By nature, the book’s topic is controversial and the disagreements sure to arise.
Now that Bob Mersereau’s latest book, The Top 100 Canadian Singles, is out, the debate is raging — about which song’s in, and which artist is out.
But there’s little substantiated debate over the fact that government regulation helped make them all possible.
Nearly forty years ago, the Canadian Radiotelevision and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) established a system of ‘quotas’ to regulate the amount of Canadian content broadcast here, including the top tunes on radio.
The Cancon rules were devised to stimulate cultural production at home by ensuring greater exposure for Canadian artists in marketplaces both here and abroad.
Very controversial at the time, Cancon is now seen by most as a complete success — and by some as key to media’s success in the future.
The country now has a well-established music industry infrastructure; artists, agents, managers, recording facilities, distribution chains and live performance locales across the country, many of which would not exist without Cancon. Could the same be true for online and digital media?
Although his purpose and desire in releasing the Top 100 list was not to broadly promote Cancon per se, Mersereau clearly sees how big a part Cancon played in the growth and success of Canadian music and radio broadcasting.
“It’s the perfect example,” he notes in an interview conducted the day of the book’s release. “Radio spread these songs, and to me, that’s everything. Broadcasters needed a high percentage of Canadian content, so hit after hit came out as a result; that leads to more exposure for the artists and more chances to connect with the audience.”
Nevertheless, Mersereau sees Canadian music “as the most underserved” in terms of getting its stories told.
“British and American music is covered extensively,” he bemoans. “Hundreds of books have been written about the influence, nuances, characters and legacies of British and American musicians, but books about Canadians are strangely absent.”
The book is both a great read and a great reference, and it’s the “kind of book I wish I had as a DJ”, Mersereau laughs, teasing to his fear of “dead air” and his own history in Canadian radio.
He’s been a volunteer on campus radio, and a long-time arts reporter for CBC Television.
Long before that, however, he’d been reporting on the music biz: his column, Backbeat, launched in 1994 in The Coast Magazine in Halifax and then moved to The Telegraph-Journal in Saint John.
In 2024, he stirred national debate with his first book, The Top 100 Canadian Albums, as he took on the challenge of publicly ranking what are, at the end of the day, very personal preferences.
That list — topped by Neil Young’s Harvest — came after connecting with more than 600 DJs, record store people, musicians and music journalists from across the country.
Now, with The Top 100 Canadian Singles, he again surveyed the country’s musical landscape, getting more than 800 industry participants and “just plain music fans” to submit their choices.
Beyond the list itself, the large coffee table book is filled with great colour and B&W photographs (some never before published) and engaging stories about the artists, the tunes and the industry from which they sprang. Background factoids, music trivia, cover and single sleeve artwork and more is featured in the book, gorgeously published by Goose Lane Editions in New Brunswick.
Not surprisingly, there are artists and record sales people who wish for this kind of book, too — some of the records listed in the first book definitely got a bump in sales, Mersereau has been told, even to the point of an album re-issue for April Wine, and the Electric Jewels recording.
Maybe that sales ripple comes from older fans seeking to refresh their failing memories, but maybe too it’s reflective of a whole new generation of music fans, discovering a little bit more about music they didn’t know about before. There’s also a strong international following for Canadian music, using tools the industry never had before.
Like Facebook, the online social network site, where there’s a page dedicated to the book and discussion about its content. “It’s a new era of multi-platform opportunities,” Mersereau observes, but while the tools are different, the goals are the same.
Musicians, performing artists, content creators of all stripes want to connect with their audience and to build loyalty among their followers, all the while staying true to their music and maintaining their artistic integrity.
So, maybe Mersereau’s next book will be The Top 100 Canadian Downloads; and maybe by then, there will be a stronger — perhaps regulated — Canadian presence in the content so distributed.
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