IASPM Canada 2023 Article prize winner: Andrew deWaard, Brian Fauteux & Brianne Selman's (2022) "Independent Canadian Music in the Streaming Age"
IASPM CA
This article seeks to both describe and respond to the precarious position of Canadian independent musicians in the streaming era. Its two-part methodology is comprehensive and impressively well integrated. In the first part, a broad structural overview of the new Canadian music industries is presented, situating them within a multinational context.
In the second part, an ethnographic study rooted in the experiences of seventeen independent musicians in Winnipeg and Edmonton allows these structural issues to be understood in terms of local musical practice. The article then fuses these perspectives, developing clear themes from the structural analysis and ethnography and using them to provide a series of recommendations and ideas to foster a more equitable, community-based music culture.
Overall, the article provides important updates to the existing literature on the macro structure of Canadian music industries, while at the same time performing a potentially significant intervention into policy and local practices in order to address inequities and challenges experienced by independent Canadian musicians. It is also timely in considering the effects of the recent COVID pandemic on live performance, and in making significant contributions to the study of streaming. The methodology and reliance on evidence are rigorous, while at the same time the ethnography is performed with sensitivity to the sometimes extreme challenges and effects experienced by musicians, maintaining a welcome focus on the wellbeing of artists and of others involved in musical communities.