I've noticed lately that many of the new indie hype bands are either all Canadian or the majority of their members have ties to Canada. For example, I suppose I'll state the obvious: New Pornographers, Broken Social Scene, Wolf Parade, Arcade Fire, etc. that are all not only great bands (except for BSS in my opinion) but also have their own unique sounds.

So now I pose this question to you forum members of Metacritic: Is the Montreal scene where it's at right now for indie, and the States be damned? I'm not saying that the States can't produce anything good, not at all, but do you think that the focus of indie is now going to shift from the US to Canada?

I say, sure, yeah, why not?

I really can't stand any of the indie Canadian bands. Cokemachineglow in particular is always hyping these Canadian indie bands, and then I listen to them and am almost always disappointed. I generally don't pay much attention to where the bands I listen to are from, but I have noticed my aversion to the latest Canadian indie bands.

It's just a hip scene right now. It's no different than the New York scene was or the Omaha scene, the Seattle scene, etc, etc. It'll be big for awhile...one or two bands will have some real staying power, the rest will fizzle out. I don't think Canada is going to permenantly replace the US in terms of producing great rock bands, they just have some talented people getting attention right now..

quote:

Originally posted by ericg75:
It's just a hip scene right now. It's no different than the New York scene was or the Omaha scene, the Seattle scene, etc, etc. It'll be big for awhile...one or two bands will have some real staying power, the rest will fizzle out. I don't think Canada is going to permenantly replace the US in terms of producing great rock bands, they just have some talented people getting attention right now..

I would surely hope not that the US of A would ever be permanently out of the picture with Canadian bands in their place. But, don't you think that maybe it's time that we passed the torch for a short while? I mean, honestly, when was the last we've had a strong musical presence with a large following that people could generally agree on was good music?

quote:

Originally posted by Tyler:
I would surely hope not that the US of A would ever be permanently out of the picture with Canadian bands in their place. But, don't you think that maybe it's time that we passed the torch for a short while? I mean, honestly, when was the last we've had a strong musical presence with a large following that people could generally agree on was good music?

Well, like I said, New York was(is) fairly big recently with it's new new wave scene (the Strokes, Interpol, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the Rapture, etc.). Omaha was pretty popular for awhile with it's emo scene (Bright Eyes, Desaparecidos, Cursive, The Faint, Rilo Kiley). There's always some scene happening.

There are always a lot of (over?)hyped bands coming out of places like New Yawk and El Lay. When a seemingly odd proportion of them come from smaller cites, it MUST be a scene. (irony inflection emphasized) The funny thing about scene-talk is that it unifies bands that have nothing in common beyond geography, in many cases. You guys have mentioned some of the recent biggies (Omaha, Montreal, Seattle) but I'll mention three others:

Athens, GA
Minneapolis/St Paul
Dayton, Ohio

The first two I've actually lived in, and I'll tell you that there was no Athens 'scene' in the 90's. There were a lot of Elephant 6 bands, but not a 'scene.'

Minneapolis in the 80's was weird...many of the bands lumped in with the Twin Cities sound were not like the rest. Husker Du, The Replacements, and Soul Asylum were rock bands, mainly, while the Jayhawks and Gear Daddies were alt-country and Walt Mink and Trip Shakespeare were quirkier.

Dayton was a 'scene', briefly, when Guided By Voices, Cobra Verde, and Death of Samantha were hot...but it truly became a 'scene' when Kim Deal was living there, post Pixies. Talk to anyone from Dayton, however, and they'll laugh at the notion of a scene.

Is Montreal the new indie mecca? Probably. But that will pass, and it will move to some other oddball locale. Canadian cities are likely candidates, always, because you can get funded by the government to be in a rock band and a certain percentage of the music played on Canadian radio MUST be made by Canadians.

I'm with RL in finding the current crop of Canadian indie bands pretty bland. I include in my 'don't care' list Arcade Fire, Wolf Parade, BSS, and the New Pornos. I like the Dears a little, but mostly I'll side with the South Park folks here: "Blame Canada"!

Speaking of that, how IS it that the Canadian government gives money to rock bands? I mean, I honestly have no clue why they would make something like that. I mean, unless it's basically a nationwide face lift for Canada, I don't the benefits from it.

quote:

Originally posted by Tyler:
Speaking of that, how IS it that the Canadian government gives money to rock bands? I mean, I honestly have no clue why they would make something like that. I mean, unless it's basically a nationwide face lift for Canada, I don't the benefits from it.

A lot of socialist countries do stuff like that. It's really easy to get government funding if you want to do something in the arts.

I'm assuming that the goal of theses grants is to help create Canadian culture. Having so much influence come from south of the boarder, the gorvernment feels the need to subsidise Canadian culture.

We have the same thing here in the US in the form of the National Endowment for the Arts. I don't think it's as easy to get an NEA grant as it is to get the equivilent in Canada (You wouldn't see a rock band getting a grant), but most civilized countries provide some sort of government subsidies for the arts.

It swings back and forth between the States, U.K., and here. The Strokes and Interpol caused massive hype and waves for N.Y.C. and The Libertines for the U.K., now it is Cnada's turn with your said bands. It will switch again when the scene gets oversaturated and overplayed.

quote:

Originally posted by ericg75:

quote:

Originally posted by Tyler:
Speaking of that, how IS it that the Canadian government gives money to rock bands? I mean, I honestly have no clue why they would make something like that. I mean, unless it's basically a nationwide face lift for Canada, I don't the benefits from it.

A lot of socialist countries do stuff like that. It's really easy to get government funding if you want to do something in the arts.

Ha!
Also, it seems odd that anyone would even be having this discussion. Maybe it's because I'm a Canadian who routinely listens to Canadian music, but when I hear a song, regardless of who wrote, produced or performs it, I don't think about it as being good (or bad) for a song by Canadians, or Americans, or Scots, or Whomever. If it's good, it's good. If it's bad, it's bad. If it's Arcade Fire, it's great.

Because in our country we think it is important to support art, and we consider up and coming musicians and filmmakers etc to be an important part of Canadian culture.

Why is it that because we do it differently than the States that people have to assume it is wrong? I'm sure if you asked any of the countless artists supported by our government they would argue till they are blue in the face how important it is.

Don't worry about us Tyler, we are running a surplus from year to year. One of the only first world countries in the world who does that. So we aren't going into debt for our rock bands.

quote:

Originally posted by Twowaymonologues:
Don't worry about us Tyler, we are running a surplus from year to year. One of the only first world countries in the world who does that.

Hey. We were running a surplus before our current President took office.

But seriously, I think it's cool that Canada suports it's artists.

Don't be so sensitive Canadians. I hear your taxes are rough, but we Americans all wish we lived in a country that could afford to give us healthcare and subsidize our starving bands. But none of that will save you when (not if) we invade.

And we're not saying that bands are good for Canadians, just that a surprisingly high number of hot indie bands right now are Canadian.

Er, I don't remember insulting Canada at all. Actually, what the hell? The only thing I said was that maybe Canada was looking for a face lift. I don't recall making a goddamn attack on your beliefs or whatever. Jesus, when did I say it was wrong? I merely said that perhaps the next indie scene might be from Montreal. How you two managed to extract some watered down racial epithet from that is beyond me.

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I hear your taxes are rough

I used to hear people talk about how Candians pay more taxes than people in the US, but then I looked in my microeconomics textbook from last year and found that the US actually has a higher tax rate than Canada.

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Originally posted by RavingLunatic:

quote:

I hear your taxes are rough

I used to hear people talk about how Candians pay more taxes than people in the US, but then I looked in my microeconomics textbook from last year and found that the US actually has a higher tax rate than Canada.

Huh. Well, so be it. My source on this was hearing that Canadian professional sports teams sometimes have trouble signing free agents because of the higher taxes (and because players hate going through customs all the time). Maybe Canada's rate is higher for the top bracket but lower for the prols.

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Originally posted by dubs:
Maybe Canada's rate is higher for the top bracket but lower for the prols.

That would be my guess.

americans pay less taxes than canadians that's for sure...maybe except province of Alberta