This Beat Goes On: Canadian Pop Music In The 1970s

The problem with trying to sum up a decade of music is it's difficult to relate disparate genres to one another. That's the case with this second installment of the CBC's trilogy on Canadian pop music.

Shakin' All Over, which covered the 1960s, had a much easier task since pop music in the '60s was easier to track. But by the 1970s, the impact of Bob Dylan's move to electric rock had taken its toll and musical genres began to splinter, blurring the lines about what "pop music" really meant.

Rather than look at the country's artistic output through themes or genre, This Beat Goes On's chronological view gives long-running and influential punk band D.O.A. the same level of recognition as a one-hit-wonder like Gino Vanelli. Similarly, the introduction and impact of the controversial Canadian Content laws are here met with cheers, mostly from the artists who have benefited from them. Couldn't the documentarians have found someone who thought otherwise, if only to give an alternate perspective?

That's not to say this is a complete washout — far from it. This series, narrated by Jian Ghomeshi, is an incredible undertaking and is the greatest summation of any period of the Canadian music industry.

But its ultimate flaw is just that — it's a summation of Canadian music from an industry perspective rather than one that focuses on artistic achievement. It makes this series feel like a cheap overview rather than a critical examination.