Canada claims no other country can boast such a successful record in nurturing and exporting female singers, songwriters and performers.

Some females rooted in Canada include Alanis Morissette, Céline Dion, Shania Twain, kd lang, Diana Krall, Alannah Myles, Sarah McLachlan, Jane Siberry, Loreena McKennitt, Martha Wainwright, Peaches, Avril Lavigne and Nelly Furtado.

“What Canada does best is meat-and-potatoes rock- and folk-oriented singer-songwriters says Larry LeBlanc.

So where do Canadian artists draw their inspiration in the midst of this technological soul-less society?

Canadian artists have a small beef with US record industry and feel they have to step it up according to BBC Radio 2 DJ Bob Harris.

“Historically, the US record industry has used smash-and-grab tactics – taking artists like Joni, Shania Twain and Avril Lavigne, then marketing them to the world as American artists,” explains the BBC Radio 2 DJ Bob Harris, a long-term supporter of Canadian artists. “There is a certain degree of resentment, in that Canadian musicians can feel swamped by American culture, so they love to show that they can match it.

Canadian artists may approach writing with more integrity because they know know they can’t sell a million records on their home turf. The label infrastructure is also smaller and the approach is grabbing one fan at a time. Also, radio networks and two industry bodies founded Factor (the Foundation to Assist Canadian Talent on Recordings), a not-for-profit organization loaning money to new artists.

Geography may be influence as well. Many parts of Canada gets rain and snow for a half a year.

“Canadians are instinctively modest and humble, sometimes to our detriment, sometimes to our benefit. We spend a lot of time hiding away in winter and associate ourselves tightly with people.”

“Even in this internet, cable-TV, connected world, girls with poetry in their souls will still retire to their bedrooms to write songs and escape their environment”.

(Times Online)

UK Festivals Suffer Slow Ticket Sales: Glastonbury, the biggest festival, still have plenty tickets available. Some blame the less in demand, Jay-Z, as the headline act. Others believe that people are choosing attend smaller festivals. ‘Most of the largest festivals are controlled by the American promoter Live Nation, which signed up acts including Madonna for $120 million (£60 million) and Jay-Z for $150 million.’

Poor ticket sales forced organizers to pull the plug on Norway’s Quart Festival which featured Death Cab For Cutie. Organizers blamed poor ticket sales and budgetary prblems. (Full read here)

Warner Music Pulls Songs From Last.fm: The website Last.fm, that claims it has 21 million users lost Led Zeppelin songs and hundreds of thousands of other tracks. Warner Brothers wanted more money and Last.FM’s parent company, CBS – was unwilling to pay. Warner was expecting to make more money from the deal but the fees related to the existing free service have been far less than it had hoped. Warner wants a cut of advertising, not just on the music player itself.

AC/DC and Walmart: AC/DC will be the next major band to sell a new album only through Wal-Mart Stores. AC/DC has not released its catalog to iTunes. The Eagles struck a deal with Wal-Mart last year with plenty of success.

Writing the Anti-Download Album: In this day age, music tracks are disposable as bubblegum. The key is writing an all encompassing album that people want to buy. All encompassing means great songs, great artwork and a unifying theme stringing everything together. Coldplay understands this well.

“X&Y was melodic and safe, but too many songs were trying to be anthems says Chris Martin. We still love big choruses but on Viva la Vida, no anthem dominates. The big thing this time was to write a complete and cohesive album. I call it our ‘anti-download’ album, in that there aren’t are two or three songs to dip into. Each song informs the next and they all have their own colour. The guiding principle was: ‘We can’t get any bigger, but we can get better.’

Chris Martin on producer Brian Eno…

We felt Brian was the man to reconnect us. Just listen to the production he has done for Bowie, Talking Heads or U2. I always view our albums in terms of U2 albums. Viva la Vida is our Unforgettable Fire in that it’s less straightforward, more oblique. It’s about sex and death and love and fear and travel and illness. There’s light and there’s dark.

Chris Martin on EMI…

“We delivered the last record late, and there were reports EMI’s share price had fallen because the album wasn’t going to be out in a certain financial quarter. How can I emphasise this? It’s Got Nothing To Do With Me. You can’t put that sort of pressure on a band.

“EMI has been through a lot, but when people are saying ‘the success of the new Coldplay album is vital to EMI’s future’, you just want to curl up and die. (Full article here)

We know the 70’s gave us classic bands, there are to many to name…

Remember the 80’s? It was the decade of big stadium bands and UK pop. There was a mile long line of girls and guys waiting outside the tour bus only to catch a glimpse of Motley Crue or Poison. Then came Guns N Roses that was led by a frontman known as W. Axl Rose that nearly shook every arena he stepped foot on. Don’t believe me? just watch this video.

In the nineties, Nirvana entered the scene along with their disciples and spread the message across the globe. The female artists were so convinced of the message that they traded pop for poetry. Top 40 radio let go of pop only to lean towards rock. Lilith Fair was a traveling music festival, founded by musician Sarah McLachlan, all of these bands and artists inspired millions of kids and the music biz was doing quite well.

Then all of sudden, darkness was cast upon the earth. Wolves in sheep clothing promised music executives that they would bring them milk and honey only to leave them with a curse that still has a stronghold on the people and on the land. Those false prophets were the boy bands – and when they last walked the earth the music business was setting sales records and the milk and honey were overflowing.

Then came the curse. Now in a bleak era and dark times the labels are looking back to boy bands hoping they will get them out of the tough times.

New Kids On The Block are back together and are recording a new album due in the fall and “nearly every major is pushing its own fresh group of singing, dancing dudes, including Warner Bros.’V Factory, Geffen’s NLT, Capitol’s Varsity Fanclub and Epic’s new Menudo.”

In fact, the major music labels are looking at Disney’s success with their teen stars and they want to get in the game and start hedging bets. Disney has used their networks including the Disney Channel and Disney Radio to launch multi million seller teens including Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers.

“Disney has done a phenomenal job using the assets that they control to create stars,” says Capitol Music Group CEO Jason Flom. “But that doesn’t mean they have a monopoly. The right music trumps everything.”

Of course times have changed and the media landscape has changed so launching a boy band today is much different than yesterday. MTV doesn’t play videos anymore and top 40 is still held hostage by urban and club beats.

So will the false prophets rise again? Or will the angels in white robes regain their lost territory and claim victory once again. Only time will tell….

In Dark Times, Labels Look to Boy Bands.

KOAR featured Tamar several months ago because we fell in love with the track New Day. Tamar is a Los Angeles based singer/songwriter and her unique style of piano driven pop-rock may just give her swarm of fans. We also like her influences – Billy Joel, Carole King, and The Beatles. Tamar submitted for a One Republic “Apologize” cover contest and her version proved to be better than the other thousands that entered. The good always will rise to the top. Her passion, talent, and effort just recently led to a record deal with Interscope Records and she will begin recording early July. Check out her indie video for her track ‘New Day‘.