With the recent exodus of high-profile artists pulling their catalogues from Spotify in protest of misaligned values, Canadian Celtic folk-rocker and Great Big Sea co-founder Séan McCann is nodding right along in agreement beside them.

The chain of events surrounding artists like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell’s departure confirms what the artist has long felt: “Spotify’s decision to prioritize certain creators on the app underscores the company’s profit-at-any-cost priority,” McCann says. “This proves it was never about the music, and it’s artists who are ultimately paying the price.”

For his part, McCann’s solo catalogue held over 87,000 followers on Spotify, and had 52 songs uploaded for streaming.

“After five years, my solo catalogue has earned a sum total of $640.25 on Spotify,” McCann reveals — adding that other platforms, including Apple, are similar enough. “I found myself asking: Spotify founder Daniel Ek has a personal net worth of more than $4.7 Billion, but he can only ‘afford’ to pay songwriters $0.003 per stream?”

The year is 1998 and the Swedish Communication Minister Ines Uusman says in one of the biggest newspapers that the Internet is just s trend that will soon die, or like we say in Swedish the internet is just a fly. In reality, she didn’t, the reporter was making a good selling headline. But she is forever associated with it. This is what she really said:
“ I do not dare to have a very definite opinion, but I do not think that people, in the long run, will want to spend as much time, as it actually takes, surfing the net. Sitting and surfing the net takes a whole lot of time. What is it good for? Maybe it's something that has grown up now. Everyone talks about the internet, but maybe it's temporary and then the focus becomes more specified.”

Of course she has been mocked over the past twenty years just like we did with Digital Equipment Corporation founder Ken Olsen’s famous quote in 1977; “There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home." Today we even carry around our computers in our pockets.

Celebrated Canadian musician Julian Taylor has garnered a pretty cool position as guest curator of the SPOTIFY playlist, newly named “Afro + Indigenous” – a name that Taylor requested specifically, to pay homage to his own heritage and in light of February as Black History Month. For more information please visit any of the links below or Taylor’s website.

Not only has Taylor been recently nominated for five 2022 Native American Music Awards for Best Debut Artist, Country Recording, Folk Recording (both for his highly acclaimed 2020 album The Ridge), Male Vocalist, and Country Video (for the title track), plus two International Acoustic Music Award (IAMA) nominations for Folk/Americana/Roots and Best Male Artist, but he has also been invited to guest curate one of his favourite Spotify playlists.

Two Black Canadian brothers of Caribbean parentage, Rashaan Rori Allwood and Yanick Allwood present a powerful concert that explores how Black artists tell our stories and celebrate community through music. They include performance artist and ‘fine mover’ Shayna Jones to round out a program that is powerfully inspiring.

Black History Month Music was created by Joy Bullen, Culturepreneur, to introduce Canadians to young, Black, Canadian, musicians who shatter stereotypes and are themselves in the process of making history. Since 2015, they present performances featuring musicians who excel in areas where Black voices and presence have often been silenced or ignored.  Each year they partner with cultural and not-for-profit organizations across Canada to entertain and educate diverse audiences. This year’s regional partners are Saskatchewan African Canadian Heritage Museum, The Canadian Museum of Immigration in Halifax, The Vancouver Public Library BC and the Black Business Association of BC.

I received an email from an artist that I don’t really like musically. Maybe someone else thinks they are good it’s just not my taste of music. I just wonder who that someone else is, frankly, in my opinion, they are quite boring. I’m a nice person though, or at least I think I’m a nice person, so when I got the email I was like, ok it’s probably not good but hey let’s take a listen to them.

I opened the email and in the text there was every error you could possibly do when you send something out. They had added the song as an mp3 file in the mail. There was this story that made no sense about the artist. No release date was there. Nothing around the song and no contact information in order to reply to the email.

With Valentine’s Day around the corner what better thing to do but find new love songs? And “Find Love In Her Soul” by Paul Arow is just that – a pure, straight to the heart love song.

Paul has had a lifelong love of music. He started singing in the Phoenix Boys Choir at age 11, and toured Hawaii, and performed at Phoenix Symphony Hall and Grady Gammage. He sang in the Phoenix Boys choir alumni, and with Mister Mister at Symphony Hall. Paul sang at All State, and with the Phoenix Christian High School choir, and won state competition. He sang with the R&G Singers (Arizona Republic newspaper) at Grady Gammage during college. Paul performed solo and with bands around Phoenix after graduating college. Paul has also been actively involved in worship music around the valley.

Paul started writing songs during high school. After graduating college he became a member of the Arizona Song Writers Association. His involvement with this association helped to hone his song writing skills. Currently he writes, records, and produces his own original compositions.

Canada’s multi-award-winning beacon of the blues Kenny ‘Blues Boss” Wayne has prepared his Hall of Fame talents for takeoff with the announcement of his new album, Blues From Chicago to Paris: A Tribute to Memphis Slim and Willie Dixon — available March 4th via Stony Plain Records.

Check out “Rock and Rolling This House” here:

The 17-track album pays spirited homage to the piano-pounding and bass-slapping bygone legends from a legend himself — all while serving as a rousing and riveting guide to the lively post-war blues scenes of Chicago and Paris.

“Memphis Slim and Willie Dixon were a team, and their styles worked great together,” Wayne says of the artists behind the release’s inspiration. “Out of many other blues piano players I’ve listened to, I found a unique playfulness between these two men, unlike the many other great blues pianists.”

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame have announced the Nominees for 2022.

Dolly Parton is one of several first-time nominees for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame along with a Tribe Called Quest. Also on the ballot are alternative darlings Beck and Kate Bush, New Wave groups DEVO and Duran Duran, and singer-songwriters Lionel Richie and Carly Simon.

Several of the nominees are nominated for the first time. First-time nominees include Eminem, who makes the ballot in his first year of eligibility. An artist or band becomes eligible for induction 25 years after their first commercial recording was released, according to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation.

It’s official: Celebrating its landmark 20th year presenting the finest sounds around, Toronto’s Winterfolk Blues and Roots Festival adds award-winning guitarist and singer/songwriter Sue Foley to this year’s event lineup online February 18th - 20^th, Featuring Sue Foley, Shari Ulrich, Lucy Kaplansky, Mean Mary, Jack de Keyzer Band, Robert Priest, Jerome Tucker Band, Suzie Vinnick, Ori Dagan, Taylor Abrahamse, Ken Whiteley and the Belua Band, Josh Ritchie, David Storey Band, Donne Roberts Band, Julian Taylor & More!

Fresh off the release of her latest album, 2021’s Pinky’s Blues, Sue Foley will close-out the three-day event, rounding out the highly acclaimed roster that includes the best and award-winning musicians across blues, rock, jazz, folk, roots, and more.

Registration to watch the expansive list of 18+ concerts is free, and optional donations collected to assist with festival expenses, the main one being remuneration for artists.

Right now, there is more money in the music industry than ever! Yes, it’s true right now there is money floating around inside the industry than ever. It’s so much that several financial people consider it a financial bubble. So where is it you ask if you work as a musician or in a record company?

Of course, this is floating around in IT companies. In the past years, it has become trendy to invest in IT companies that contain music. Of course, the majority of these companies are start-ups with really no clear or good business structure. Let’s take a look at the second Swedish music wonder.

The first Swedish music wonder was in the 80’s 90’s and beginning in 2000. Here you have many songwriters and artists that made Sweden famous as a creative country with good musicians and songwriters. You have a bunch of cool artists that you know are Swedish beyond ABBA like The Hives, The Cardigans, Eagle Eye Cherry, Avicii, Europe, Ace of Base, Roxette, Ghost, In Flames the list just goes on and on. But at the end of the 90’s, the Swedish government made a decision that would change this wave into what is called the second Swedish music wonder.

Celebrated Canadian musician Julian Taylor has been nominated for five 2022 Native American Music Awards (aka “The Nammys”). Taylor has earned recognition in the categories of Best Debut Artist, Country Recording, Folk Recording (both for his highly acclaimed 2020 album The Ridge), Male Vocalist, and Country Video (for the title track). For more information please visit any of the links below or Taylor’s.

"I'm extremely grateful to The Nammys for this incredible honour, and that my work has been recognized in such a beautiful way," says Taylor. "Congrats to all the nominees."

Legendary singer/songwriter Shirley Eikhard is on her way back to the top with her latest drop, ‘On My Way To You’ and its new single, “Anything Is Possible”.

Check out , “Anything Is Possible” on YouTube here:

The Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame alumni is sharing her talents and vivacious songwriting on a brand new album, full of 12 future classics honing and spotlighting her sensational talent as a songbird and performer.

I was recently approached by yet another company that thought that I would become a big success in the music industry if I would just read their data. Find the next big thing and book the right bands for my festival. This is the third company so far this year 2022. I’m skeptical as there are several problems with the data analysis.

Thriving in the music industry, especially during the past few years, are much the same virtues needed in our day-to-day lives: purpose, knowledge, drive, ingenuity, adaptability… Leave it up to accomplished Canadian progressive rock quartet The Garrett Band to both encapsulate and demonstrate all of these, and more, in their powerful and moving new single, “One More Day”.

Check it out here on YouTube:

The second single release from the band’s fourth studio recording, Sound Evolution, the exceptionally talented Vancouver-based artists don’t shy away from shining the spotlight on some pretty tough subject matter across the five-track EP.

Artists are Cattle! I guess that is what Alfred Hitchcock would say around today's music industry. He once said that actors are cattle. Or what he really said was - Fundamentally, actors are a race apart. This group is divided into two sections: first, those who have talent and have never received any recognition for it, and, second, those who have received recognition without having any talent. Either way, they're cattle.

When asked if he ever said that actors are cattle he replied, I never said all actors are cattle; what I said was all actors should be treated like cattle.

The problem I have today is that the music industry is really treating the artist like cattle. No, I’m talking about the evil record labels, publishers, or agents whatever has been up to artists to call the players in the music industry. Whatever you have to say about the music industry in the past they still cared about artists. Not all of them and of course there were disputes. I’m talking about the new music industry that has emerged in the past ten years. The digital music industry.

In an all-embracing pleading towards peace, folk-rock singer/songwriter Elowynn gently affirms her powerfully poignant and increasingly timely new single, “Stop the Wheel” is very much a protest song.

Check out “Stop the Wheel” on YouTube here:

Drawing a colourful sign on the ‘island of peace’ she so loves, the track directly addresses the heartfelt need for mindfulness in a fractured world — and features moving chants from multi-award winning, Order of Canada members and multi-honourable doctorate recipients Indigenous Canadian artist and activist Buffy Sainte-Marie, and Inuit artist Tanya Tagaq.

It was a tape of an instrumental track that only cost $15 and took 45 minutes to complete.

Harry Wayne Casey and Rick Finch had been doing such demo tapes for acts like Jimmy Bo Horne and Betty Wright for TK Records in Hialiah, Florida in 1974. Casey felt he couldn't sing the vocals because it would take someone with a higher pitched voice. 

Before scrapping the tape, they took it to TK Records owner Henry Stone and Steve Alaimo, the label's A&R (Artists and Repertoire) man.  "Steve flipped over it," Casey told Superseventies.com, "and said not to change a thing.”

Casey and Finch figured Horne or another aspiring singer could do the vocal. When the latter--George McCrae--walked into the studio the next day, the decision was easy. It took only two takes for George to complete the vocals. "Rock Your Baby" would become a #1 hit and the forerunner of disco music…

The pandemic is still continuing to affect us all. We probably must live with it for several years and have more or less adapted to new rules and regulations. This of course has affected a lot of live establishments, festivals, and other things in the live industry. I guess it’s a bit early to start thinking of major tours and gigs again. That is not the phenomenon I would like to write about. I want to tell you how people value things wrong.

As an artist, you have a value, of course, but the value is also very subjective. You think you can get well paid for a show because you know how much time you have spent writing and rehearsing the show. The problem is that a person that runs a gig place or festival is mainly calculating your value by how many people that will buy a ticket or get into the place and consume food and drinks. It doesn’t matter if you have a great fan base in your home city and actually get some payment for a show. As soon as that fans base is not showing up your value is back again to zero. I meet too many people thinking that your value follows along with your name. It’s not, not even with big stars.

Can music and a mindfully-made playlist soothe and improve health and well-being? Multi-award winning Canadian music therapist Jennifer Buchanan knows it to be so, and shares both how (and why) in her new book, Wellness, Wellplayed: The Power of a Playlist.

“Just like our physical health, our mental health requires attention — perhaps now more than ever,” Buchanan says. “When you are in transition or feeling lost, music can be the lifeline you need to get you through to the next step. Even during the most challenging of times, it can reassure us that everything is going to be okay.”

Diving deep to transform absent-minded playlist-making into an artful form of self-care, Buchanan is a lighthouse in the endless sea of songs across Spotify, SoundCloud, and the like. Cover to cover, the Calgary-based author, entrepreneur, and keynote speaker wastes no time harnessing her leading expertise as a Certified Music Therapist (MTA) to guide readers through building their own thoughtfully compiled playlists — and why they should.

It was not an easy task to list the Top 50 songs that came into the Cashbox office in 2021, and I am sure we missed some of the ones that deserve to be on this list.

Our list is compiled by content; songs that were relevant and moving about our current times with the pandemic, racism, the sad discovery of unmarked graves of Residential School Indigenous children, love and hope and great songs both lyrically and musically.

It was also based on statistic numbers of requests on Cashbox Radio and social media posts about these songs and artists.

The Top 50 Pick Hits is not a chart and the positions are based on alphabetical listings.

Please visit online at https://www.cashboxradio.ca/request-a-song-on-cashbox-radio/ to request your favourite songs.

Tune in Friday January 7 @ 9PM EST to hear all these artists on a special feature show.

Cashbox Canada Top 50 Picks for 2021

(in alphabetical order)