Rise Up: Canadian Pop Music In The 1980s

The third installment in the CBC's trilogy of documentaries about Canadian music suffers from a focus on the industry rather than the art, just like its predecessors Shakin' All Over and This Beat Goes On. It also grapples with the difficult task of summing up a decade that spawned sub-genre after sub-genre.

Like most music around the world in the 1980s, what was popular grew increasingly more insipid as the decade dragged on, and the gap between the mainstream and underground widened. But the introduction of MuchMusic in the middle of the decade helped heal those wounds as the new 24-hour music channel looked for any artist — mainstream or otherwise — with a catchy video.

It was this situation which allowed for artists like The Pursuit Of Happiness and Blue Rodeo to gain mass exposure and set the stage for the Can-Rock Renaissance that would explode in the early-'90s.

The trilogy has done an admirable job of including artists from Quebec's thriving and perennially overlooked music industry, but again, the lack of a critical eye drags down what is otherwise essential viewing for Canadian music fans.