a rock-driven time mostly.  Rap and hip-hop were big as well, but pop music wasn't as big during that time.  I think the combination of rock being on top and a plethora of good Canadian rock or alternative bands hitting their stride led to that influx into mainstream culture.

[andydanger85]

I don't totally agree that the mid- 1990's were driven by rock, though. This great period in Canadian rock music seemed to arise in spite of the rise of pop, which was the dominant musical currency of the time. All of these bands became huge alongside the Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys, N'Sync and about twenty other iterations of the same thing. I remember a lot of interviews from the mid to late 1990's from people like Matt and others talking about that very phenomenon - that music had become this homogenized, formulaic thing and that they were trying to create real music amidst all of that bluster. I remember when I was in Grade 8 (in 1997), the big music was Usher, Mase, the Spice Girls ...and this new girl by the name of "Britney Spears". I felt like the only kid listening to Bush and Econoline Crush in the earliest days, and then starting in late 1997, the Matthew Good Band, Our Lady Peace, The Tea Party and others. Those bands rapidly became the "uncool" bands, too, as the early 2000's were dominated by pop punk bands like Blink 182, Simple Plan and all that guff. 

I can remember using Matthew Good music on various projects throughout high school, and everyone else was like "holy shit, what is this?", to which I smiled out of the corner of my mouth and felt like I had a secret that only me and several thousand other devoted fans knew about.

[Sly Botts]

I can remember using Matthew Good music on various projects throughout high school, and everyone else was like "holy shit, what is this?", to which I smiled out of the corner of my mouth and felt like I had a secret that only me and several thousand other devoted fans knew about.

I felt the same way.  I was that guy in my small town highschool that everyone knew was a Huge MGB fan.  My friends still comment every once and a while about it.  Well damn, MGB was unlike anything I ever heard and I listened to all kinds of music all my life.  MGB was the first band I really appreciated on a more deep and personal level (as in every song on an album), memorised all the lyrics etc;.  I never experienced anything like that before or since.  I did get into AOF for a while but it was never on the same level as MGB.  I remember that 90's rock scene fondly.  It was junior high and part of high school for me.  There was just something special about MGB, I don't know how to explain it, something magical almost.  Despite all the stuff that happened between Matt and Dave in the end, the fact is, they created incredible sounding music and I will always be fond of it.  They had that "magic", that ability to do incredible work together.

 

It's too bad they can't get back together and do a project one last time.  I think it would be amazing.

Edited June 25, 2016 by Sly Botts

[Stwlegend]

I felt the same way.  I was that guy in my small town highschool that everyone knew was a Huge MGB fan.  My friends still comment every once and a while about it.  Well damn, MGB was unlike anything I ever heard and I listened to all kinds of music all my life.  MGB was the first band I really appreciated on a more deep and personal level (as in every song on an album), memorised all the lyrics etc;.  I never experienced anything like that before or since.  I did get into AOF for a while but it was never on the same level as MGB.  I remember that 90's rock scene fondly.  It was junior high and part of high school for me.  There was just something special about MGB, I don't know how to explain it, something magical almost.  Despite all the stuff that happened between Matt and Dave in the end, the fact is, they created incredible sounding music and I will always be fond of it.  They had that "magic", that ability to do incredible work together.

 

It's too bad they can't get back together and do a project one last time.  I think it would be amazing.

 

Agreed.  What an era.  Edgefest 2000 was one of the first festival events i was old enough to get to.  Still go every once every couple years but cant beat my first experience there, because of MGB.  Don't think its just because it was my first festival.