Roots Music Canada

June 18, 2003 7:58 AM

Roots Music Canada (warnings: music, mucho flash) gives you access to independent Canadian folk/country/world/etc music for free. It's fairly new, so there's not a ton of stuff there yet, but Canadians are free to submit their music (it's run by the CBC). A good application of publicly-owned media, no? (Eh, and for the more electronically-minded, there's also a New Music Canada.)
posted by transient (5 comments total)

Cool - you're right that there's not a whole lot here, but there's likely much worth exploring here, at least for my tastes. Thanks for the post! If you don't know them, be sure to give singer-songwriter Ron Sexsmith a try, as well as the airy pop of The Beauticians (who share labels with the New Pornographers).

New Music Canada's terrific - you'd all be well to look up reedy-voiced Danny Michel's peculiar songs, the Nebraska-era-Bruce-Springsteen-meets-Joe-Strummer that is Greg MacPherson, the wondrous Nick Drake-like attic songs of Julie Doiron, the classic hardcore of Furnaceface, the needs-no-introduction Hot Hot Heat, the folk-drone of Molasses, the aforementioned Neko Case-fronted pop sensation that is The New Pornographers, the beautiful folk-punk of The Weakerthans (now signed to Epitaph), the mathy instrumentals of Weights & Measures, the slinkystrange Unicorns (for lovers of the Microphones), Beck-meets-the-Strokes Boy (listen to "French Diplomacy"), the lulling summersongs of P:ano, the heavy-hyped, ultra-awesome, broken pop songs of Broken Social Scene (skip the tracks from Feel Good Lost, mind you), shambling burnished folk from Royal City, moody and symphonic pop courtesy of The Dears, and holy shit for sure my friends The Diskettes (springfresh ukelele boy-girl pop).
posted by Marquis at 8:46 AM on June 18, 2003

Very nice, but it does have one major flaw: the Arrogant Worms are categorized as country. Blasphemy!
posted by DrJohnEvans at 8:56 AM on June 18, 2003

Allow me to add Noah23 to Marquis' list. Excellent hiphop.
posted by soundofsuburbia at 9:38 AM on June 18, 2003

Cool, though an astounding lack of Blues. Sigh.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:47 AM on June 18, 2003

New Music Cda is a RealPlayer site. Major suckage.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:48 AM on June 18, 2003