Book Review: Canuck Rock - A History Of Canadian Popular Music by Ryan Edwardson - Page 2

The saddest result of this seems to be the most fundamental of all. If I were a Canadian, and thought that the only way a band could get played on the radio was because the government had forced the station to play it, I really would not be very interested. What, they aren’t good enough to be played without being threatened? No thanks.

Apparently, Bryan Adams and Celine Dion no longer qualify as “Canadian content.” A pretty ironic situation, to be sure. So how do we get them forced off the air in the US?

A much larger story than misguided government mandates becomes clear when reading Canuck Rock. The separatism in Quebec seems to be just a symptom of a very deep problem in the national identity. The problem being that there really is no national identity, just a bickering collection of provinces.

While Canuck Rock does not contain the stories about Klaatu’s garage days, or Triumph’s woeful New Wave years I was dying to hear, it is eye-opening. Well worth checking out.

Article Author: Greg Barbrick

Greg Barbrick is a Seattle native who was first published in 1988, in his hometown music magazine, The Rocket. Since then his work has appeared in print and online for numerous sources. He Googles himself so often that his mother told him it would make him go blind.
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