Editor, the Gauntlet,
[Re: “X is for X-treme… for now,” Jon Roe, Feb. 2, 2007.]
A sports writer writing about Canadian music. How interesting.
I would like Mr. Roe to explain to all of us how it is the CRTC’s fault that some radio stations only play the Tragically Hip’s ’90s songs, and why those geniuses at those radio stations can’t play different songs from a Nickelback album? The CRTC is not forcing anyone to play the same Nickelback songs over and over again.
The CRTC wouldn’t be needed at all, if some Canadians in the media and in the Canadian radio industry didn’t hate their own culture so much. If there was no CRTC, Canadian music wouldn’t be played at all. Most radio stations would be like Global TV. They have hardly any Canadian content in their programming and just buy U.S. programming. How sad.
Surely, Nickelback and Billy Talent are better than a lot of the same type of music that comes from the U.S. and England these days. Pearl Jam lost it years ago. Nirvana didn’t invent punk music or anything else. But no, Canadians are somehow genetically retarded when it comes to making music?
When are some Canadians going to grow up and realize that constantly bashing their own stars [free of charge] just helps make the U.S. richer and Canadians poorer. That just doesn’t sound like very good business sense to me.
Let’s kill the CBC, the CFL, the CRTC and all Canadian music and we will find out that English Canada will have very little left to call their own and far less jobs to show for our efforts.
By the way, you probably don’t like these artists either, but the best-selling female pop singer in world music history is Celine Dion. The best-selling country music female is Shania Twain. The best-selling female jazz artist is Diana Krall. Nelly Furtado is one of the biggest stars at the moment, as are Nickelback. How awful of us!
Not bad for being those terrible artists from Canada, EH? And just think, we could of [sic] had Jessica Simpson, Bon Jovi, Poison, Motley Crue and Britney Spears.
Regan Flint
[Editor’s note: To be clear, Jon Roe’s article in no way condemned Canadian music, the CRTC or any other Canadian institution. Nor did it even mention Nirvana and the origins of punk rock.