ALFRED PRESENTS: Bands that are only popular in Canada (and rightfully so!)
 

Many Canadian bands have achieved great popularity and success outside of Canadian soil. Some bands are good, some bands are bad. But we here at MB know that bands that achieve mainstream popularity are almost always pure sh*t :usehead: ! Among the bands that have found success are Nickelback, Billy Talent, Three Days Grace, and Sum 41. But for every Canadian band with a non-Canadian following, there are the bands who have not been recognized outside of Canada that get large amounts of radio play and exposure here.

I blame this primarily on the CRTC. For those of you that don't what that is, basically they are an organization that regulates the amount of MANDATORY Canadian content that TV and Radio stations must play. Because of this, bands who have little to no popularity internationally are propped up in the Canadian media as big, important, world-class acts.

So how will I assess a band's TRUE popularity? Simple: Last.fm listener count. Because Last.fm caters to users from all around the world, and especially people who download music and play it on their computer (ie. NOT radio listeners), it will be an excellent way to measure the popularity of a band. The bands that I listed above all have a listener count in the ballpark of one million (1,000,000) listeners, or more. Bands featured in this thread will have a significantly lower listener count. Oh, and they'll all suck.

HEDLEY

Last.fm listener count: 59,482

In terms of appearing-to-be-but-not-actually-being-that-popular, Hedley (fronted by a Canadian Idol third place finalist!!!) are by far the worst offenders. Since the release of their debut album, Hedley's hit singles have been all over the radio in Canada, even though they have almost always failed to chart in the United States (though one of their songs did somehow manage American Top 40 once.)

Hedley's sound can be compared to that of Good Charlotte. At the start of their career, they played whiny, teeny faux-pop-punk, and later in their career switched their sound to even lighter, poppier, and occasionally electro-influenced powerpop. Oh, and they love ballads.

You can catch Hedley headlining over acts such as Our Lady Peace (402,157 listeners) at some piece-of-sh*t music festivals, multiple times a day on mainstream pop radio (but only Canadian radio!), and on whiny teen girls' facebook statuses (I'm not perfect, but I keep trying).

Check 'em out!

This thread is awesome. Just last night I was talking with some friends about how awful canadian music is

Yay, Canada.

Hahahaha, awwww, yeah. Canada is rather crap. Looking forwards to this.

There's a lot of really good Canadian bands that are big in the US and elsewhere as well. In fact, I can't really think of any that aren't at least known outside here, except for Hedley.

Last.fm listener count: 340

This band has possibly the most confounding situation of any band I will post about in this thread. They have less listeners on Last.fm than most of the hardcore bands I listen to that I consider "obscure., yet they have a song that plays daily on Canadian pop radio stations.

Due to this band's relative newness to the music industry, I do not know much about them, but I do know that their single "About Us" is one of the worst songs on Canadian radio right now. The song is made up almost entirely of its chorus. I don't know whether to applaud them for a sorta kinda unique song structure, criticize them for melodic repetitiveness, or stab myself in the ear because the hook is so damn annoying.

Take a listen, but don't say I didn't warn you. Pop rarely gets any more manufactured than this.

I would just like to point out that while Canada has some terrible music (as shown in this thread), many a great band has come from our country. What about Godspeed You! Black Emperor, F*cked Up, and the Arcade Fire? Those are just a few of Canada's "good" bands.

Haha, dude I love this thread already. Keep it up. And don't forget to mention Stereos, they seem like they'd fit in here nicely.

Canadian "popular" isn't really saying much judging by these numbers.

You're in luck... they were exactly who I was gonna do next!


Last.fm listener count: 11,708

Stereos are probably the flat-out worst band that will get a mention in this thread. I'm not even kidding you, this band rivals and Brokencyde and fellow Canadians Nickelback for pure awfulness.

Stereos got their (Canadian) big break when they appeared on the first season of the MuchMusic (Canadian TV music channel) show disBAND. They were subsequently signed to Universal Music Canada. Their hit single "Summer Girl" appeared on the Canadian charts following its video's appearance on MuchMusic's video countdown... hence their radio play.

Since then, Stereos have released an album of other failures and another moderately successful single, and opened for the aforementioned Hedley.

FEEL THE AUTOTUNE

Oh, I think that most people are aware of all the good that comes out of Canada (Neilyoungcough) and nobody really faults Canadians for the mass of crap they produce, but it does seem like Canada produces an inordinate amount of crap.

Then again, America is responsible for Brokencyde...

Rush, The Guess Who, The Tragically Hip, The Band, Blue Rodeo... the list goes on :)

I'm sure the US produces a lot of crap too... so much crap that it's too embarrassing to be released to the the world! Unfortunately for us though, Brokencyde slipped through the cracks.

Glad you added this bit, because I was gonna say you're committing some serious credibility hara-kiri here ;) It's a tough call, but I'd say the Stereos are the worst offenders so far.

Good thread this. Always interesting to see another take on awful pop music.

Also, Diana Krall, Skinny Puppy, Leonard Cohen, Corb Lund, the Wailin' Jennys, the Duhks, Blue Rodeo, Peaches, the Sadies, Simply Saucer and so on go to show (for me) that there's plenty of great Canadian music out there.

nobody's mentioned The Barenaked Ladies?

they only have two hits outside, but are popular in Canada

I love 'em

Yeah, it's a shame that they're not more popular outside Canada. I love them. I met Steven Page at a wedding years ago when he was sitting at the next table.

Barenaked Ladies had more than two hits outside Canada. They were pretty huge in US in the late 90s actually.

Judging from the title of this thread, I thought it was a journal but I guess it's not in that section.

Go ahead and keep it up though, I will be reading it even though Canada is the root of all evil.

Plus the theme song to "The Big Bang Theory".

"Internationally".

I think only the two singles from Stunt made it big all over the world.

I love how you hate Canada :laughing:

How big were/are The Tragically Hip outside of Canada?

I know they are popular in the US, or at least they were during their peak period (late 80's - 90's). Not sure about the rest of the world. I love them.

Yep, top 5 band for me. I was just never sure how big they made it. I hate the negative rap Canadian music gets. In my top 20 or so bands there would probably be close to as many Canadian bands as American/British.

Canada is pretty good, probably better than Australia over the years.

Great Lake Swimmers are one of the recent groups.

Why do people always drag out this band when talking about 'great' Canadian bands. I've been on this forum something like 6 years and think I've seen people talk about their music maybe twice in all that time.

The only other time you hear about them is when Canadians are desperate to include them in a list of bands to show that music from Canada isn't the void of utter crapness most people around the world think it is.

Does anybody actually listen to this band?

I don't own any of their albums or anything, I just hear them on the radio all the time. Radio stations here like to play the crap out of the Guess Who. My mom listens to them, though.

Never heard them in my life.

How popular were Billy Talent outside of Canada?

Good call on Hedley. ****ing hate that band.

Not very, but moreso than some others. They were kind of popular in non-English-speaking countries, from what I recall actually?

They have nearly a million listeners on last.fm and have played big outside-of-Canada festivals like Rock Am Ring if that says anything about their popularity.

Holy crap, Billy Talent has over 43 million scrobbles. Didn't think it would be that high.

Neverest sounds like a crappy version of The Backstreet Boys or N'Sync. Also I don't know how people feel about Shwayze around here, I like him, but I feel like Stereo is Canada's failure at emulating him. I'm really sorry to everyone who lives there, we have some bad music on the radio but I just... I never understood before this thread. My condolences to you and your families.

Do bands like Wintersleep ever get any play? Or Arcade Fire? Or Stars? Because if you're going to play ridiculously obscure Canadian music because of some stupid rule, I feel all three of these and all of the other bands people brought up would be much better options. I have this thought Wintersleep might, because they're the most like what I hear on the radio here that I can think of.

I'm glad nobody has yet mentioned Rush and Neil Young.

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

I *like* the Cure.

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

Yeah Billy Talent are pretty big. They've been getting plenty of coverage over on this side of the puddle since they released their debut in 2003.

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.

I still have that album. I bought it when it came out - I was 13 and I haven't listened to it in about 8 years! One of my TA's in university went to high school with them.