starrynight

Neil Young has a whiney voice that lessens his melodies for me, similar to the singer for The Cure.

Burning Down

Sure, but he's a hell of a good songwriter though. The same could be said of Bob Dylan.

starrynight

I like his work with Buffalo Springfield the best. Dylan I probably like best in the 60s too.

As for The Cure, I like Lovecats and In Between Days but many of their songs just sound musically too similar and whiney. I don't get why some critics put them in their best albums of the year list all the time, they don't have enough variety to them.

But on the general theme of this thread you could take any country and pick bands that should only have been popular there. Middle of the road American rock bands for example.

Howard the Duck

I *like* the Cure.

Alfred

Last.fm listener count: 37,845

The story of Mariana's trench is very similar to that of Hedley. They started off as a third-rate Blink-182/Good Charlotte clone and evolved into an even whinier (Canadian) Top 40 band.

I used to have a soft spot for their single "Shaketramp" due to it's slightly obscene lyrics and catchy chorus, but their recent singles which flood the radio waves feel like a watered down version of that with the annoying-as-f*ck vocals standing out even more. Seems to have made them more Canadian money.

And as with all of the other bands mentioned in this thread, the band's only popularity has been Canadian. Did you know their last album was certified PLATINUM (well, by the CRIA, which only requires sales of 80,000).

Burning Down

I used to like Shake Tramp also



And did you know that the CRTC (basically our equivalent to the FCC) requires that the daily playlist of Canadian radio stations contains 30% Canadian content? That's why so many Canadian bands are popular here only - because they're being played non-stop on the radio.

Lisnaholic

OK, starrynight, or rather, Neil Young has an over-the-top whiney voice which is what made me fall in love with his music !

It`s a bit sad when a country feels it has to practise musical protectionism like that, but I`m sure Canada isn`t the only place it happens. If I was a Canadian dj, I`d be filling the quota with old-timers like the Rankins, Jerry Holland, K and A McGarrigle. Does that kind of music get any airtime ?

P.S: I like the way you`ve quoted the bands` listener counts, Alfred. That`s telling it like it is !

Alfred

Yeah, I touched on that a bit in the first post. 30% is quite a huge amount if you think about it. The local rock station around here usually fills that requirement by playing the exact same bands every day: Rush, The Tragically Hip, BTO/The Guess Who, Neil Young, and *shudder* Nickelback. Kind of defeats the whole give-new-Canadian-bands-exposure thing, doesn't it?

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Burning Down

Same with the stations in Toronto. Q107 is the worst offender for constantly playing Rush, the Tragically Hip, BTO and the Guess Who. They all fit into their playlist of course, but sometimes it gets boring. And the more contemporary stations seldom play music from newer bands. So much for exposure.

Paedantic Basterd

I was waiting for that one.

EDIT: Christ, I loved Shaketramp in 2006, and now I can't believe what it sounds like (because it's not as pleasant as I recalled).