Canuck Rock: A History Of Canadian Popular Music

Ryan Edwardson

University Of Toronto Press

Kate Harper (CHARTattack)

09/11/2009 11:17am

Don't let the title of Ryan Edwardson's Canuck Rock: A History Of Canadian Popular Music fool you. The book is less a who's who and historical rundown of Canadian rock music as it is a history of the Canadian music industry.

Edwardson begins with the advent of rock 'n' roll in the 1950s and examines how the rise of Elvis Presley and Bill Haley prompted the formation of Canadian rock bands. From there, he looks at the British Invasion and psychedelic rock and the growth of similar bands like The Guess Who, The Collectors (who eventually became Chilliwack) and the origins of their sounds.

While the first few chapters are a bit of a rundown of Canadian rock and its beginnings, Canuck Rock eventually turns into more of an examination of CanCon and government regulation of the music industry, which became necessary because of the lack of Canadian support for artists and their subsequent migration to the United States in the '70s.

Instead of examining the rise of Canadian alternative rock in the '80s and '90s, Edwardson instead turns the book into a dry, almost boring look at government regulation and the advent of the music video. That means bands like The Tragically Hip and Rheostatics get glossed over because Edwardson fits those bands into his CanCon history. Bryan Adams' controversial anti-CanCon comments in the late '80s are the only reason he's even brought up in the book.

The average rock fan looking for a real history of popular music (as the title implies) may put the book down before finishing it. While it's important to examine government regulation and how it affected and saved the industry, perhaps Edwardson should have titled his book Canuck Rock: A History Of The Canadian Music Industry or A History Of CanCon instead.