Yes, Canada, that just happened. After 17 days in which musicians from around our country descended upon Vancouver to showcase themselves and their tremendous talent to the world, the whole thing ended with bands nobody should ever admit to listening to. If it wasn’t for K-os and Alanis Morissette who brought a semblance of integrity to the musical offerings- it might have been Canada’s worst moment, ever.
Put aside criticism of the ceremonies themselves, which lampooned our national follies so relentlessly – the real tragedy was the bands themselves. The only possible explanation for choices so out of touch was that they were made 10 years ago, when planning for the event began. How could something like this happen?
Where was City and Colour, The Rural Alberta Advantage, Hey Rosetta, Chromeo, K’naan, Martha Wainwright, Feist and Joel Plaskett? Each had played during the cultural olympics and yet our singular moment to let the world know what we sound like was led by Avril Lavine and Nickleback – two artists who are barely relevant enough to even make fun of anymore.
Imagine for a moment that instead of Simple Plan (apparently out of retirement), instead of Hedly (sorry, who?) and Nickleback (too easy) and Avril Lavine (gossip blog fodder) – the lights went down and K’naan stepped out on the stage. An artist who will without a doubt become one of the biggest stars in the world after the World Cup, an artist that deeply represents what it means to be Canadian and you know…. an artist that can be called an artist.
It was a once in a lifetime opportunity and the pickle would have been a better choice. What bands would you have picked to represent Canada at the closing ceremonies? Let us know in the comments.
Funny enough – my thoughts instantly went to Hey Rosetta!, Arcade Fire, and City and Color as well…I know the Olympics wanted a party, but totally agree that Canada has more talent than any of those acts actually have…
arcade fire with a neil young encore
Totally agree. I'd nominate Hey Rosetta! all the way…
Maestro Fresh Wes
As an American living in Canada, the closing ceremonies and crap-tacular music made me feel a lot better about the US men losing the gold medal in hockey.
This was so bad it was obscene. Just a disgrace.
I understand they wanted some big popular acts but they didn't have to go this far.
The popularity shouldn't matter anyway since they don't announce the acts in advance (though word leaked out) it's not like they were a ratings draw. People would watch the ceremonies anyway and it would have been a great chance to showcase some semi-popular but not huge Canadian music.
I understand though they'd want some popular acts in there, so here's a list I proposed elsewhere that balances popular and less popular, old and new fairly well:
Great Big Sea
K-OS
Neil Young
Feist
The Guess Who
The Arcade Fire
The Tragically Hip
Michael Buble
Sure people might not like some of those acts and some may be dated, but would it have been as universally embarrassing?
K'naan is a good choice as well, though I think some of the ones you listed – Hey Rosetta, Rural Alberta Advantage, Joel Plaskett, Martha Wainwright are not quite big enough for the event, unfortunately.
K'Naan – for the same reasons you noted above. Hey Rosetta! because they're the most exciting and promising Canadian rock band since the Tragically Hip, Arcade Fire (even if they're not as relevant since their first album, a rendition of “Wake Up” would have had jaws gaping across the stadium). Classified – I can't think of a hip hop artist who would have been more fitting as a Canada-centric rapper. Feist – do I even need to elaborate? Even Montreal's Deadmau5 would have turned the white-coats 'grade 9 shuffle' into an all-out dance-a-thon.
Finally, and this is really hard for me to say… I would rather have had Celine Dion over Avril Lavine – at least Celine, as comically unrepresentative of our Canadian culture as she is, has some semblance of real talent. I think that says it all. I mean, “Girlfrind” at the Olympic closing ceremonies?! It was a Canadian cultural nightmare!!
And while we're at it… let's talk about that abomination of humour writing that had the otherwise totally respectable MJF and WS making asses of themselves and using weak cliches to address their Canadian audience. Tongue-in-cheek – my ass. It was just bad.
The Guess Who for sure!
There are a ton of artists that have relevence, passion and GREAT music that should have had the opportunity to play on the world stage! I never get involved with comments or angry posts, but everything mentioned below and above is 100% correct!
The artist selection was incredibly out of touch (incredibly ignorant) that it almost brought a comical close to one of the greatest weeks in Canadian history. FOR ONCE, something brought Canada together in a moment that can be remembered for generations to come and to have Avril, Nickelback, Hedley and Simple Plan play, basically crumbled the castle! I don't know what criteria was used for the choices made, but I was extremely angry that thses artists represented our nation! (coming from a music fan, but still, COME ON).
My choices would have been any of the following:
Tragically Hip (Obviously – and I'm not even a fan)
Feist
City & Colour
MSTRKRFT
Chromeo
Sam Roberts
Wintersleep
The Arkells
Metric
LIGHTS (she would have had an incredible performance that would have been fitting)
There are so many more, but I feel my choices would have represented our country well – After all, the Olympics are supposed to show the BEST of THE BEST!
@JaredGolberg
Should have had Drake and George Reefah – 2 of Toronto's finest
At least they made the right choice in having Neil Young. Other than that, I was disappointed. The music played plus all that lip singing did not represent Canada well. I would of loved to see more lyrically Canadian oriented groups like The Tragically Hip and Great Big Sea. I got pretty pumped at the start seeing the mime I was thinking maybe some Cirque Du Soleil was in order but nothing interesting came. Pretty much, BOO to the closing ceremonies.
If anyone out there knows the Arcade Fire's attitude towards licensing songs to advertising, they'd know that the band doesn't take kindly to anything it considers commercial or overtly corporate. Thus, it's a safe bet that they would've turned it out even if asked.
But here's the reality folks. The closing ceremonies weren't supposed to be a 'showcase for great new Canadian talent' a la a NXNE or CMW. They were a televised event, complete with a broadcaster (in this case CTV) that probably sank big bucks into the show. Those big bucks probably were offset by advertisers wanting to advertise. And that usually means producing programming that can potentially be palatable to the widest number of people (that's why they call it 'broadcasting').
Chromeo and The Rural Alberta Advantage aren't exactly household names. And that's what was called for with this event.
As for the fascistic ramblings in the earlier part of your post ('bands nobody should ever admit to listening to') I'd recommend that you read Carl Wilson's book in the 33 1/3 series, which is ostensibly about the Celine Dion album 'Let's Talk About Love' but also touches heavily on issues of taste and how it's formulated. I don't like Nickelback either. But I'm happy to let other people, if they so choose. Here's a good article about the book: http://thetyee.ca/Books/2008/01/10/Celine/
And here are some words from its author to think about (and no, I'm not him): “The book's about the 'guilty displeasure' — I want to suggest that we save our guilt for the times we find ourselves dismissing music because something about it suggests to us that it's meant for people we look down on.”
“If anyone out there knows the Arcade Fire's attitude towards licensing songs to advertising, they'd know that the band doesn't take kindly to anything it considers commercial or overtly corporate. Thus, it's a safe bet that they would've turned it out even if asked.” Are you f**king kidding me? They've licensed out their songs to the NFL in the most recent Super Bowl, Where The Wild Things Are Movie, plenty of talk radio stations and I've heard them in other films I just can't think of the names.
the super bowl thing this past year was done to benefit haitian relief org partners in health. and i didn't say they wouldn't consider something that they found artistically compatible or interesting (hence, 'where the wild things are'). as for talk radio stations, usually as part of the broadcast license radio stations can pick and choose theme music from their music libraries, and it usually varies. from what i know, the band turns down quite a lot of requests – things that could probably make 'em a lot of money and probably more requests than they actually accept – and that's their right.
as for the olympics, who knows, maybe they would've played if asked. of the list of bands supplied by the op-ed, with their level of notoriety on the world stage, they would've been a great choice (perhaps feist as well). my main objections to the post were twofold: the smug 'my tastes are better than the great unwashed' bulls*** that people should really outgrow by high school, and the thought that for some reason, the olympics closing ceremony was supposed to be the grand stage to promote Canadian indie music, as opposed to an event designed to appeal to a massive audience- both on TV and on the grounds.
Did not know that. Well Said
Martha and/or Rufus Wainwright would have been obvious choices. Even if they wanted mainstream acts, there are better than Nickelback and Avril Levigne (frankly, how could it be worse?). How about Arcade Fire or Bedouin Soundclash?
Hell, I would've been happier if they dragged KD Lang back up on stage. She was brilliant in the opening ceremonies.
I would have figured the Arcade Fire would have been a shoe in and I'm not even really a fan.
Black Mountain gets my vote… and Propagandhi! Ha ha ha!
Yeah, because Propagandhi would totally play the olympics…
Realistic vote: Weakerthans
Unrealistic vote vote: Propagandhi (they would kill!)
Winnipeg's own Propagandhi.
My name is Matt. I get jokes.
Hey Michael as music writer,you might want to get out once is a while. While the bands they chose aren't my cup of tea, To say they aren't relevant is pretty uneducated and downright lazy. Nickelbacks Darkhorse came out in 2008. It's currently number 49 on Billboard. I'd say that's relevant to many people. Hedley's last CD was triple platinum in Canada. Their current disk is number 38 on soundscan. Besides City & Colour and Feist, I've not heard of any of the bands you mentioned and I follow music fairly closely.
The Olympic organizers chose bands that everyone would know, not for cultural integrity or merit.
The band segment is supposed to be a party not some critics darlings wish list.
I totally agree with the idea of Great Big Sea, I was actually waiting for them to show, unfortunatly no.
When the beavers and mounties were being rolled out all I could think of was The Arrogant Worms and thier song “We are the Beaver”. Seriously if we're gonna poke fun at ourselves then choose the right song >.<'