page_title: Rock music of Canada
section_title: 1990s
hierarchical_section_title: Rock music of Canada / History / 1990s
caption_attribution_description: Alanis Morissette. Performing a live concert in the Espacio Movistar, Barcelona, June 2008.
context_page_description: Rock music of Canada is a wide and diverse part of the general music of Canada, beginning with American and British style rock and roll in the mid-20th century. Since then Canada has had a considerable impact on the development of the modern popular music called rock. Canada has produced many of the genre's most significant groups and performers, while contributing substantively to the development of the most popular subgenres, which include pop rock, progressive rock, country rock, folk rock, hard rock, punk rock, heavy metal and indie rock.
context_section_description: At the start of the 1990s Canadian rock took a distinctive turn. Just as artists from the 1970s competed with disco, artists from the 1990s were competing with Canadian hip hop and American hip hop on the Video and Radio charts.  Glam metal and  arena rock had lost its position as Hip hop, alternative rock and  grunge became the new sound of the next generation. Canadian publications devoted to Canadian rock and pop music, either exclusively or in tandem with more general editorial content directed to young readers, was expanding rapidly in the 90s. It was a decade of incredible nationalism, at least as far as English-Canadian music was concerned. The 1971 CRTC rules (25% Canadian content on Canadian radio, increased to 30 per cent in the 1980s) finally came into full effect and by the end of the decade, radio stations would have to play 35% Canadian content. This led to an explosion of Canadian bands ruling the Canadian airwaves unlike any era before.  This includes  The Headstones, The Tea Party, Matthew Good Band, Moist, Sloan, The Gandharvas, Change of Heart, Skydiggers, Eric's Trip, Limblifter, Salmonblaster, supergarage, Shyne Factory, Doughboys, Crash Test Dummies, The Lowest of the Low, 13 Engines, Odds, I Mother Earth, Big Sugar, Glueleg, Age of Electric, Rymes with Orange, Strapping Young Lad, Bif Naked, Rheostatics, The Watchmen, Moxy Früvous, Rusty, Our Lady Peace, The Philosopher Kings, Junkhouse, Wide Mouth Mason, Pure, Thrush Hermit, cub, The Killjoys, Sandbox, Treble Charger, Big Wreck, The Weakerthans, Propagandhi and The Planet Smashers. Although many of them have not been overly successful in the United States, they remain extremely popular in Canada having much more vitality than their contemporaries from other countries.
  The Barenaked Ladies brought a spotlight on to the Canadian indie market when their album sales began to steamroll based simply on word of mouth and their live shows. The Yellow Tape, released in 1991, became the first indie release by any band to achieve platinum status (100,000 copies) in Canada. The album Stunt became their greatest success, buoyed by "One Week", which coincidentally spent one week at the number one spot on the storied Billboard Hot 100.  Also notable is  The Tragically Hip who signed a long-term record deal with MCA in 1987, but were largely unrecognized until 1989s Up to Here. They went on to establish themselves as one of the most influential bands in Canada. They have never found mainstream success in the United States, but this didn't matter because their Canadian fan base alone was enough to sustain a long and healthy career, with them still playing large stadiums twenty-five years after they started. The band is one of Canada's homegrown heroes — they hold the record for most number one debuts on the Canadian Albums Chart with a total of eight albums. - they have been inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, Canada's Walk of Fame, Royal Conservatory of Music, have won over a dozen Juno Awards from more than thirty nominations, Our Lady Peace, from Toronto were one of the most successful Canadian rock groups of the 1990s; their 1997 effort Clumsy was certified Diamond in Canada and going Platinum in the U.S. which was something that a lot of the Canadian rock groups didn't do in that time.
  In 1996, VideoFACT  launched PromoFACT, a funding program to help new artists produce electronic press kits and websites. This helped Indie rock, that would see a new dominant phase in the mid 1990s just as rock and roll was starting to be a predominant force in the Canadian charts once again. Indie rock was never supposed to be mainstream, but this is the path it took by the end of the decade.  Musically, the late 1990s saw the rock genres of the early 1990s completely grow apart rather than fuse. Each of the genres multiplied and evolved in a fashion largely independent of the others. Perhaps the most dramatic change in lifestyle affected the girls. They were the daughters of the women who had fought for emancipation and equality in the 1960s.
  Canadian women by the
caption: Alanis Morissette, in the Espacio Movistar, Barcelona, 2008.
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