Heard it on the radio

There are three songs that play every day, without fail, on the radio station my office mates and I listen to. One of them is predictable, so I'm going to give you a second to guess it.

[Insert Jeopardy theme music]

If you said "All of Me" by John Legend you'd be absolutely correct (unless of course you were playing jeopardy, in which case, you will have lost the points for not saying "what is 'All of Me’ by John Legend”). But I digress...  based on my completely non-scientific calculations, this song plays no fewer than three times a day, as per radio requirements to beat an IT! song into submission so that everyone ends up hating it by the time it leaves the charts.

But it's the two other mainstays that have baffled me for weeks: The late 90's one-hit wonder "Steal My Sunshine" by Len and Daniel Powter's "Bad Day", which is arguably a one-hit wonder, circa 2004.

Why? Does the daytime DJ have a particular nostalgia for these tunes? Do they have a niche of listeners that are suspended in time, constantly requesting these songs? Is someone at the radio station having a perpetually 'bad day' because someone 'stole their sunshine,' and this is the only way they can vent and release those feelings?

A few days ago, I had a little a-ha moment. "Daniel Powter is Canadian, from BC" I said to my co-worker. I wasn't sure about Len. I kept my Canadian-artist radar well-tuned while living in the States so I could unfailingly point out to anyone within earshot which actors and musicians and other celebrities rightfully belonged to Canada's tally of talent and success. Let's just say Len never came up in the four years I was down there. Fortunately, a quick Google search confirmed my suspicion. "Len is a Canadian alternative rock group from Toronto..."

Enough said.

The radio station is simply attempting to meet the mandated minimum Canadian content requirements. (I vaguely remember finding out that tidbit- that Canadian radio stations have to play a certain percentage of Canadian content- when I was in high school).

I know 15 years wasn’t THAT long ago, but there's got to be more recent Canadian music, hasn't there? I mean, I was kind of out of the loop on Canadian music for the four years I lived below the 49th parallel (Justin Bieber was about all I knew about the Canadian music scene, and that depressed me), but it can't have been one massive drought in homegrown talent.

Speaking of that former mop-head… Bieber is definitely within the genre-realm of the station in question (don't judge us!) so why have I never heard a single one of his tunes on this station?  (Not that I want to, I just ask for argument's sake, based on the fact that 1. Many of his songs have achieved or exceeded the level of popularity as Steal My Sunshine or Bad Day and 2. They are much more recent).

Like the true nerd that I am, I had to find an answer. So I referred to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission’s Radio Regulations. They use four elements to qualify songs as being Canadian:

-         Music: the music is composed entirely by a Canadian

-         Artist: the music is, or the lyrics are, performed principally by a Canadian

-         Performance: the musical selection consists of a live performance that is recorded wholly in Canada or performed wholly in Canada and broadcast live in Canada

-         Lyrics: the lyrics are written entirely by a Canadian

The catch is that in order for a given song to qualify, it has to meet at least two of the four requirements. In other words, simply being a Canadian doesn’t guarantee that the songs you perform and/or popularize will count as Canadian content. Apparently, highly successful Canadian artists like Celine Dion, Avril Lavigne and Shania Twain have gone to great lengths to use recording studios in Canada, specifically to maintain CanCon status.

Others have not. In a very few cases, the CRTC has been flexible. To accommodate a new album from Bryan Adams in 1991 they approved a change stipulating that songs counted as Canadian content if a Canadian received half the credit for both the music and the lyrics.

Still, some can’t meet those standards. Take for instance, Bieber’s 2012 smash ‘Boyfriend’. It shot to #1 in Canada, got the Glee treatment, was certified 3X platinum here in the Great White North and got a ton of radio play—but nary a spin of it counted as Canadian content, despite being performed and co-written by a Canadian (Bieber had several co-writers so he didn’t get half credit).

Now, the fact that songs by internationally successful artists like Bieber or Drake don’t meet Canadian content regulations doesn’t really bug me. Obviously, they don’t need the extra boost to increase exposure in Canada.

But when you think about it, in 2012 Canadians were not only subjected to ‘Boyfriend’ playing on the radio multiple times a day, but radio stations still had to stack the playlist with old music to actually meet the requirements (Up to 40 percent between certain hours)!

The CRTC states these regulations were designed “primarily to increase exposure of Canadian musical performers, lyricists and composers to Canadian audiences” and to “strengthen the Canadian music industry”.

Don't get me wrong-- I think it’s great to make sure that there is plenty of airspace for fledgling Canadian artists to break through the noise and chart dominance of American pop “icons” and flavors of the week. (The fact that this "exposure" doesn't seem to have done much to sustain the commercial success of either Len or Daniel Powter- both of whom have continued to release music over the years without repeating their early success- is kind of irrelevant.) 

What bothers me is that is not what I’m hearing. Instead, I’m hearing radio stations resort to one-hit wonders from the 90s to meet these quotas. 

Doesn’t that sort of defeat the purpose of these regulations?