In and Around Canadian Music Essay (Critical Writing)

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Music is an integral part of any society which reflects its cultural and intellectual development. Every culture has music specific for it only, the music which is the nation’s culture. Just like any country, Canada’s national music has been shaped over the centuries under the influence of other cultures, including the French and the American ones. In the 21st century, however, the country became oriented towards individualism; this being the reason, the national music faced extreme development with Canadian popular musicians starting to dominate the airwaves of the country’s radio. At present, Canadian music is marked by nationalism, which results in its representation of specific social groups and social places. The issue of nationalism in music has recently become a point of wide discussion. For instance, in his article “In and around Canadian Music” Will Straw, drawing from Jacques Attali’s assertions mentions that “music evokes within its listeners the “quest for lost differences,” a yearning for those specificities of place or community that have been lost in the standardized, serial production of music as a capitalist commodity” (175). Judging from the state of the music industry in Canada several years ago, this idea can be agreed with since Canadian music was standardized due to its being perceived as a commodity and because of digital globalization; in addition, music has become a matter of time, not space because of technical innovations depriving it of its primary value.

To begin with, the modern music of any country can be characterized by the same trends which make it to some extend standardized. One of the reasons for this standardization is the perception of music as a mere commodity. Since music is a product of a nation’s culture, it is referred to as a cultural good and a separate market is created for selling it. The difference between ordinary and cultural markets is significant with the latter being less predictable. Economically, the music industry became beneficial for the countries; culturally, however, the value of the music has been lost:

The recording industry developed largely as a means to sell physical objects – vinyl records, cassettes, and, for the last two decades, compact discs … Downloads of cellphone ringtones, subscription-based satellite radio services, and online sales of music tracks all represent new ways of packaging music and selling it to consumers. (Sutherland and Straw 142)

At this, the value of music as a cultural aspect of society became insignificant. Music has turned into a recording industry with its commerce becoming “the subject of international agreements on intellectual property” (Tremblay 105). The boundaries between the music industry and any other business industry became rather thin. The weakening of these boundaries worldwide has, correspondingly, affected the music industry of Canada for the boundaries between the Canadian and world markets have also weakened. In this way, Canada’s music market has also become integrated with other industries thus depriving its music of aesthetic value. Therefore, music is indeed all about searching for those lost differences which used to exist in this industry before it was made level with all other businesses, thus losing its value.

Moreover, in light of digital globalization music also becomes standardized because musicians are exploited for the sake of profits. It took a long for the Canadian market to adjust to digital technologies which make it possible to distribute the music at low cost and quite quickly. This further entailed the emergence of new businesses that aimed at selling music to consumers. Other industries started benefiting from what belonged purely to the music industry. Now musical tracks could be easily downloaded from Internet websites, often for free. Mobile companies have also benefited much due to their starting to offer music downloads, which only added profits to this industry because they have already been providing the services of ringtones: “At a cost of between $1 and $3.50 in Canada, these have proved very productive for phone companies and rights holders (primary record companies” (Sutherland and Straw 142). Gradually, Canada has been involved in this digital distribution; it started to sell the works of its national singers and composers around the world. Music has become only an attribute of the electronic devices (such as cell phones) simply adding value to them and losing the value of its own; it stopped being original due to the high demand and its accessibility. This is why digital distribution and globalization, together with turning it into a capitalistic commodity, have made Canadian music standardized and have initiated the search for lost differences.

Finally, due to the reasons mentioned above, music has become a matter of time, rather than a matter of place. The electronic media establish a certain connection between a sound and a listener thus occupying a separate place between them. They create a new reality and change the role of a person in this reality: “One result of this new reality is that music … seems to articulate time … but not space, which nonetheless shapes both the music and its meanings in our lives” (Berland 129). One of the media responsible for such displacement is a radio which occupies a significant place in each person’s life. In the case of Canada, it is the community radio which became a method of the country’s cultural defense (Fairchild 120). At present,

CDs, boomboxes, and car radios enable music to mediate personal and public space in a kind of third space, connecting us to something outside the actuality of physical space. And just as cultural technologies like radio mediate between the production of music and the production of its audiences, so this “third space” that radio produces mediates between us and the diverse spaces we inhabit. (Berland 131)

These cultural technologies change the meaning of music-making its context more flexible. With regards to Canada, music places an individual within the society; thus, the displacement which takes place due to cultural technologies breaks the Canadians’ cultural connection. This being the reason, music is regarded as evoking a desire for the specificities of place in the new reality created by the cultural technologies.

Taking this into consideration, it can be concluded that Straw was right in agreeing with Attali’s idea regarding the current value of music. Modern commercialized society has made music standardized. It turned it into another means of making profits, thus, depriving it of its real value. In Canada, like in other countries, Music standardization occurred because of perceiving musical products as commodities to be sold at the market. Digital globalization also contributed greatly to this standardization. This all was further aggravated by cultural technologies and they’re creating a new reality in which only music could help a person to find his/her place. Canada’s current orientation towards nationalism in music can help to deal with all these problems and revive the Canadian culture.

Works Cited

Berland, Jody. “Locating Listening: Technological Space, Popular Music” in A. Leyshon, D. Matless, and G. Revill (eds) The Place of Music. New York and London: Guilford Press, 1998.

Fairchild, Charles. “Mediating Marginality: Music and Community Radio in Canada,” International Journal of Canadian Studies 9. 2 (1990): 119-135.

Straw, Will. “In and around Canadian Music.” Journal of Canadian Studies 35.3 (2000): 173-180.

Sutherland, Richard and Straw, Will. “The Canadian Music Industry at a Crossroads” in D. Taras, M. Bakardjieva, and F. Pannekoek (eds) How Canadians Communicate II: Media, Globalization, and Identity. Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2007.

Tremblay, Danielle. “L’industrie du disque au Québec.” Moebus 48 (1991): 101-123.

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