I like this analysis and love seeing people talk CanCon rules!
An under appreciated (maybe?) outcome of CanCon was a healthy indie rock scene. Despite Nickleback, the 90s/early 2000s saw an explosion of Canadian rock bands do moderately well. Many friends scored single hit status as radio and MuchMusic (Canadian MTV) cycled through bands to meet the quota. Im not sure we get the dynamic Montreal (errrm, Arcade Fire) and Toronto scenes without the intervention. Side note, CanCon quotas were supplemented with healthy grants from the Government of Canada.
Not from Canada, but live close enough that I have been listening to Bruce Cockburn, the Tragically Hip, the Weakerthans... hell, even Sarah McLachlin (back in the late '80s, I was able to catch a grainy late night music video of hers, Drawn to the Rhythm maybe, broadcast from the north). This constant harping on Nickelback really gets old. (I honestly couldn't tell you one single Nickelback song.) Yes, we've had to deal with Celine and Shania... but the positive has vastly outweighed the negative. Rush, Our Lady Peace, The New Pornographers, Broken Social Scene... the list is long and impressive.
I love the Las Ketchup story - a song I had also never heard of as an American. It makes me wonder - what songs are the most popular worldwide relative to their US popularity? Or the same analysis for other countries - what songs are the most popular in all but a specific country?
Thanks for the breakdown, Daniel! Being from Austria, I would of course have hoped for a little more homegrown music taste for my homecountry, but of course I myself rarely listen to Austrian music. I was much amused by your encounter with the Ketchup song. It seems like there are some hits that manage to sweep the whole of Europe but never make the jump across the pond - it was, of course, also a big hit here in Austria and basically everyone who was old enough back then knows it.
On one hand, I love how easy it is to access incredible music from around the world. The playlists I listen to daily wouldn’t exist without that global flow. But on the other hand, I can’t help but notice how little Aussie music surfaces unless it’s triple j approved.
I don’t know what the right balance is, but I do know this: I want to hear more voices from here. Not just because they’re “ours,” but because they’ve got something real to say.
Las Ketchup sweeping Europe is a consequence of European dance music being focused on the holiday island of Ibiza. The consequence of that is that serious dance fans from all over Europe travel to Ibiza, alongside casual holidaymakers and get exposed to the latest dance tracks from the top DJs and producers from across the region. As Ibiza is the centre of dance culture, local DJs across the rest of Europe pick up the tracks that are doing well, and play them at home, and their audience have heard them on holiday and have good associations. Artists like David Guetta (France), Avicii (Sweden), Armin Van Buren (Dutch) are just a few examples of people who became megastars off the back of their tracks reaching pan-european audiences through Ibiza. I guess it's a bit like the country artists from Texas or Colorado who go to Nashville in order to get picked up across the rest of the USA.
Haha the fact that I started singing the ketchup song as soon as I read this and doing the choreography in my head. Thanks for that memory.
It's funny I had the opposite experience as a young dumb European visiting the US. There was a music award show on when I stayed there that my host family was super excited about and I realized I didn't know half the singers. I think it was the Grammys and Carrie Underwood won. I had never heard of her or any of the other nominees.
The biggest losers in this whole thing are American music fans, who have no clue about the 94% of music made by people outside the US and UK. It's actually not fair to point the finger only at CanCon, when the U.S. has even more draconian regulations in place to protect our local entertainment industry. Not radio quotas, but prohibitive visa restrictions, costly immigration policies, and IRS rules that target foreign musicians and actors. For anyone interested, here are two articles spelling it out in more detail: https://zapatosjam.substack.com/p/are-you-a-foreign-artist-you-are?utm_source=publication-search
The Ketchup Song was huge in Australia, too! This makes sense due to our reliance on musical imports - but looking back, it was still really weird for a Spanish song to become so huge in a country that shares no Latin history or culture. While we do have some great musical exports of our own (Tame Impala, Dom Dolla, Tones and I for younger gens; ACDC, Kylie Minogue, INXS for older gens), streaming really has muddled any impact that radio quotas here were expected to have, and yet some industry members are still pushing for higher quotas. Most stations have a quota of about 20-25% of Aus music. Community radio usually will have quotas of around 30-40% Aus music. The suggestion of editorial and algorithmic quotas for streaming services has been thrown about but all in all, like you said, people will listen to what they want to listen to. Here's hoping that individuals get the pleasure of discovering music from their region in a way that doesn't feel so forced.
'APT.' is a well-chosen banner image, being a K(orean)-pop song by a Kiwi/Australian and an American. Don't know where that falls in the analysis - definitely not CanCon.
It seems like a lot of Mediterranean cultures like to make their own grooves, given that specific list of countries with more independent music tastes.
I like this analysis and love seeing people talk CanCon rules!
An under appreciated (maybe?) outcome of CanCon was a healthy indie rock scene. Despite Nickleback, the 90s/early 2000s saw an explosion of Canadian rock bands do moderately well. Many friends scored single hit status as radio and MuchMusic (Canadian MTV) cycled through bands to meet the quota. Im not sure we get the dynamic Montreal (errrm, Arcade Fire) and Toronto scenes without the intervention. Side note, CanCon quotas were supplemented with healthy grants from the Government of Canada.
Not from Canada, but live close enough that I have been listening to Bruce Cockburn, the Tragically Hip, the Weakerthans... hell, even Sarah McLachlin (back in the late '80s, I was able to catch a grainy late night music video of hers, Drawn to the Rhythm maybe, broadcast from the north). This constant harping on Nickelback really gets old. (I honestly couldn't tell you one single Nickelback song.) Yes, we've had to deal with Celine and Shania... but the positive has vastly outweighed the negative. Rush, Our Lady Peace, The New Pornographers, Broken Social Scene... the list is long and impressive.
And Blue Rodeo right? It’s not a Canadian summer evening without them. 😉
I love the Las Ketchup story - a song I had also never heard of as an American. It makes me wonder - what songs are the most popular worldwide relative to their US popularity? Or the same analysis for other countries - what songs are the most popular in all but a specific country?
Thanks for the breakdown, Daniel! Being from Austria, I would of course have hoped for a little more homegrown music taste for my homecountry, but of course I myself rarely listen to Austrian music. I was much amused by your encounter with the Ketchup song. It seems like there are some hits that manage to sweep the whole of Europe but never make the jump across the pond - it was, of course, also a big hit here in Austria and basically everyone who was old enough back then knows it.
Reading this as an Australian, I’m torn.
On one hand, I love how easy it is to access incredible music from around the world. The playlists I listen to daily wouldn’t exist without that global flow. But on the other hand, I can’t help but notice how little Aussie music surfaces unless it’s triple j approved.
I don’t know what the right balance is, but I do know this: I want to hear more voices from here. Not just because they’re “ours,” but because they’ve got something real to say.
Las Ketchup sweeping Europe is a consequence of European dance music being focused on the holiday island of Ibiza. The consequence of that is that serious dance fans from all over Europe travel to Ibiza, alongside casual holidaymakers and get exposed to the latest dance tracks from the top DJs and producers from across the region. As Ibiza is the centre of dance culture, local DJs across the rest of Europe pick up the tracks that are doing well, and play them at home, and their audience have heard them on holiday and have good associations. Artists like David Guetta (France), Avicii (Sweden), Armin Van Buren (Dutch) are just a few examples of people who became megastars off the back of their tracks reaching pan-european audiences through Ibiza. I guess it's a bit like the country artists from Texas or Colorado who go to Nashville in order to get picked up across the rest of the USA.
Haha the fact that I started singing the ketchup song as soon as I read this and doing the choreography in my head. Thanks for that memory.
It's funny I had the opposite experience as a young dumb European visiting the US. There was a music award show on when I stayed there that my host family was super excited about and I realized I didn't know half the singers. I think it was the Grammys and Carrie Underwood won. I had never heard of her or any of the other nominees.
The biggest losers in this whole thing are American music fans, who have no clue about the 94% of music made by people outside the US and UK. It's actually not fair to point the finger only at CanCon, when the U.S. has even more draconian regulations in place to protect our local entertainment industry. Not radio quotas, but prohibitive visa restrictions, costly immigration policies, and IRS rules that target foreign musicians and actors. For anyone interested, here are two articles spelling it out in more detail: https://zapatosjam.substack.com/p/are-you-a-foreign-artist-you-are?utm_source=publication-search
and https://zapatosjam.substack.com/p/how-the-irs-sticks-it-to-foreign?utm_source=publication-search. This is all in place pursuant to lobbying by Hollywood and our recording industry. The only countries in the world with more paranoid restrictions on foreign artists are China and Iran. Hardly a flattering standard.
The Ketchup Song was huge in Australia, too! This makes sense due to our reliance on musical imports - but looking back, it was still really weird for a Spanish song to become so huge in a country that shares no Latin history or culture. While we do have some great musical exports of our own (Tame Impala, Dom Dolla, Tones and I for younger gens; ACDC, Kylie Minogue, INXS for older gens), streaming really has muddled any impact that radio quotas here were expected to have, and yet some industry members are still pushing for higher quotas. Most stations have a quota of about 20-25% of Aus music. Community radio usually will have quotas of around 30-40% Aus music. The suggestion of editorial and algorithmic quotas for streaming services has been thrown about but all in all, like you said, people will listen to what they want to listen to. Here's hoping that individuals get the pleasure of discovering music from their region in a way that doesn't feel so forced.
'APT.' is a well-chosen banner image, being a K(orean)-pop song by a Kiwi/Australian and an American. Don't know where that falls in the analysis - definitely not CanCon.
It seems like a lot of Mediterranean cultures like to make their own grooves, given that specific list of countries with more independent music tastes.