Blog But is Toronto really the best city for music in the world? Really?

After a big (if characteristically, even frustratingly, humble) pat-on-the-back cover story by The Grid last week, the city is wondering: Is Toronto really the best music city on the planet? A rebuttal by the Toronto Standard’s Anupa Mistry, pointing out The Grid’s apparent omissions, says no. We’ve got our own thing going on (yes, Drake, The Weeknd, Austra all cropped up on The Guardian and New York Magazine’s “best music of the year” lists) but it’s hard to deny that we live in a city with a cost of living and cultural ethos that aren’t exactly conducive for struggling musicians. 

Let’s weigh Toronto against, oh, let’s say, Montreal. There, it seems like anyone with a cape and an iPod full of break beats can be a witch house solo artist. The city’s emergent status as a fantasy camp for frustrated Torontonians seeking sabbatical (I myself lived there for a few months this summer) may grate at times for those tired of hearing how much easier it is to make art in Canadian EuroDisney. But it’s hard to argue with $300 rent and a music community that actually encourages its artists to collaborate, thanks to all of the accessible studio space and an audience that not only goes to shows, but dances at them. Even Hogtown booster Diamond Rings is currently recording his anticipated follow-up album there, not here. 

Montreal’s banner music event is Pop Montreal, a DIY festival that blends the city’s communal art and music scenes together in an all-out extravaganza that the entire music community participates in (the Anglo parts, anyway). Toronto has CMW (the weirdo corporate industry showcase with I Mother Earth headlining this year, along with motherfucking Slash), and the Now-fronted NXNE—two fests that critics and musicians alike largely label confused and inconsequential clusterfucks. Yes, we have Wavelength (downsized but still kicking ass, if this year’s anniversary lineup is any indication), and yes, we have Arts & Crafts, Telephone Explosion, and Paper Bag Records. (R.I.P. to Three Gut, Over The Top Festival, and many other happenings you can lambast me in the comment section for forgetting later.) Yes, we have as many disparate rap, noise, classical, jazz, punk, and dance scenes as we have venues to play them. 

But you can’t point to two rap/R&B artists (including one who has barely performed live) and a breakout electro band as signs of a revolution, just as the fluke success of Crystal Castles, Broken Social Scene, and Fucked Up didn’t mean that moving to Toronto would guarantee instant fame for your band in the mid-to-late ’00s. Sorry to pour down some haterade but, like any scene, Toronto’s ebbs and flows, and it’s not getting any easier for burgeoning bands to flourish. The rise of gentrification and hyperbolic civic boosterism—can someone just figure out where the actual best brunch in Toronto is?—make it impossible for any discernable criticism to get through. Pretty much every publication in Toronto is guilty of this. (Us, and especially me, too.) Our city is growing at an exponential rate that makes it impossible to tell what’s good anymore, so it had better be the best, if only for the search engine optimization. 

Two weeks ago, a study conducted by music industry publication Pollstar ranked the top 100 concert venues in the world by ticket sales. Clocking in at 89 was Toronto’s only contribution to the list, Lee’s Palace. (In comparison, Montreal’s Metropolis was No. 9.) While the study is biased (many venues in Toronto do not report their statistics to the American organization), it does raise an interesting point: How many Torontonians are actually going to shows? And when you can buy a Prince ticket in the 100 level for $69 the same day of the concert, what constitutes a noteworthy musical event anymore? 

Being the “best” is a subjective state. For Andre Mayer’s Grid article, it meant linking to favourable year-end coverage by New York critics from SPIN, The New York Times, and New York Magazine to prove his point. An even weaker argument was from a study by Richard Florida at The Atlantic, who ranked what music scene reigned supreme based on Pitchfork’s 100 songs of the year list. (We came in fourth, guys!)

Drake’s slam success and constant T.Dot-repping is appreciated. (Who doesn’t love a Jays cap turned juuuust to the side?) But The Weeknd is about as Torontonian as a charcuterie plate. House Of Balloons fits into a rap paradigm that has nothing to do with what city Abel Tesfaye lives in. He’s not exactly crafting verses about Rob Ford’s budgetary costs and hooking up on the Dufferin bus. Publications tend to adopt the success of Toronto-based artists because it’s convenient for them and it makes our city look good. But it’s hard to determine how such civic boosterism actually contributes something to the state of music criticism in Toronto. Aren’t we supposed to hate it when our friends become successful? Or at the very least, pretend we’re used to it? 

Austra (née Katie Stelmanis) sold out The Phoenix late last year. Twelve months prior to that, she was an indie artist in a tent dress trying to find a new sound. In the time since, her band’s orchestral electro has become spine-tingling, with a success that’s completely unexpected. At a performance at the 2011 Polaris Awards, I couldn’t take my eyes off her. But though five out of the 10 short list nominees were from Toronto, the winner ended up being Arcade Fire, who also won a Grammy. While whoever wins the Polaris can sometimes feel arbitrary (Owen Pallett did win the inaugural award in 2006, but then again, more recently, so did Montreal’s Karkwa), it’s a good indication that we’re in as fine form as ever—whatever that means. 

Then again, with the rise of the Internet, music has become global. Scenes evolve as much in SoundCloud accounts as they do basement rock clubs. And compared to New York’s constant feeding frenzy of bands, venues, criticism, and hype, Toronto might as well be Baltimore. Our success in comparison to places like New York will always feel unlikely, which may be way we need to justify our pride by deferring to American press. And anyway, our conception of new is often just that—fragmentary, phantasmal. We’re used to places like New York being places where things happen and so set about scanning their college radio bands (or, uh, music blogs) for next happening thing. And now, maybe, other places in the world are starting to see Toronto like this. 

But how does Drake, Austra, and The Weeknd’s success prove anything about Toronto? It seems to say more about the way music is disseminated online. And if the goal of being successful in Canada is making it to America, shouldn’t we be more protective of our artists, awarding them the opportunities and funding that will allow them to stay here? 

I’m all about Toronto owning our success and celebrating what’s exciting and dynamic about our local music community. But being tapped by The New York Times does not mean you’re an indie upstart who’s done good. Find some novel acts and start the blog buzz anew. Go to shows, not “DJ nights” curated by guys scrolling through iPod playlists (but please do come to mine), and tweet about who you like. Buy records. Check out the Toronto music listings and see something new.

Music isn’t pizza. Or roti. Or goddamn brunch. And in our rush to quantify and index everything as being, somehow, holistically the best, we Torontonians tend to glaze over the crags, fissures, and cultural pockets where greatness can reside. And we should be wary, too. If the eyes of the world actually are on us, all of our questing to be the best may scan as the anxiety of never being good enough.