The Weird Winnipeg Phenomenon of Phantom of the Paradise
I had a chance to speak to Paul Williams at Canadian Music Week. “I betcha I’ve seen you in Phantom of the Paradise about a hundred times!” I gushed. He gave me a weird look and cocked his head like a spaniel you thinks you’ve lost the plot.
“Really? Why?”
If I had told him I’d grown up in Winnipeg, that would have explained everything. For some inexplicable reason, Phantom of the Paradise was a huge and enduring hit in the city and in much of Manitoba. Why?
Daniel sent me this post that tries to get to the bottom of it. As a fan of the film, I can attest to the veracity of this information.
Awesome, we lived in a similar cocoon in a boarding school in Port Hope, ON. When they played that movie in our school theatre we all went nuts for it. I wore out the eight-track on my Realistic stereo… for real.
In the old days there used to be a genuine difference town-to-town on the top 40 because it was based on phone requests from actual listeners and not national music sales charts. Without the internet and cable there was more opportunity for local communities to develop their own unique identities. We’ve lost something there. It would be interesting to explore what 70s acts got their first toehold in North America from the guys at CHOM FM in Montreal. Heart, Supertramp, Styx… all might have had different career trajectories if they hadn’t broke big in Montreal.
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