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June 26, 2005

Bobby Curtola indeed

The Ambler believes that patriotism clouds my musical judgement. I'm willing to consider it, but certainly not on the grounds that I claimed that the boys from Green Day are bigger international stars than Brian Wilson. They are — it's as simple as that. Unscientifically, I hereby bet my reputation that Billy Joe is more recognizable to more people in the world than Mr Wilson. Scientifically, I note that at the time of writing, Green Day's American Idiot is the 16th best selling CD on Amazon.com. Wilson's Smile, which was released a week later, languishes in 259th position.

Does any of this make sense? Of course it doesn't. Nothing about popular music makes sense. Green Day isn't fit to grind up Brian Wilson's Xanax and stir it into his mush. Mr Grace has mistaken the fact that "I would be at least somewhat interested in seeing" a bunch of okay bands that I don't dislike — for free, mind you, after a gun had been pointed at my head — for some sort of declaration of support for the Barrie line-up. Quite the contrary: it sucks. But except for London's, so do all the other Live 8s. As much as I'd love to see simpering commies Green Day, Wilson's one-octave range and whatever sort of geriatric (pro-fox hunt?) act Roxy Music puts on these days, I could definitely do without Chris de Burgh, Audioslave, A-ha (! –ed.) and the dozen-or-so acts that no one outside of Germany has ever heard of.

Ultimately it's impossible for either side to win a debate about whether or not Canadian music sucks, especially when one side is already convinced that it does and freely admits that he doesn't listen to new music. "You're sure there aren't a whole lot of Canadian artists who are young, critically acclaimed and internationally popular who just don't happen to be on the bill?" I asked. "Maybe so," Mr Grace responded. Maybe so! No, it is so. It's silly that a backlash against Canadian music in general should occur simply because the Rolling freakin' Stones' concert promoter put together a lousy festival show; it's painfully ironic that it should come now, when there has never been more positive buzz about Canadian pop music.

[UPDATE June 29: And now there's Neil freakin' Young and DM to the mother-fuckin' C. Quite frankly, this lineup is approaching respectability. (An aside: I hereby object to the CP referring to Neil Young as a "Can-con artist.")]

Posted by Chris Selley at June 26, 2005 03:30 PM