Old News, Is Good News!Canadian Rockers Shrug at Hype
Ask any music hipster in America — Montreal is officially cool. Now, if only Montrealers would agree.
Ask any music hipster in America — Montreal is officially cool. Now, if only Montrealers would agree.
The American music media are proclaiming Montreal the new musical hotspot. Spin magazine sparked the hype when it published its February “Next Big Thing” issue, and The New York Times and Rolling Stone magazine are just a couple in a long list of other publications perpetuating it through their coverage of bands like The Arcade Fire, The Stars and The Dears. But surprisingly, Montrealers aren’t uniformly embracing the attention. The response has been widely mixed, from apathy to outrage.
The musicians have been the ones typically feeling the apathy. They appreciate the recognition, but to them, it’s only a distraction from the music they love.
“Their reaction is typically Canadian. It’s polite,” quipped Jamie O’Meara, editor in chief of Montreal’s Hour magazine. “It’s like, ‘Thank you for noticing. And we’ll be on our way.’”
O’Meara said Montrealers don’t see the same “scene” that Americans think exists in their city. There’s no specific sound, style or fashion characterizing Montreal’s musical environment. Plus, it’s not as easy to find those hyped bands playing gigs in Montreal as many might believe.
“Anybody who came here looking to find this alleged scene is going to be sorely disappointed,” O’Meara said. “You could conceivably live up here for four months and not come across a single one of those bands.”
Montrealers are also miffed about being labeled “hot” in American publications. That moniker makes the city’s musicians appear to be part of a trend that will blow in and burn out. The current Montreal indie music scene (if it can accurately be labeled that) has been growing for at least the past 10-15 years and is rooted in a rich history of Quebecois music. It’s unlikely to be another flavor of the month.
“There’s always been a fantastic indie scene up here for years and years and years,” O’Meara said. “It doesn’t give it any more legitimacy just because someone is taking note of it.”
Fad or not, these bands are doing more than just crossing a political border; they’re also crossing financial borders. Arcade Fire, for example, is considered by music fans and industry executives to have the most growth potential. They’ve recently been listed on the cover of Rolling Stone, along with many other magazines. That kind of exposure typically assures increased record sales, and although they’ve only sold about 130,000 copies of their album “Funeral,” according to SoundScan’s April 13 report, that number will rise. It will take time before the impact of the media attention can be measured, but the exposure that Arcade Fire and many other bands are receiving will likely expand their audiences and alleviate some of the financial pressures these indie rock bands typically confront.
And though these bands are being recognized now and playing bigger shows, it doesn’t mean they’re basking in the glow of celebrity fame.
“Musicians, especially underground and indie artists, are really suspicious of the whole American cult of celebrity,” O’Meara said about the Canadian bands showcased in Spin. “That’s why there’s almost a bit of a coy or cold response. They are not going to let it go to their heads.”
However, many are on the other end of the spectrum, and they’re furious about the increased attention. To them, getting covered in major American publications like Spin leads to the assassination of a musicians’ street cred.
Local rocker and frontman for Bionic, Jonathan Cummins is one of those furious Montrealers. He denounced the coverage in a caustic column he wrote in The Montreal Mirror, another local weekly.
“Once Spin says you’re cool, it’s obviously s—t.”
Cummins’ primary supporters are the music fans. Many of them have flocked to Web sites, blogs and online chat forums to flare at Spin and the industry it represents. They have declared a sort of cultural warfare against the American music industry, fearing that the increased American attention brings the possible destruction of the city’s unique, artistic environment.
Many fans are afraid that Montreal could be mined for talent and left in shambles, like Seattle was after the 1990s grunge wave. One fearful posting read:
“Unlike Seattle, Montreal is an island where we can only hope to remain inaccessible and cut off from the mainland of Britney Spearsization. Montreal thrives in the music scene by doing what it does best — being different.”
Although most attacks are directed at Spin magazine or the American music industry as a whole, a significant number are directed at the author of the Spin article, Rodrigo Perez.
“The feedback from Canadians is lukewarm at best,” Perez said in interview. “No one likes to be called a scene, even when it is. Do you think Seattle liked it when New York told them, ‘Hey you’re cool. We’re validating your existence.’ Of course, someone is going to say f—k you!”
And the raised middle finger is pretty much what Perez has been receiving from Montreal music fans, even if American response has been almost monolithically positive.
Perez says he wrote the article because he’s a fan of the music being produced in the city, and he wants to perk up some American ears to the great sound coming from the North.
In the end, it doesn’t really matter if that sound is hot, cool or hip. The most important thing is that it’s going to get much bigger and more people are going to listen to it.
by: Rodrigo Perez
not finished for looking for original script. check back soon.
I 
