Public Service Announcement: Canadian Pop Music Can Kill You

I'm on a road trip across Canada this week, and although I generally ignore (with a few notable exceptions) Canadian music - I find Barenaked Ladies banal, The Tragically Hip boring, and Nickelback a cruel joke - it's kind of hard to avoid thinking about it when you keep passing road signs that say disturbing things like TOUR THE ANNE MURRAY MUSEUM.  That, and the fact that one is morally obliged, as a Canadian on a road trip, to hum Tom Cochrane's Life Is A Highway at least twice a day, makes it a little difficult to pretend that there's no such thing as Canadian pop music and that it hasn't, in some deep and important way, corrupted your soul.

So I decided that you had to be corrupted with me:

And then there's this:

Céline Dion - You and I
Uploaded by san29. - Music videos, artist interviews, concerts and more.

I'm sorry. But if I have to live it, you do too. I am humming this shit, people. And in any case, it's best that you never forget that much evil comes from Canada. Much good, yes - witness yours truly - but the evil, it is undeniable. And it walks among you. Be afeared. Be very afeared.

Comments

[Kate]

Well, Canada also gave us Moxy Früvous so all is forgiven.

[the fixer mamma]

and Blue Rodeo. there is nothing bad to be said about Blue Rodeo.

[BlackEyedGurl]

I think what you really need is some Robin Sparkles.
http://www.hulu.com/watch/17619/how-i-met-your-mother-lets-go-to-the-mall

http://www.hulu.com/watch/17829/how-i-met-your-mother-robin-sparkles-sandcastles-in-the-sand-music-video

[Heather Z]

Not banal! Give BNL some love. Not all of their stuff is great. But Gordon is an excellent album. And Snacktime is wonderful for the whole family!

[Jenn_C]

Yes! You say "Canadian Pop", I automatically think Robin Sparkles. BlackEyedGurl is the win!

And I loves me some BNL, you can totally deport them to the US if you want.

[BlackEyedGurl]

Yay! I is the win!

I also love the BNL, so they can come be US citizens anytime.

[Palinode]

Canadian pop is ruled by a small group of producers who like to make everything suck horribly. Once you get beyond that, it's all Broken Social Scene and Rah Rah and other awesome stuff.

[Accidental Housewife]

"No Rest For the Wicked". Good stuff, man. And I totally agree about the shit producers. Can we just deport David Foster??? Further than we already have, anyway. Like, maybe to Beirut. That'd be cool. Yeah.

[janet]

they are Canadian rock!

[Kev]

I don't even like pop music - Canadian or otherwise - but let me just say this in defense of Barenaked Ladies. Before the economy collapsed, I worked for three years at a software company in the Silicon Valley. Big company with a big budget for corporate events. One year, they hired BNL to play at our user conference. BNL not only showed up sober and put on a good show, but also wrote a little tune specifically about our company.

And that, my friends, is called earning it.

[Naomi]

The New Pornographers make for some epic road trip singalongs. Seriously.

[Snarky Amber]

Without Canada I would not have Hot Hot Heat or Cub. So I guess maybe I just like music from Vancouver.

On the other hand, I hate Bryan Adams, Alanis Morissette and Tegan and Sara with a fiery passion, and they're all Canada's fault. :/

[Irma]

Come come, my jaded fellow Canuck, it's not ALL bad. Canada DID give us the Guess Who and Bachman Turner Overdrive and Gordon Lightfoot and April Wine, and, OMIGOD, Leonard Cohen. You know, LOTS of mindblowing musicians. Cough cough,thirty years ago.

(And I would also cast a bilingual Friday Eye Candy vote for Roch Voisine from the early nineties, right around the time of "Helene".)