Quote:
Originally posted by Charlatan
By the way... without the 30% cancon regulation on Canadian radio you wouldn't have the Tragically Hip. For that matter a big part of the Canadian music industry wouldn't even exist.
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This may be true but the Cancon regulations are easily manipulated. I believe a certain amount of Canadian content must be played at peak periods,that being bands that are radio friendly or popular, however the rest are played in the middle of the night to meet the quotas.
Your statement about the 30% regulation and without it we wouldn't have the Tragically Hip is somewhat misleading.In one sense you are correct regarding their survival but in another sense if the Tragically Hip were dare I say, a more commercial band(more universal,less Canadian) they would have greater success out of Canada.From my recollection they are not interested in U.S popularity which is what makes them the darlings of Cancon and Socan.
One reason that Cancon is needed is the prevailing attitude of the Canadian music business as a whole to not support its talent from the get go. Canada has so much talent and is purposely being ignored by the recording industry because the word risk does not exist for them,hence the exodus of performers to the states for their shot at the brass ring.And it is a longshot but better to have a shot rather than not. Just look at the Barenaked Ladies.They sold 150,000 independant tapes before a record company would even look at them.
On a side note,and I'm not going to namedrop,I had a similar conversation about Cancon among other things music related with a good friend of mine who came over with his wife a few weeks ago for dinner.He has sold millions of records and the underlying message from him was that Cancon wasn't around when he had hit records and maybe if the talent I speak about wrote better songs,they wouldn't be needed today.So go figure.