On Thursday, at one of NXNE’s “interactive” panels at the Hyatt Regency hotel, the lobby group Music Canada announced the launch of 4479 Toronto, a branding initiative meant to promote Toronto as, the website claims, “one of the greatest music cities in the world.” Immediately, this raises two questions: the first is (yawn) “Is Toronto one of the greatest music cities in the world?” and the second is “What does 4479 mean?” It’s a reference to Toronto’s geographical location, which is located at 44 degrees longitude and 79 degrees latitude.
“Something we’ve learned on our journey here,” says Music Canada President Graham Henderson (referring to the geographical reference) “is that Canadians get this. Americans don’t.” While I was not personally involved in focus testing the new brand, this struck me as an odd comment (full disclosure: I didn’t get it). After all, if Toronto wants to be known as one of the best music cities in the world, we will be needing validation from our neighbours to the south. Last year, The Grid released an issue with the troll-baiting statement “Toronto is the Best Music City on the Planet” across its cover, but this didn’t really mean anything until the New York Times “co-signed” it.
In attendance at the 4479 panel were, along with Henderson, a Toronto City Councillor, Josh Colle, and representatives from NXNE, Tourism Toronto, and The Corporation of Massey Hall and Roy Thomson Hall. The inspiration for this branding initiative is, as far as I can tell, Austin, Texas. According to the media release, this campaign idea was first discussed at last year’s NXNE when Music Canada released a study comparing Toronto to Austin, a city the panel seemed obsessed with, perhaps because they were all at SXSW in March.
“Over the last twenty years, [Austin has] created a music industry that generates three times as much economic activity as Toronto’s does.” Graham Henderson says “A city a third the size of Toronto generating three times as much economic impact. It gives you a sense of the potential that we have here in Toronto.”
On the surface, it seems fitting that the campaign is based on previous successful initiatives in Austin. After all, 4479 is being launched at a festival that, even in its name, begs for an unfavorable comparison to the Austin-based SXSW (Toronto Standard did its part, calling NXNE “the dorkier, infinitely more Canadian cousin of SXSW”). Yet, does it really make sense? Toronto is home to three times as many people as Austin. We have a more diverse population and a bigger role to play in our country’s economy than Austin. Besides, we Torontonians are pretty committed to our identity as the not-New York of Canada.
Why not base the campaign on a study of New York, whose Brooklyn scene looms over the indie music world? Why not look at Montreal, a city that attracts musicians from across the country? Purity Ring was founded in Edmonton, and Mac DeMarco called Vancouver home while he was recording as Makeout Videotape. Both artists are “Montreal-based” now. Airick Woodhead, the musician behind Doldrums, was a member of Toronto band Spiral Beaches before he made his breakout album (legend has it) on a laptop he borrowed from Montreal’s Claire Boucher (aka Grimes).
I know I sound like a cynic, but like Adam Sternbergh says (in the New York Times blog about The Grid‘s aforementioned Toronto music scene story): “Toronto is intrinsically uncomfortable at being called the best at anything in the world, let alone calling itself the best at anything.” So I guess I should throw my support behind the sensible policy ideas attached to 4479, like the creation of a Music Office at City Hall, which would support music venues, festivals and artists across the city (and could help lobby to prevent things like the possible demolition of the Silver Dollar Room).
“Governments realize that [creative industries are] a great source of jobs and revenue,” says Josh Colle “and the best example of this working, probably in North American history, is actually Toronto, where 20 some odd years ago we had a fledgling film industry. We said ‘why don’t we set up a film office and film advisory board?’ We did, and twenty-five years later, it’s probably our biggest sector in the city and a huge booming growth industry that puts us on the map many times over.”
Presumably, Colle is referring to the Film Office’s success in bring runaway Hollywood productions to the city and not to any semblance of an economically sustainable English Canadian film industry (ha!). But his point–that if we take these policy decisions seriously, and force the city to take them seriously, then we can slowly help create a thriving music industry that can bring money to the city and create jobs for the musicians and music lovers that live in it–is a good one. If the 4479 branding initiative will be remembered for anything, it will be the creation of this Music Advisory Board, not the top-down decision by a group of “industry leaders” to turn Toronto into the next music mecca of North America.
Like New York (but not too much like New York), Toronto can never identify with a music scene in a way that Austin can. There’s no denying that we have a good music scene, but Toronto is also the nation’s centre of finance and the nation’s centre of media. Our rent is too damn high and our bars close too damn early and our alcohol is too damn regulated for our city to be the site of a new musical renaissance.
It’s all good, though. Not every city can be the best. Even if we’ve lost Doldrums, Toronto can still claim Metz, Fucked Up, Austra, Hooded Fang, Drake (maybe?), the various projects of former Broken Social Scene members, and a host of other bands and artists that I don’t have the space to mention. Even if the rest of the world doesn’t notice us, we’ve got it pretty good up here. Maybe, just maybe, Music Canada and the 4479 initiative should focus on that instead of trying to turn Toronto into something else.
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Alan Jones writes about film (and sometimes music) for Toronto Standard. You can follow him on Twitter at @alanjonesxxxv.
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