Maple Music

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Welcome to Maple Music, a community on the Lemmy.ca instance focused on bringing attention to Canadian music and musicians!

Like everything else, Canada has a rich music culture, spanning from the traditional music of the First Nations to a unique spot in the Punjabi music scene, a rich variety of folk performers to the big names in pop, and established underground music cultures such as the Edmonton hiphop and rap scene to the metal scene in the Atlantic provinces.

This community allows for postings of Canadian music news, covering anything from the local scene to world-renowned names such as Justin Bieber, Shawn Mendes, and Celine Dion. It also allows for sharing Canadian musicians you wish to give a spotlight to, individual songs and albums by Canadian artists you enjoy, and even a bit of Canadian music history seeing how poorly documented some Canadian music history can be at times.

As with any community, here are some rules to follow when engaging with this Lemmy community:

  1. All rules of the host instance (Lemmy.ca) are to be followed at all times.
  2. No shaming of music tastes. Mumble rap is not for everyone, and neither is country or dubstep. Avoid all "real music" type comments.
  3. Do not encourage music piracy. Much of the musicians and music shared here are likely small independent acts that deserve fiscal support. If money is an issue, please look into free and/or Creative Commons releases, a list of such titles will be made and built on as the community grows.
  4. All posts must be related to the Canadian music scene to some extent. News about Taylor Swift will be removed. News about Taylor Swift having a Canadian tour will be kept.
  5. Please avoid spam. Rather than make individual posts for each song by a musician you like, instead make a singular post bringing attention to the musician.
  6. AI music posts will be deleted. This community is made to support Canadian talent, not those who mooch off the talent of others for personal gain.

Resources:

Our Megathread of Canadian Music Resources

Maple Music's Spotlighted Artists

Banner Image is CC-BY-SA 2.0 by radiobread of Flickr.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en

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submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by BinzyBoi@lemmy.ca to c/maplemusic@lemmy.ca
 
 

This week's featured artist is Good Kid!

Our second artist from Toronto, Good Kid is an indie rock act that's established themselves well as a major face in the genre.

While their titling of their EPs may be unimaginative, simply slapping the band name on them followed by their order number, the contents of those EPs is anything but. Every song of every EP soothes the ears with smooth vocals, sensual strings, and lovely lyrics.

Of all things to make them popular, they found their popularity shoot up as their music was featured in Fortnite streams, making a good portion of their music DMCA-free in response to fans receiving automated copyright claims for using their catalogue.

To choose a singular must-listen track is impossible, if you can spare the time, please listen to their whole discography as it certainly will be worth your while.

As always, suggestions for new featured artists are always welcome in the comments of this post!

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As we all know, The Junos were just a few weeks ago this year. The Junos of course, is a yearly awards ceremony giving recognition and applause to the best music talents that Canada has to offer...

...but to whom?

In previous years, there has been strong debate as to whether the stated intent of the Junos matches that of how it works in reality. While many artists see the Junos as what they present themselves as, an awards ceremony giving recognition to the best of Canadian music talent, others see the Junos as advertising Canadian talent to the American music industry.

Some artists have been quite outspoken about the latter opinion, with Matthew Good not attending the ceremony for any of the four awards he's won as a result of it. Others such as Kardinal Offishall have openly criticised the awards for having American acts such as The Black Eyed Peas perform.

This week we discuss our thoughts on the Junos, and the extent it serves as a marketing tactic for larger music industries outside our borders.

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Thanks to @KanadrAllegria@lemmy.ca for the suggestion!

This playlist will encompass all individual tracks shared here in the Maple Music community. I chose ListenBrainz as the place to host it as MetaBrainz is a non-profit organization despite being in the U.S., it has the perk of being able to add music from any platform to the playlist, and one can play songs in the playlist directly on the playlist page using the YouTube embed the site provides.

While ListenBrainz does have these perks, it by no means is perfect either. In creating the playlist I had to create new entries for some of the songs and their respective releases on MusicBrainz. That in itself isn't an issue, however, tracks that are newly added to MusicBrainz may display as blank in the playlist temporarily before appearing the same way other entries do.

Also, the YouTube embed feature isn't exactly perfect either. Sometimes the wrong video will be grabbed from YouTube. This is especially the case with really underground music, where there may not be uploads on YouTube. For electronic music, I've found it to be the case that videos of rhythm games such as osu! and BeatSaber may appear instead of the song itself.

Happy listening!

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Redside is an electronic musician from Toronto! Redside allows for non-commercial use of his music outlined here, and has had his music featured in the hit rhythm game osu!.

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Eye 2 Eye was a hip-hop trio from Montreal who disbanded shortly after their label Island City Monsters dissolved.

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Voggue was a disco duo based in Montreal. While Voggue disbanded in 1984, the two musicians continued solo careers in the following years.

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This thread is to document the musicians that have been spotlighted here in Maple Music. While the list is quite short as of writing this, as time goes on, more artists will be added with one being added each week.

As the list grows, artists will be categorized by the genre they specialize, such as rock, blues, hiphop, etc.. Also while this thread will not be pinned, it will be linked in the sidebar for ease of accessibility to community members and visitors:

Spotlighted Artists

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Lindsay Broughton hails from Whitby, Ontario!

Not a huge country music person, but hopefully this is a good share for the country fans here.

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From Vancouver, MDK delivers an incredible hardcore sound with this track, which is much expected from him and his experience in the genre.

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Hey all! This here is a list of Canadian music websites that will slowly grow over time as more sites are found and added. These websites will all be a great resource for users to follow, share, and discover Canadian music, music events, and perhaps even a bit of music history.

If you have any sites you are aware of that aren't listed here, please feel free to leave a comment pointing them out! While this post will not be pinned to the community, it will be added to the sidebar as a helpful pointer to Canadian music resources to new community members and those passing by.

THIS LIST WILL GROW AS MORE RESOURCES ARE DISCOVERED

Digital Music Magazines:

  • Exclaim! - Canada's biggest music magazine! On top of having a digital publication, one can find print copies of Exclaim! for free all around Canada.
  • HipHop Canada - Canada's go-to digital magazine for Canadian hiphop and rap news. These people give the Canadian hiphop scene the true attention it deserves as Canada has a huge pool of undiscovered hiphop talent. Please give them your readership.
  • Roots Music Canada - Your go-to stop if you love roots music and want to give Canadian talent your listening ear. Please feel free to support them with a donation or volunteer writing as they are independent and donor-funded.

Canadian Music News:

  • CBC Music - The CBC has it's own section of it's website dedicated solely to music news! Please, of all the music news listed, your readership here is appreciated as the CBC is publicly funded with your tax dollars. Put those tax dollars to use by reading the excellent news provided here!
  • CityNews' "The Music Beat - Centred specifically on Calgary, The Music Beat is a segment of CityNews' programming that gives attention to Canadian music and the Canadian music scene as it pertains to Calgary.

Other Publications with Music Segments:

  • Calgary Guardian's "Five Minutes With" series - The Calgary Guardian does a weekly "Five Minutes With" segment in which they highlight music talent in a five-minute interview with the artist. While artists typically are Calgarian themselves, interviews also include other artists throughout Alberta.

Canadian Music Databases & Directories:

  • Calgary Cassette Preservation Society - the Calgary Cassette Preservation Society (CCPS) is a small preservation group based in Calgary focused on preserving Calgary's local music history. One can discover older music recordings from cassettes and records, as well as links to download rips of these historical tunes.
  • Alberta Music - Alberta Music is a website and organization that seeks to expand the reach of Albertan music talent. Alberta Music has incredible resources, such as a directory of Alberta-based musicians, Alberta-centric music news, and a list of resources for growing music acts in Alberta.
  • Indigenous Music - Indigenous Music is a music organization based out of Manitoba, highlighting the rich presence of Indigenous music the province has to offer. Included in their website is a directory of Indigenous musicians based in Manitoba, a listing of upcoming live music events, and music resources for aspiring indigenous musicians in Manitoba.
  • Museum of Canadian Music (MOCM) - Canada's largest private music archive, started by Robert Williston in 2005. Features over 700,000 sound recordings by 3,500 musicians.

Canadian Music Streaming:

  • CBC Listen - CBC Listen provides music playlists and live music radio for free to Canadians. Again, please utilize this resource extensively as you pay for it with your tax dollars! Put those sweet dollars to good use!
  • Nikamowin - A music streaming platform for indigenous artists, by indigenous artists. There is endless indigenous talent to be found here, please check it out!

Music Publication Archives:

Canadian Music Awards:

  • The Junos - Canada's single largest and most important music awards. The Junos are held every year with a wide variety of categories artists can be nominated for. It is always a blast, please be sure to follow them closely as you may find incredible new music based on the nominations.
  • CCMA Awards - The Canadian Country Music Association (CCMA) does a yearly music awards ceremony in which they recognize Canadian country music talent. If you're a country music love, tune in!
  • The Canadian Folk Music Awards - Canada has an incredibly rich folk music scene, indicated by the countless folk music festivals that occur around the country each year. These awards give recognition to the cream of the crop in a deep pool of music ability.
  • The Polaris Music Prize - This award is for the best album of the year based purely on artistic merit, not sales, genre, or label.

Useful, Non-Canadian Resources:

  • MusicBrainz/ListenBrainz - MetaBrainz is a non-profit organization based out of California that seeks to create the world's ultimate music information database. MusicBrainz is their primary project, which serves as an incredible resource by providing users the option to search for music talent based on area. One can find musicians throughout Canada, in specific provinces, or specific cities or towns. ListenBrainz is a joint project which serves as a music tracker much in the same way lastfm is. ListenBrainz's radio feature allows users to find musicians utilizing specific tags, such as the country they're from, the genre they specialize in, or both.
  • ReverbNation While owned by Singaporean company BandLab Technologies, ReverbNation's search feature allows one to find musicians within certain countries and localities using their Location search.
  • BandCamp - BandCamp, while American, has incredible search features to help one find Canadian music and musicians. One can combine genre tags and the area in which they wish to find musicians. BE CAUTIOUS: sometimes non-Canadian music will appear in results as they are posted on the pages of Canada-based music publishers. Big example of this is non-Canadian electronic musicians appearing in results due to their music being published on the pages of a record label based in Canada, such as Monstercat.
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Joey Nowyuk hails from a small town by the name of Pangnirtung in Nunavut. This track does an amazing job combining traditional Inuit music with modern pop, creating a beautiful upbeat song anybody will love!

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Band hails from Mississauga! Dog Drive Mantis' music category is a wonderful listen if you're big into fusion instrumental music.

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Cousin Harley is a wonderful Blues band that hails from Vancouver! Please give their stuff a listen, it's genuinely all incredible.

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Sorry for the inconvenience! This week we're skipping the weekly discussion post in order to regularly schedule them on Mondays. After this however, there shouldn't be any gaps for the foreseeable future.

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Pegmode hails from Edmonton! Please give the album a full listen, it's incredible!

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Band hails from Burlington, Ontario.

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submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by BinzyBoi@lemmy.ca to c/maplemusic@lemmy.ca
 
 

Welcome to the first iteration of a weekly series in this community called Artist Spotlight! In this series, once a week, a Canadian musician will be featured to showcase their outstanding talents. The first musician to be featured this week is Femtanyl, but please, if you have any suggestions for next week, leave them in the comments where they will be reviewed!

Femtanyl is a music producer hailing from Toronto! She has had numerous releases in the breakcore and dnb genres, and has created an underground culture based around her style of music.

A trans woman, she creates the art for her own releases, and focuses the themes of her music on her struggles in being trans.

Please give her works a listen if you haven't already. Outside of her talents in music, she's very talented with comedy and down-to-Earth conversation and is a lovely individual.

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DijahSB is a great non-binary musician from Toronto. Give the full album by them a listen!

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Band is based out of Regina.

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