Surviving As a Musician in Canada & 5 Canadian Artist Archetypes.
Canada has seen no shortage of world renowned artists hail from within its borders, still there is a common pattern of humility Canadians display to the outside world that bridges into its musical history as well. However, the impact Canadian artists have had on the music industry on a global scale is immense, but often obscured by the influence of the United States’ entertainment industry on the rest of the world. The list is impossible to complete without mistakenly missing to include someone worthy of a reference. Just a condensed version of a list of internationally recognized names in both the commercial and independent circles you might think of almost instantly, such as Neil Young, Bryan Adams, Leonard Cohen, Rush, Hot Hot Heat, Joni Mitchell, Alannis Morissette, Drake, Gordon Lightfoot, Celine Dion, Justin Bieber, The Weeknd, Sarah McLachlan, Michael Buble, k.d. lang, Arcade Fire, The Tragically Hip, Avril Lavigne, Tom Cochrane, Carly Rae Jepsen, k-os, Metric to Dallas Green of City & Colour. Canada differs in a multitude of ways from other countries in terms of how its government funds its national music industry, making the system of becoming a paid, professional artist an entirely different game to play in, in comparison to other nations around the world. A handful of the most notably famous names I just previously mentioned have been closely contrasted and compared in my following research.
What’s especially intriguing to analyze within this small list of acts above is the variety in career journeys and how each found their big break into the professional music world. There are a number of these icons who ran off to the U.S. to find true fame, Neil Young took a chance on Sunset Boulevard in the 1960’s to do so, living as an undocumented and illegal immigrant in the country until 1970, four years after he had arrived in Los Angeles (“Neil Young granted U.S. citizenship 54 years after moving there”), (Adam Wallis, 2020). Neil Young would be granted permanent residency, otherwise known as a green card, only after recording his first three albums of his career, including his self-titled debut album (“How Neil Young’s debut set a template for solo career”). His first album was made alongside his eventual full time band Crazy Horse, “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere”, and his critically acclaimed release “After the Gold Rush” including landmark track “Only Love Can Break Your Heart” (Swanson, 2015). These three albums were released as a signed artist under Frank Sinatra’s Reprise Records, and he would continue releasing albums with the label until diverging into even bigger conglomerate Warner Bros. (now Warner Records) in 1977. (“How Frank Sinatra’s Thirst for Creative Freedom Led to Reprise Records”), (Giles, 2016).
Neil Young would become a massively successful hard rock musician throughout the 1970’s onward following his early career start touring Canada as a relatively unknown solo folk artist before driving all the way from Winnipeg to Hollywood to chase fame. Would this same level of international fame and commercial success have occurred if he stayed put in Canada, or if he had remained an unsigned independent artist, even in the entertainment hub of Hollywood, U.S.A.? Chances are, there wouldn’t even be a remote possibility of this happening at the same scale, and at the very least if he hadn’t left Canada, he would’ve likely been needing support from an American label to seriously distribute his album to make any decent money. There are a few cases of Canadian based recording artists who have managed to stay in their hometowns and not take the jump south of the border, however, usually with a major American label supporting them, and I will explore a specific case of this phenomenon occurring next.
Neil Young’s path to success as a career musician differs quite a bit from fellow Canadian icon Bryan Adams, for example. Bryan Adams, Vancouver native, initially sparked interest in his music with his 1980 self-titled release within Canada, leading him to tour the country with the support of managers and agents behind him and the national music industry seeming to turn their heads and notice his music that was picked up by a variety of radio stations. It was his 1981 debut follow up, “You Want It, You Got It”, recorded at Le Studio in Quebec that led to him becoming known in the U.S. (“How Bryan Adams finally found traction on ‘You Want It, You Got it’”), (Giles, 2016), and subsequently transformed him into a commercial powerhouse in North America come 1983 with the release of “Cuts Like a Knife”, recorded at Little Mountain Sound studio in his hometown of Vancouver, (“Bryan Adams breaks into the mainstream with ‘Cuts Like a Knife’”), (Smitty, 2020). It’s important to note, however, that Bryan Adams was signed by A&M Records, an American record label under the larger Universal Music Group at the time of his debut album, which shows the inevitability of the need for a powerful American label to back Canadian artists, even those who choose to remain a resident of their hometowns, (“Bryan Adams among Canadians who list work in fire at Universal Studios”), (Friend, 2019).
Regardless, Bryan Adams’ early to mid 1980’s skyrocketing success on an international level as a Canadian based recording artist was and still is a phenomenon that is few and far between. Without even having to immigrate to a bigger, more commercially viable market, Bryan Adams toured across North America, Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand before the eventual career landmark album “Reckless”, with notable hits featured like “Summer of ‘69” and “Run to You”, (“Bryan Adams recalls Reckless years”), (Delvin, 2015). Rather than opt for American or European studios, Bryan Adams continued to stay right at home in Canada throughout the 80’s, which was an incredibly successful decade for the artist (“Bryan Adams”), (Thomas, 2020).. His 1987 album “Into the Fire” was recorded at his home studio in Vancouver and then sent to London, England for the master mixing. The album wasn’t as effective of a follow up to his towering 1984 “Reckless” record, as it struggled commercially and did not gain the same support and praise from critics, (“Bryan Adams Stretching Out From ‘Reckless’ The Rock Singer’s New Album Isn’t a Radical Departure From the Hit LP Reckless. But Into the Fire is His Most Ambitious Effort to Date”), (Duffy, 1987).
It wasn’t until the 1990’s that Bryan Adams branched out to bigger studios, possibly as a way to revive his career, recording “Waking Up the Neighbours” in London’s Battery Studios first and foremost and at Vancouver’s Warehouse Studio secondarily, (“How Bryan Adams Rebounded with ‘Waking up the Neighbours’”), (Giles, 2016). The album was released in 1991, and saw Bryan Adams come back to his 1984 form by having the album peak at Number 1 in a number of countries including Canada, the UK, Australia and across Europe, while also getting into the Top 10 in the U.S. However, this decision to record most of the album outside of Canada led to a fairly significant Canadian content controversy, as the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission determined that the album did not fit the bill as a Canadian release, (“When the music of Bryan Adams wasn’t Canadian enough”), (CBC Archives, 2019).. Bryan Adams found himself in an uncomfortable state of limbo as a Canadian artist recording the album outside of the country and collaborating mainly with non-Canadian producers and musicians in the recording process, which created a rift between him and the Juno Awards, where he felt he was being dismissed and not considered for any accolades or nominations, (“Archives: Bryan Adams takes on the CRTC”), (Fleming, 2015). Bryan Adams even went as far as to call for a boycott against the Canadian award show, and this likely paved the way for the CRTC to create new rules surrounding the definition of “Canadian content”, detailing that at least half of the lyrics need to be written by the Canadian artist, allowing for non-Canadian collaboration, but the album still needs to be at least partly recorded in the country, which luckily for Bryan Adams, a part of it was, (“Bryan Adams not Canadian?”), (CBC Archives, 1992)
Bryan Adams would spend the rest of the 1990’s releasing compilation and live albums under his A&M steady American distributor, until his eventual 1997 studio recorded “18 til I Die” album. Bryan Adams would travel to Jamaica and then France to record the tracks off of this album and became another success in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and especially Europe, where Bryan Adams seemed to be tapping into the most with this release, (“Bryan Adams The Warehouse”), (Clearmountain, 2000).. By 1998, Bryan Adams would return to his home city of Vancouver to further record at The Warehouse Studio, with the album “On a Day Like Today” featuring hit singles like “When You’re Gone”, and saw the album do well in U.K. and Canada and achieve modest success internationally (but not to in comparison to his 80’s releases), (“Bryan Adams — Canadian Encyclopedia”), (Mclean, 2015). As the new millennium came around, Bryan Adams would continue releasing albums throughout the 2000’s and 2010’s from The Warehouse Studio in Vancouver, while doing his routine lap of the world on what you would consider “nostalgia tours”, playing his newest music as an excuse to play his biggest hits to the international masses that eagerly waited for him to sing “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You” among his other hits from the 1980’s and 1990’s, (“Indians love Bryan Adams because “Summer of 69” is almost a Hindi song now”), (Ghosh, 2018).
Comparing the stories for two of Canada’s most iconic musicians, Neil Young and Bryan Adams, helps establish two opposite sides of the spectrum for how our country’s homebred talents paved their way into the commercial music industry’s “A-list”. To further add points to the spectrum, turning to Leonard Cohen’s life story and career path adds another point to the spectrum, although with a definite lean towards the pursuit of the American breakthrough, with more similarities to Neil Young’s journey to fame, but with some interesting differences in blueprint. The similarities Leonard Cohen shares with Bryan Adams comes from the two artists localized influence and community embrace of their respective hometowns. Like Bryan Adams, Leonard Cohen initially stayed in Canada, but like Neil Young, Leonard Cohen decided the United States would be the best place for him to be recognized and marketable for his artistic endeavours.
Leonard Cohen spent most of the first 33 years of his life in his hometown of Montreal, Quebec, formed a band while in high school, immersed himself in the creative community of his hometown and even bought a house and property in the city and performed at local clubs, (“Exploring the Montreal that Leonard Cohen loved”), (Lorre, 2017). Leonard Cohen’s early days in Montreal, writing and reciting his poetry at local establishments, were the days that were responsible for the writing of the lyrics to a lot of his most well known future recordings. Leonard Cohend did briefly live in New York City for a year during university where he studied at Columbia University in 1956–1957 as a graduate student, but returned to Montreal as soon his classes were complete, where he would go on to temporarily settle in and work a number of different jobs in while writing away in his free time at home, (“As a writer-musician, Leonard Cohen was a one-off”), (McCooey, 2016). Leonard Cohen eventually decided to move to Greece in the 1960’s and buy a house where he would spend a lot of time writing his poetry and novel work, a time that would serve as key inspiration to a lot of his literature, (“Leonard Cohen Makes it Darker”), (Remnick, 2016).
Eventually, come the late 1960’s, Leonard Cohen packed up and moved to the United States to see his dream of being an on-stage singer-songwriter come true, as he felt disappointment in the lack of success he was experiencing outside of the entertainment hub. In 1967 at the age of 33, after moving to New York City, he released his debut album “Songs of Leonard Cohen” with the backing of the American record label Columbia Records. The album, featuring major recordings of his such as “So Long, Marianne” inspired by his muse Marianne Ihlen who he connected to while living in Greece, spent more than a year on the American music charts, (“So Long, Marianne. Leonard Cohen’s final letter to his muse”), (CBC Radio, 2016). The album found success across Europe, the UK and Australia as well, and his rapid ascent in fame upon moving to New York to live and record his music in, shows that Leonard Cohen may have had very good reason to have felt overlooked and underappreciated prior to his immigration to the U.S, (“Is Canada Even Real?: How a Nation Built on Hobos, Beavers, Weirdos and Hip Hop Convinced the World to Beliebe”), (Villamere, 2017).
Leonard Cohen’s second album released in 1969, “Songs from a Room” had him recording in Hollywood and Nashville and relocated himself to Tennessee from New York City, where he lived on a farm to try to tap into the right atmosphere and mood of the album, (“Songs From a Room”), (Dubro, 1969).. The Canadian legend wouldn’t return to Canada in the 1970’s either, as he made “Songs of Love and Hate”, his third album released in 1971 in Nashville and then the United Kingdom, before returning back to New York for his 1974 “New Skin for the Old Ceremony”, (“Songs of Love and Hate”), (Schmidt, 1971), (“New Skin for the Old Ceremony”), (Nelson, 1975). By the late 1970’s, Leonard Cohen’s record label wanted him to try to find more success in the United States to match with his huge popularity in Europe, as his commercial appeal began to drop. Leonard Cohen joined forces with American record producer Phil Spector and headed off again to record in Los Angeles for the album “Death of a Ladies’ Man”, (“Wall of Crazy”), (Leibovitz, 2012). The album upon release was met with a lukewarm reception, and even some fairly nasty reviews from Canadian outlets, such as the Toronto Star. The album would still do quite well in Europe on the charts, and eventually became praised decades later by most critics with the passing of the time, (“Death of a Ladies Man”), (Nelson, 1978).
Montreal’s “Godfather of Gloom” continued working in California through to 1979 for the release of “Recent Songs” in 1979, a return to New York for his 1985 album “Various Positions”, influenced by his many trips to France, (“Various Positions”), (Shewey, 1985).. The late 1980’s would eventually witness the return to Canada for Leonard Cohen for 1988’s “I’m Your Man”, recorded primarily at Studio Tempo in Montreal, and only secondarily in Los Angeles’ Rock Steady, (“I’m Your Man”), (Browne, 1988).. With the continued long-time support of his American record label Columbia, Leonard Cohen worked with Quebecois producers Jean Michel-Reusser and Michel Robidoux while in Canada, and interestingly enough, the album was instantly universally acclaimed, going gold in Canada, Finland, France and eventually the UK, as well as going four times platinum in Norway (as well as peaking as the #1 album on the Norwegian charts), and also platinum in Spain and Sweden. The album featuring just eight tracks, notably included on it “First We Take Manhattan”, “Ain’t No Cure for Love”, “Everybody Knows”, the title track “I’m Your Man” and “Tower of Song”, has since been widely considered his very best album of his career and acknowledged by the music world as one of the greatest albums of the 1980’s and a number of the songs off of the record have been nominated in the top ten list of songs from his entire discography, (“Readers’ Poll: 10 Best Leonard Cohen Albums”), (Greene, 2016).
Perhaps the good luck and fortune from Leonard Cohen’s return to Montreal had him coming back in the 1990’s for his 1992 recording and release of “The Future”, which would end up being his only album of the decade. Leonard Cohen did not release another album until 2001, “Ten New Songs” recorded exclusively in Los Angeles, the city he would buy a house in and indefinitely reside in until his death in 2016, (“Ten New Songs”), (Chean, 2001), (“Leonard Cohen Dead at 82”), (Gehr, 2016). Throughout the 2000’s and 2010’s, all of his final albums “Dear Heather” in 2004, “Old Ideas” in 2012, “Popular Problems” in 2014, “You Want It Darker” in 2016 and his 2019 posthumous album “Thanks for the Dance” were recorded at his home studio in Los Angeles. Leonard Cohen’s eventual return to Montreal, before permanently moving to the United States for the last two decades of his life was enough to cement him as a beloved icon within the community of Quebec and Canada at large. Similar to another fellow Canadian artist, Drake, the two artists both share commonalities in that they embraced their hometowns, and in return were embraced by them, even if they both shared jetsetting tendencies.
Drake, born in Toronto to an African-American father and Jewish-Canadian mother, allowed him to possess both Canadian and American citizenship and split some of his time between Canada’s largest city and the city of Memphis, Tennessee throughout his early years. However, Drake was firmly a Canada raised kid, going to school grades 1–12 in Toronto and entered the professional world on the set of the Canadian TV show “Degrassi: The Next Generation”. When Drake started his musical career, he was promptly signed by the American record labels Cash Money, Universal Motown Records and Young Money Entertainment by the time he wrote and recorded his debut mixtape “So Far Gone” in 2009 on an invitation to record in the United States, in Atlanta. Drake’s quick jump from a young adult in Canada to recording a professional album in the U.S. was due to his backing from an array of big time American collaborators and producers who co-signed him and brought him a ton of exposure very early on in his career, (“Can Cash Money, The Label That Launched Drake and Nicki Minaj, Strike Platinum Again?”), (Gehr, 2016).
Within the next year, Drake recorded and released his debut studio album “Thank Me Later” in 2010, recording the album in a number of Canadian studios such as Metalworks Studios in Mississauga, Ontario, Toronto’s Cherry Beach Studios, while Drake also worked in the United States for part of the recording process. Drake travelled to Los Angeles to record at NightBird Recording Studios, and then on to Miami’s Hit Factory, New York’s Rock the Mic, Atlanta’s Triangle Sounds Studio, Houston’s Takeover Studios, Honolulu’s Avex Recording Studio and even briefly on a bus in the city of New Orleans. Drake furthered his international recording experience by also heading to Jamaica to record in Gee Jam Studios. The recording process was moved along by a few dozen producers, both an assortment of Canadian and American hands, and following the release of the album, the record went Number One on the charts in Canada, the UK and the US, while also getting significant play across Europe and even Japan. “Thank Me Later” ended up going two times Platinum in Canada, once Platinum in the States and Gold in the United Kingdom, (“The Making of Drake’s “Thank me Later”), (Kondo & Ahmed, 2010).
With equal success on both sides of the border, dual citizenship, and a huge team of supporting producers from both countries, as 2011 rolled around and the recording of the eventual release “Take Care” began, Drake had full control over where he wanted to record the album. The massively successful sophomore album would again go Number One in Canada, the US, and top the charts in Europe, the UK, Japan, even going as far as selling 320,000 copies alone in Canada, and 6,000,000 in the United States. Drake would later open up and explain that the album was entirely produced and recorded in Toronto, making this one of the most successful Canadian recorded albums in music history. Drake’s second tour in 2012, following his debut tour in 2010, saw him perform across North America once again, and then also make the jump to Europe for headlinings shows, (“Drake’s ‘Take Care’ Blasts Onto Billboard 200”), (Caulfield, 2011).
The year 2012 would also mark Drake’s relocation to Los Angeles from Toronto, where he would be a permanent resident for the next five years, until owning property in Canada once again with the construction of his new condominium in downtown Toronto in 2017. Drake would also make a huge breakthrough in business by establishing his own managed record label, OVO Sound based out of Toronto and co-founded with his two Toronto associates Noah “40” Shebib and Oliver El-Khatib. The record label would go o to a sign of a number of up and coming Canadian hip-hop and R&B acts like PartyNextDoor, Majid Jordan, dvsn and Roy Woods, and even the American artist iLoveMakonnen, in a historical event for the Canadian music industry. Drake’s OVO Sound also reached even further internationally by signing Jamaican Dancehall singer-songwriter Popcaan, proving to the world that a Canadian based record label could have the means to do business globally and attracting non-Canadian talent to signing with them. (“The Rise of Drake’s OVO Label”), (Morency, 2018).
From 2012–2017, Drake also strayed away from only recording in Canada, with 2013’s “Nothing Was the Same”, he followed up to his landmark sophomore release and almost reached the same meteoric success with this third studio album release. Drake split his recording sessions between his home studio in Hidden Hills as well as Santa Clarita and Los Angeles, California, New York, Mississauga and Toronto, Ontario and Atlanta, Georgia. The album would be another career highlight for Drake and another record breaking Canadian artist release, being nominated for a Grammy for Best Rap Album, a nomination for Album of the Year at the Juno Awards and and winning Rap Recording of the Year at the Junos as well as winning Album of the Year at the BET Hip Hop Awards. “Nothing Was the Same” would go Number One on the charts in Canada, Denmark, the UK and the US, and crack into the Top 10 charts in Australia, the Netherlands, Ireland and New Zealand, (“Nothing Was the Same”: How Drake Changed The Game Forever), (Bowler, 2019).
In 2015, Drake also produced a non-studio album, otherwise known as a commercial mixtape, “If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late” that would manage to sell over 2,000,000 copies in the U.S. alone and also go two times Platinum in Canada with over 160,000 sales. Despite being only a mixtape, the release would still go Number One in Canada, the U.S. and the UK once again, and was even nominated for Album of the Year at the BET Hip Hop Awards, Top Rap Album at the Billboard Music Awards, Shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize and Best Rap Album at the Grammy Awards. Drake managed to break records with this online-only release, making it the most streamed record in its first week in Spotify’s history, breaking a record that was previously held by himself for “Nothing Was the Same”, (“If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late”: Drake’s Love Letter to Toronto”), (Bierut, 2020)
Drake’s momentum as one of the most successful Canadian artists in music history, while simultaneously being one of the biggest stars on the face of the planet, continued into his 2016 release “Views”, marked as studio album number four in his discography. Drake went overseas to primarily record the album, working out of The Connaught Hotel in London, United Kingdom, while also returning to his hometown to record at CR3 and S.O.T.A. in Toronto, as well as recording out of his home studio in Los Angeles and meeting with Atlanta producer Southside as his other U.S. recording stop. The album “Views” would be different from previous albums, however, seven total Canadian producers worked with Drake, making this his most Canadian produced album since “Take Care”. The album release repeated a similar pattern to his previous records, as this instalment went Number One in Australia, Canada, Denmark, New Zealand, Norway, Russia, Scotland, the United Kingdom and the United States, and peaking within the Top 10 on the charts in Belgium, the Netherlands, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Sweden and Switzerland. “Views” went six times platinum in Canada and the U.S., selling 480,000 units, three times platinum in Denmark, Gold in a number European countries, Australia and going platinum and gold in Mexico. The album would end up winning Favorite Rap/Hip Hop Album at the American Music Awards and was nominated for Album of the Year and Best Rap Album at the Grammy Awards, (“Drake’s “Views”: The Massive First Week By The Numbers”), (McIntyre, 2016).
Things wouldn’t change much for Drake with his 2017 release “More Life”, recording in both Toronto and at home in Los Angeles, but he also branched out to recording studios in Austin, Texas. His mainstay of a combination of massive American producers like Kanye West, and Canadian producers 40 and PartyNextDoor, let Drake reap the rewards of working on both sides of the border once again. The album would not be as commercially impactful as his previous two albums, but “More Life” would again go Number One in Canada, Australia, the UK and the U.S., entering the Top 10 charts across Europe like before. The record would sell 160,000 copies and streams in Canada while the UK’s 300,000 sales of the album would surpass Canadian sales. At this point, Drake seemed to have the perfect formula in his hands for achieving mass commercial success, as the project was actually only a commercial mixtape, yet broke a number of online music streaming records and would continue the trend for Drake as the number one album in the U.S. Billboard Top 200, (“Drake’s “More Life” Playlist is Redefining Borders of Blackness in Pop”), (Spanos, 2017).
Carrying into 2018, studio album number five, “Scorpion”, recorded as usual in Los Angeles and Toronto, with a side session in Miami, was another groundbreaking release for the music world. Drake’s album, moving even more into the sphere of pop and R&B and not just hip-hop, would go Number One in 15 different countries, including Canada, the U.S. and the UK, as well as eight countries in Europe, and Australia and New Zealand, while selling 5,000,000 copies in the U.S., 300,000 in the UK and 160,000 in Canada. From a critical standpoint, the album received more negative reviews than he typically has for previous releases, but the album still did good enough to be nominated for Album of the Year at the Grammy’s and won Top Billboard 200 Album at the Billboard Music Awards. Since 2018, Drake has released an extended play in 2019 and a compilation album in 2019, and has an upcoming album planned to be released in 2020, (“How Drake’s “Scorpion” Broke Astronomical Records in One Year and It’s Overall Social Impact”), (Alvarez, 2019).
If it wasn’t for Drake’s Canadian-American connection, would he have been able to make the same impact on an international scale with his music career? Unlike Neil Young, Drake was able to easily move to and from the U.S. from Canada, without any worries of a work visa, sponsorship or immigration papers. In a rapidly evolving globalized world come the 21st Century, having dual citizenship would be a perk most in the music industry would really benefit from, giving access to two markets and being able to strategically work around the two countries you can easily access and call home.
Drake still followed the pursuit of fame that prompted him to head to Los Angeles for maximum exposure, just like Neil Young and Canadian musicians of the past who took a chance on following this uncertain dream. However, Drake was able to utilize his birthright citizenship and the advancement of the internet to cleverly propel his career forward, without having to drive thousands of kilometres to Hollywood to follow a career aspiration. The digital age and an increasingly globalized world make career options for talented Canadian artists more varied and within reach. Another musical act out of Canada that reached extraordinary heights during the 2000’s and 2010’s at the same time Drake in another genre entirely, had a similar advantage thanks to their multinational makeup.
Arcade Fire instantly differs from previously mentioned musical acts due to the fact that they are a band composed of six members, of which all members play more than one instrument. The band also has six former members, three touring members that are essentially additional members of the band, and nine former touring members, making this a difficult case to analyze on an individual basis. However, if we were to look at any of the members of the band and their origins and career path as Canadian recording artists, it would have to be the core members still playing in the band, Win Butler, Regine Chassagne, Richard Reed Parry, William Butler, Tim Kingsbury and Jeremy Gara. Arcade Fire is a peculiar case as well, as the band originated and was birthed through means of direct immigration to Canada from a number of the group, two thirds of the band’s founding members to be exact, (“Arcade Fire’s Win Butler is officially a Canadian citizen”), (Schatz, 2019).
The band was conceived upon lead vocalist Win Butler’s move to Montreal from the U.S. to study at McGill University. Win Butler was born in rural Northern California, grew up in the Houston, Texas area and his parents almost moved the family to Buenos Aires, Argentina for a time. Win Butler would then go to high school in New Hampshire, and spend a year studying at Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers, New York, (“Incoming: The Arcade Fire”), (Hoard, 2005).. At the age of 20, after suspending his studies in New York, Win Butler immigrated to Canada, finished a four year degree at McGill University and met his wife, bandmate and fellow founding member of Arcade Fire, Regine Chassagne in the process. Regine Chassagne was born in Montreal to immigrants from Haiti, and attended McGill at the same time as husband Win Butler, where they met each other and started the band, (“Arcade Fire: “The cliched rock life never seemed that cool to us”), (O, Hagan, 2010).
Win Butler’s brother Will Butler, who was living in Chicago attending Northwestern University, was recruited by his brother to join the band out in Montreal, and he did exactly that. With Regine Chassagne on both lead as well as backing vocals, drums, percussion, piano and keys, accordion, recorders and even more instruments, and Will Butler on synthesizer, bass guitar, trombone, clarinet, backing vocals, percussion and multiple other instruments, the band found its signature sound. Win Butler was not only responsible for lead and backing vocals, as he also played piano, keys, bass guitar and mandolin from the very start. The band’s debut EP “Arcade Fire” brought in American guitarist Tim Kyle and drummer, percussionist Brendan Reed, local Montreal artists Dane Mills on drums and bass, Josh Deu on guitar and Myles Broscoe on bass guitar. While members were still students at McGill and Concordia University in Montreal as well as old friends of Win Butler’s travelling up to Canada to record from the United States, the band’s first ever release as a non-studio album was enough to get music magazine’s attention. The debut EP even hit the top 20 and 50 charts in Scotland the United Kingdom, respectively, (“Arcade Fire EP”), (Deusner, 2005).
The track “No Cars Go” off of the self titled debut EP would make it onto the band’s debut studio album the next year, a release that changed the independent music scene in Canada forever. For the recording of their debut album “Funeral”, the band enlisted a new Montreaeler, Howard Bilerman to play drums and guitar, and added Tim Kingsbury, bass guitarist out of Guelph, Ontario, as well as two Ottawa natives, drummer, keyboardist and guitarist Jeremy Gara (and future Late Night with Seth Meyers live studio drummer) and Richard Reed Parry on bass guitar, guitar, double bass, synthesizer, organ, accordion, backing vocals and a multiple other instrumental positions. Arcade Fire found label support from American record company Merge Records and worked away from recording studio Hotel2Tango in the heart of Montreal for nearly six months. The release of “Funeral” in 2004, a sonic combination of chamber pop, art rock and indie rock burst out onto the alternative scene peaking in the top 200 in the U.S., the top 100 in Australia, and multiple European countries, top 40 in the United Kingdom, top 30 in Norway, 25 in Canada, finding its way into the top 20 in Ireland. “Funeral” would sell over 100,000 copies in Canada, 300,000 in the United Kingdom and 500,000 in the United States, (“Inside the Artwork: The Story Behind Arcade Fire’s “Funeral”), (Goodman, 2015).
The album was met with universal acclaim from critics, becoming the #2 ranked album of the decade at the end of the 2000’s, according to Pitchfork magazine, only behind Radiohead’s “Kid A” and was even published in the book “1001: Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. This album would be a massive record breaking album for an alternative Canadian recording act, to say the least. The year 2004 would be Win Butler’s graduation year at McGill and the year “Funeral” was released and within the next three years, the album would sell 750,000 copies around the world and receive certification (Gold) from the Record Industry Association of America. Sixteen years later and the album is still a darling for the indie rock genre and has one of the highest aggregated ratings among reviews for any Canadian recorded and produced album in music history, (“Arcade Fire’s Newest Album Has Plenty of Technological Angst, But no Melodic Genius”), (Belvedere, 2017).
A three year break until their next album release, gave Arcade Fire time to tour the world for their debut “Funeral”, including stops across North America, Europe and in Japan and Brazil in 2005. In 2006, the members of Arcade Fire collectively purchased an old church house in the small town of Farnham, Quebec 45 minutes southeast of Montreal and restored it to become their new studio for their sophomore studio album. The album would become “Neon Bible”, with a tough task ahead of them to rise up to the limitless expectations set for them by the music industry, the band spent the second half of the year recording at their new band-owned studio. The band reached out to Michael Part, an Estonian producer and editor to record a military choir and the Budapest Film Orchestra for part of the album. Almost all of the record was recorded in the church in Farnham, Quebec, with one recording session occuring along the Hudson River in New York where Arcade Fire wanted to capture the specific atmosphere of being next to a running river.
British producer Nick Launay, who worked with Kate Bush, the Talking Heads, Lou Reed and Nick Cave was enlisted by the band to produce their album, and flew from the UK to Canada to work in the studio for “Neon Bible”. The album would tackle the political climate at the time in the U.S., as American born Win Butler looked at the situation in his home country through a new lens having lived in Canada for his previous years since moving to Montreal for university. Upon release of the album in 2007, the record was another monumental success for the band, jumping up to Number One on the charts in both Canada and Ireland, as well as reaching as high as Number Two in the U.S., the U.K. and even Portugal. The album would also make it into the top 20 Charts in nine other European countries as well as Australia and New Zealand. The Canadian Recording Industry Association gave it the certification of Gold within the year of its release and the album was a nominated finalist for the Polaris Music Prize, nominated for Best Alternative Album at the Grammy’s, became shortlisted for both Rolling Stone magazine and NME’s albums of the year list in 2007, and then won the Juno for Alternative Album of the Year in 2008. The album would also be certified Gold in Australia, two times Platinum in Ireland and Platinum in the United Kingdom, selling 300,000 copies along in the U.K, (“When Arcade Fire Looked Outward on “Neon Bible”), (Wawzanek, 2017).
After a North American, European, Japanese and Australia/New Zealand tour for “Neon Bible”, the band got to work on their third studio album, “The Suburbs” in 2008. The album would become of their lengthier recording experiences, spanning 2008–2010, with a release in August of 2010. Just like “Funeral” and “Neon Bible”, “The Suburbs” would rock the alternative music world on an international scale and be met with universal acclaim once again. The recording of the album saw the band record at the house of Win Butler and Regine Chassagne in Montreal, as well as a return to the band’s church turned studio in Farnham, Quebec and a brief recording stint in New York. The album would focus on elements of the Butler brother’s childhood and adolescence growing up in suburban Houston, Texas and these themes turned the release into an album of the generation at the time.
“The Suburbs” would end up nominated for an unbelievable list of awards. The album would first be nominated for the Polaris Music Prize in 2011, before the award show came around when it was announced they won the Polaris Music Prize itself. The album would then win Album of the Year at both the Junos and the Grammy’s (becoming the very first indie rock album to win the award), while also receiving a nomination for Best Alternative Music Album, and winning Best International Album at the 2011 BRIT Awards. The album would fittingly go on to be named the #1 album of the year by five major magazines, including the likes of BBC Music and Exclaim! Other major outlets like Billboard, NME and Stereogum would rank it as high as #2 of their lists of best albums of the year, and it was also #4 on Rolling Stone’s best albums of 2010. NPR also rated it very highly, making it into the top 50 of their yearly favourite’s list.
Arcade Fire’s incredible success with critics and at award shows carried on over to the charts as well, going Number One in Canada, the U.S., the U.K. as well as Belgium, Ireland, Norway and Portugal. The world loved it, to put it simply, peaking at #2 in Mexico, Greece, Spain, Denmark and #3 in France, New Zealand, Switzerland and in the top 10 across Europe and Australia as well. Ultimately, the album sold 1,000,000 copies worldwide, including 765,000 just looking at the U.S., with 300,000 sold in the U.K. and 160,000 flying off the shelves and being downloaded in Canada. Arcade Fire were now at the peak of their game, among lists of Canadian music icons and legends, and making history on a global scale for an indie rock band simultaneously. The band was not done yet, and quickly got back to work within the next year on studio album number four, (“Arcade Fire: The Suburbs Album”), (Cohen, 2010).
Recorded from 2011 to 2013 and released in 2013, Arcade Fire’s “Reflektor” wouldn’t quite match “The Suburbs” colossal victory critically and commercially, but would still be an extremely successful launch for the band. For this album, however, the band wanted to do something experimental and to change their sound and atmosphere completely by tapping into the soul of the Caribbean. Arcade Fire now owned a new studio in the city limits of Montreal, called Sonovox, and recorded part of the record there before heading off to both Louisiana in the U.S. and Jamaica for the rest of the recording process. The band also started their own record label, named after their studio, Sonovox to act as the primary label beside Merge Records. It was another case of a Canadian act, such as Drake, where Arcade Fire was able to fly in American producers to work with them in Montreal, such as James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem.
The album had serious anticipation around the globe and found itself a top the weekly charts once again in Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Belgium, Croatia, Ireland, Portugal and Scotland, and cut into the top 10 charts in Australia, Denmark, the Netherlands, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and peaked high on the charts in multiple other European countries, many of which for the first time like Hungary and Poland. The album would go three times Platinum in Canada, selling 240,000 copies, and also Gold in the U.K. and France. Although it wasn’t as major of a reach around the world in sales for the band as “The Suburbs”, it was clearly the band feeling confident, bold and unstoppable. The album would become critically acclaimed once again and get into lists like “Best Albums of the Decade So Far” for Pitchfork magazine and #5 on Rolling Stone’s “50 Best albums of 2013” list. The “Reflektor” tour had Arcade Fire playing across North America, Latin America/South America, Europe, Japan and Australia/New Zealand, and had them busy enough to take a three year break until their next studio recording, (“Arcade Fire’s “Reflektor” Debuts at No 1. On Billboard 200”), (Caulfield, 2013).
In late 2016, Arcade Fire started on their fifth album, “Everything Now”, with recordings taking place from September, 2016 until April, 2017 and a summer 2017 release. The band continued recording at Sonovox in Montreal, but mainly recorded in New Orleans Boombox and a jump across the pond to record in Paris’ Gang for the rest of the album. The band linked up with members of Daft Punk, Portishead and Pulp and we’re now signed to American label Columbia Records, along with their own record label Sonovox, which was a move away from Merge Records for the first time. The album was a seriously well sold release, with 500,000 copies of the album being bought or streamed for purchase, going Number One on the charts in Canada, the U.S., the U.K., and across Europe in five other countries, (“Arcade Fire — Reflektor: New Music”), (Cragg, 2013).
However, “Everything Now” was met with average reviews from critics and did not receive the same accolades as previous albums. The album still found itself in lists of albums of the year from magazines like NME and Drowned in Sound, but did not receive nominations at award shows like they had previously gotten used to from the beginning of the band’s debut. Nonetheless, Arcade Fire changed what it meant to be a Canadian indie rock band, bringing their alternative edge to the global musical market and undoubtedly flirting with the mainstream on many occasions. Like Drake and Bryan Adams, Arcade Fire became a case study of how to become internationally renowned while living and paying taxes in Canada as professional artists.
Why choose Neil Young, Bryan Adams, Leonard Cohen, Drake and Arcade Fire as the main subjects of the case study? All five acts represent a certain prototype of Canadian artist and represent an individual genre. What are the prototypes? Neil Young is the quintessential “dream chaser”, driving out of his Canadian hometown in search of Hollywood. Bryan Adams is the anomaly, the Canadian pop star who managed to find fame while never leaving his hometown. Leonard Cohen is the classic frustrated Canadian artist, who feels unappreciated in his hometown and home country and decides to head abroad or south of the border to the States to tap into the massive commercial market available. Drake is the poster child of the digital globalized age of artists, born to binational parents and connecting with American producers via the internet prior to his departure to record in the U.S. Arcade Fire is the multinational, multi-instrumentalist “family band”, with members born on both sides of the border, birthed through friendship, brotherhood and marriage.
What do the five musical acts as part of the previous case study conducted have in common? There are many similarities to other bands that each of the faces of these prototypes named above would fit into, and some even predate the representatives of these prototypes. An example of this could be The Band fitting into Arcade Fire’s “multinational-family band” prototype, although the Canadian-American roots rock band based out of Toronto is a predecessor of more than 35 years. Why pick Arcade Fire to represent this prototype? More than anything because the band was not created by means of simply finding the best musical fit to be recruited to the band out of the entire musician pool available, but instead was formed and incepted out of familial and bonds as companions. They were signed by major American record companies in time for the release of their debut album, (“Levon Helm, Drummer and Singer of the Band, Dead at 71”), (Browne, 2012).
How hard is it for a truly independent, non-signed artist to make a living in Canada? The reality is not every musician who opts to stay and live in Canada will become an Arcade Fire, a Bryan Adams or a Drake, or other anomalies like Metric, or the eventual multinational cases like Grimes. Not every young Canadian musician who heads off for the U.S. in hopes of finding success like Neil Young and Leonard Cohen, or Joni Mitchell, or hell, Justin Bieber, will find it. It is an increasingly competitive world for musicians, and standing out in today’s landscape requires more talent, musical innovation, work ethic, strategic business plans and luck than ever before, arguably. More than anything though, it seems, being signed by a major American label regardless of whether you remain in Canada or not as a musician is paramount.
According to the National Post’s David Berry, who reported on a study on the economic impacts of musicians (“The average Canadian indie artist earns a whopping $7,228 a year playing music, plus some other industry stats” 2013), the independent music industry in Canada contributed $300 million to the national economy in the year 2011. Interestingly enough, the majority of music companies in Canada are run by individual entrepreneurs, so most of the time one person could be running every position for the company, from accountant to manager to talent scout and PR head. Those who are employed by Canadian music companies only bring in an average of $22,250 a year in income, which is below the minimum wage in most of Canada. As well, the average indie artist only makes $7,228 a year from performing, which is far less than the national minimum wage. The study also brought to light the fact that whenever the government grants $1 to the music industry on a provincial and federal level, there is a return of investment of $1.22, and that is absorbed directly into Canada’s economy (Berry, 2013).
Is the amount of money Canada is investing into the music industry enough? Should independent artists be forced to make less than a year’s worth of rent devoting themselves to music? Another important question is, how do we compare to other countries? Looking at every country side-by-side, it becomes evident that the way their governments fund their music industries would be widely varied. The article from Pitchfork Magazine (“How Countries Around the World Fund Music — and Why it Matters”), dove into this topic directly to present a very informative look at this funding and how it differs country to country. The article interviewed the Australian singer-songwriter Courtney Barnett who explained “Government grants gave me creative independence when I was starting out, because it meant I was worrying less about impressing for label and publishing advances and I was less reliant on taking some big-company sponsorship to fund a tour”. (Hogan, 2017)
To continue facing some of the hard realities of being a musician in Canada and trying to make most of your income alone from only selling copies or streams of your work, Vancouver Weekly’s Alan O’Sullivan (“Hard Sell: Making Music in Canada”) presented some information that serves as a stern reality check. The article claims that most touring artists from Canada will likely not have a day off as they pursue a livable paycheck to survive on while focusing all of their attention on making and performing music. An example is the Canadian indie band Picture the Ocean, who admit that they performed 17 shows in 24 nights, touring between Ontario and British Columbia. There is a ton of unpaid work involved, such as scheduling shows and driving many great distances between cities and provinces and the time consuming nature of touring, which is also one of the only ways to make serious money as an independent artist, becomes challenging if a musician has any other career aspirations or responsibilities. An interesting statistic from this article points to Canadian musicians and the fact that 42% of them are self employed vs. 7% of the total labour population on its own. Also, 39% of Canadian artists have at least a Bachelor’s Degree whereas 21% of the total workforce does. What seems most unsettling however is that Canada, as of this article’s publishing, spent $500 million CAD on music and yet the country is fourth worst in the world in terms of illegally streamed and downloaded music content. (O’Sullivan, 2012)
The in depth journalistic article again from Pitchfork Magazine (“How Countries Around the World Fund Music — and Why it Matters”) goes on to analyze the ways in which Australia has been able to fund and support their musical talent by creating federal arts councils as well as receiving contributions from governments on a regional and municipal level, also. When Trump became president in the U.S., the country funded their industry less and less, with only $8 million USD going towards music programs of a total of $148 million USD in the total National Endowment for the Arts budget. This is surprising, considering the U.S. has the most far reaching music industry in the world, and the response from the government as of recently appears as though the music industry is beginning to be looked at as a trivial thing rather than a key economic opportunity for the country and even less so as a universal right in terms of creative expression. To truly compare and educate, the article goes on to contrast the United States’ spending to Sweden’s, a country in which $220 million USD goes directly to the arts industries and $7.8 million USD alone goes to music. The money comes from municipal, local and regional governments and a strong backing from the Swedish Arts Council. Comparing populations alone, the U.S. has 321 million people vs. Sweden’s 9.8 million people, and they are still allocating close to $8 million to their creative industries. (Hogan, 2017)
To keep it relevant with Canada, our population of 35.8 million people still generates a total funding of $20.8 million from the government. Is this because Canada and Sweden have a liberal leaning government whereas the U.S. has a right-winger in power? Perhaps not, as Norway’s right wing government still injects $140 million to their music industry alone, while an additional $47 million comes from the Arts Council Norway. To give even more of a comparison, data from 2017 from the article shows that France’s 66.8 million contribute $307 million to their industries, England’s 53 million people generates $227 million, Spain’s population of 46.5 million people nets $104 million, Taiwan’s 23.5 million people come up with $16.6 million and the U.S. still invests less on average than all of these previously mentioned countries. Canada, however invests more than the U.S., Taiwan and Sweden in federal music funding, but we are blown away by Norway, England, Spain and France. (Hogan, 2017).
In 2020, Coronavirus Pandemic steamrolled across the world and Canada proved not to be immune to the lockdowns and quarantining of its citizens. How are independent musicians surviving, when they already make so little money? It has potentially been a year without touring or hosting live shows for many of these artists. Luckily SOCAN seems to want to protect these artists as much as they can (“Canada’s SOCAN Reveals CAD $2M Emergency Royalty Advance Program to Help Members During COVID-19 Crisis”). According to Music Business Worldwide’s article, written and presented by Murray Stassen, $2 million CAD was planned to be given out to artists who were directly affected by this mass lockdown, which was likely needed for any independent, unsigned musician who relies on music as a part of their income. However in comparison to other countries such as Germany, whose GEMA has promised aid of $43 million to German artists and musicians, despite having a population of 83 million vs. 37 million in Canada, the aid is not as high as it potentially could be for Canadian artists. (Stassen, 2020)
For a country that has churned out so many major musical acts, being inextricably linked to the U.S. has become both a blessing and a curse for trying to break into the industry. The blessing being the world’s largest music market can be found directly south of our borders, where uncountable amounts of Canadian talent have gone to to quickly find fame and fortune and appreciation for their talents. The curse? Well, perhaps there wouldn’t be as much of a curse if Canada could draw up more money for independent artists who don’t want to go the almost inevitable U.S. record label partnership way. There is evidence that independent artists across Europe and Australia can survive as unsigned artists thanks to government grants, and can even sign with major European based or Australian based music companies who are efficient enough to fulfill the artist’s distribution needs and thrive on an international scale, even breaking into precious U.S. charts in the process. The road to fame for Canadian musicians and artists has never been an easy one, but for as many game changing musicians as there have been who were born and raised in, or immigrated into the nation’s territorial limits, there might be necessary changes to be made to properly champion the country’s brightest stars. There might need to be a cultural perspective shift in order to make these artists’ lives a little easier so they can continue focusing on their music first and foremost.
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