Toronto rocks!It also raps, cuts dance tracks, sings reggae, plays the blues and performs a mean raga. So the question is: what songs would make your ultimate Toronto playlist?Thatâs what we set out to determine when selecting the top 100 Toronto songs from the cityâs long pop history. Toronto prides itself as a music city, and with the success of so many artists, that pride is reflected back in song. It seems that every generation had its scene, from Yorkville to Queen Street to the rise of the independents and the indie rockers to the woozy R&B thatâs a hallmark of many young artists right now.Drake is one musician who wears this cityâs pride on his sleeve at all times, but heâs certainly not the only artist nowadays who fills his work with shout-outs and references to his hometown â although that wasnât always the case.âThere was a time in Canada, where Canadian artists like Neil Young sang about a town in northern Ontario, and Joni Mitchell talked about blue money and the Maple Leafs, and Murray McLauchlan and âDown by the Henry Mooreâ â people talked about where they were from,â said Denise Donlon, the longtime former MuchMusic and label executive (who is married to McLauchlan). âAnd while I was at MuchMusic, there was moment where especially the big bands, they eschewed mentioning Canadian place names because they thought it might hinder their success in America. And then we came roaring back, with the Barenaked Ladies, Blue Rodeo, The Tragically Hip and âBobcaygeon,â Devon and âMr. Metroâ and all that, so as evidenced by our songs, weâve gone through a self-worth crisis and come back (out) the other side.âThat sense of local pride was always evident in the Barenaked Ladiesâ music when they burst onto the scene 30 years ago out of Scarborough. The group famously went from being banned from playing at Nathan Phillips Square because of ...
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