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Doc explores Cdn pop in the ‘90

By Bill Harris, QMI Agency

In some ways the 1990s don’t seem that long ago, but it was a different century - both literally and figuratively - as far as the music industry goes.

The sale of CDs - remember those? - went through the roof.

And with a combination of unprecedented interest from established record companies and an explosion on the do-it-yourself indie scene, Canadian artists were making an impact internationally more than ever before.

It wouldn’t last - not to be a downer or anything.

But that’s the era explored in the new documentary Life is a Highway: Canadian Pop Music in the ’90s. It airs in two parts - Thursday, Sept. 15 and Thursday, Sept. 22 - on CBC.

Life is a Highway comes from the same team that produced the previously aired specials Shakin’ All Over, This Beat Goes On and Rise Up, which chronicled Canadian pop music in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, respectively. All of those docs have utilized a combination of vintage clips and contemporary interviews to paint their pictures.

“Canadian music has matured every decade,” says Dave Bidini of the Rheostatics in the opening moments of Life is a Highway. “It has gotten a little more self-confident, a little more daring, a little bit more of its own thing.”

Now, a critic might suggest the Canadian music scene also has become more insular over the past decade and a half. And, if you accept that premise, we’re sure you could get a heated debate going over whether that’s a positive or a negative.

But with acts as diverse as Shania Twain, Alanis Morissette, Bryan Adams, k.d. lang, the Tragically Hip, Celine Dion, Barenaked Ladies, Ashley MacIsaac and Tom Cochrane (the man with the song for which the doc is named) making an impact at home and abroad, it was all sunshine and maple leaves in the 1990s. That is, just before the digital revolution ripped the spine out of the music business.

Coincidentally, in a recent conversation with Nelly Furtado, she mentioned that she feels fortunate to have been among the last artists to sign an old-style recording contract, with her breakthrough CD hitting the charts in 2000. The music biz went haywire soon after that, with many new delivery opportunities on the one hand, but an erosion of reliable revenue streams on the other.

Life is a Highway kicks off with the Bryan Adams song (Everything I Do) I Do It For You, which topped the charts in 30 countries in 1991. We recall seeing British singer Billy Bragg in concert in Canada in the mid-1990s, and he joked about the impact that song made on his home nation.

Bragg said something along the lines of, “Bryan is a nice lad and all that, but you have no idea what that song did to my country. We now refer to the early ’90s as the ‘Bryan Adams Era’. And it’s a weird emotion when you think about it, isn’t it? Everything I do, I do it for you. EVERYTHING?”

We won’t get into the particulars of what Bragg said next, but let’s just say it had to do with bodily functions.

Moving on, in addition to Adams, lang, Cochrane, MacIsaac, the Hip and the Ladies, the first half of Life is a Highway also touches upon acts such as Crash Test Dummies, the Rankin Family and Sloan.

Part two next week goes heavy on the big-impact Canadian women of the era, such as Twain, Dion, Morissette, Jann Arden and Sarah McLachlan.

Since the boom times of the 1990s, Canadian musicians have been forced to adapt, as have musicians all over the world. New paths to fame have opened up, but the paths to fortune are rutted and muddy.

Life always has been a highway, actually. But the driving conditions keep changing.

http://www.torontosun.com/2011/09/14/doc-explores-cdn-pop-in-the-90s