By 2008, if technology wasn’t leveling the playing field of the Canadian recording industry it was changing it.
The sales of compact discs had fallen yet again, by 7%, and there was talk of the CD’s demise. Seeming to support this grim prediction, Sam The Record Man, long a symbol of the health of the recording industry, closed its Yonge Street doors in 2006. In May of 2008, A&B Sound,  Western Canada’s oasis for record sales with its Seymour St. Vancouver store cited as the cheapest place in North America to buy records, went bankrupt. The major corporations – EMI, Warner’s, Sony/CBS, Universal – were downsizing, laying off staff, moving to smaller premises or closing branch offices. In Vancouver, for instance, EMI and Sony/BMG laid off staff with their surviving employees now working from home.
Matthew Good and Bryan Adams were Canadians whose latest album went straight to number one on the Nielsen Soundscan chart. That would be good news but Good’s Hospital Songs debuted with 11,000 sales while Adams’ 11 notched 10,000. When it’s considered that a year before a Celine Dion album could premiere with 10 times those sales, that is not so good.
Adams, who only years before sold in  the millions and was one of America’s most popular recording acts, didn’t have an American label for his 11. A deal was struck with Starbucks Coffee to distribute the record through its Hear Music operation.
This wasn’t new. Years before, Alannis Morissette agreed to distribute her latest record, an acoustic re-recording of her Jagged Little Pill, exclusively through Starbucks. Record retailers protested and the record was made available conventionally, but the message was clear that established artists had reached an impasse and were now trying to break through it with alternatives, one of which was Starbucks’ Hear Music. Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney and Joni Mitchell have released records through Hear Music.
Radiohead, one of the UK’s most popular bands, made its In Rainbows available online with fans or the curious told to pay what they want. Although Radiohead has never announced how successful this strategy was, and later made the record available on CD in stores,  the band wasn’t signed to a label at the time and was exploring its options. If nothing else, the ploy got a lot of publicity and sent another clear message to the recording industry. Following Radiohead’s example, American band, Nine Inch Nails, marketed an instrumental record this way.
However, neither Radiohead nor Nine Inch Nails were the first. This honour goes to Canada’s Jane Siberry. She long ago reclaimed her music and trusted her fans to pay only what they wanted or could.
Why CD sales are down is a long argument but a lot of it has to do with how technology has filled a void…or made it.
A large segment of the public now downloads its music via iTunes, Puretracks or other MP3 server. It doesn’t buy records.
Facing that reality, several labels, such as Vancouver’s Mint or Winnipeg’s G7 Welcoming Committee are making their newest releases available digitally first.
As well, many new acts don’t consider themselves part of any recording industry and are staunchly independent. If they know how to use a computer, most indies can arrange their own tours and sell records on their own webpage, myspace, CD Baby, iTunes etc.
They can be heard on a variety of internet radio programs internationally rather than hope for airplay on the local commercial radio station.
Not that the old way of advancing a career has been abandoned. Commercial radio play and having CDs in stores are still valuable. For every local TV Heart Attack that claims it’s content to be an indie in the face of industry turmoil there is a Crash Parallel. Crash Parallel, a Toronto quartet, signed to Sony/BGM with the result, so far, that its World We Know album has benefited from the clout a major label still wields.
Or there is a Michael Buble. His three Warner Bros. albums have sold in the millions. His crooning style is unlikely to get much radioplay, although Buble is now writing hits such as Home, but is effective on TV or on tour, where his charm and performance make their strongest impression. He also commands an older audience that grew up buying records.
Buble’s exceptional popularity points out an irony in contemporary Canadian music. He is selling both domestically and internationally at a time when Canadian music is getting praise though the acts receiving this praise aren’t well known to the average Canadian.
In the vanguard are Montreal’s Arcade Fire, Toronto’s Broken Social Scene or Vancouver’s New Pornographers with many indie bands in the slipstream. All three make good records that international media love. At home, their cultural impact is minor but the international media don’t care about record sales or Canadian Content regulations, they just think Canada is a stream of originality and creativity.
It’s a hard won independence. For years the Canadian industry was dominant and dictated the rules and was often derivative. Then, along came other means to expose the music and to develop.
Calgary’s Feist knows. The highly original Feist has spent time in Paris and Toronto developing a style that owes a little to punk, pop and performance art but nothing to the Canadian recording industry. In April. her new album, The Reminder,  won her five awards at the Juno Awards, Canada’s music gongfest. Feist knows and now Canada does, too.
Tom Harrison