How is the Canadian music industry coping behind the scenes during COVID-19? Let’s take a look.
The times are weird and getting weirder–and they’re getting more dire for people associated with the Canadian music industry. How are they coping? Michael Raine at Canadian Musician Magazine has this look.
“No one saw this coming. Not like this, at least. Just two months is all it took for the music industry to be turned on its head. On Jan. 11th, China reported its first COVID-19 death. On March 12th, the Juno Awards were cancelled at the last minute – just one in a wave of cancellations that hit the industry like a tsunami. For many in the Canadian music world, it seems, that was the moment they knew Canada would not be miraculously exempt from the pandemic’s fallout. As it has done to many industries, COVID-19 has devastated the music world and now everyone – quite literally every single person who makes a living from music – is trying to figure out what lies ahead.
“In late April, Canadian Musician spoke with five prominent people in different segments of the Canadian music industry – an artist and advocate, a manager, an agent, an association head, and a label executive – to get a behind-the-scenes snapshot of the crisis.
“To paraphrase Hemingway, this crisis hit the music industry slowly, then all at once.”
