Talk:The R3-30

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I stumbled across this show the other day and looked back at some of the “top 30" lists and either this show is a fraud or joke of some sort, or it is being misrepresented here. The show is played across Canada and around the world on Sirius radio so true “listener feedback and requests” would reflect this kind of audience, yet a large percentage of the bands on the list, and even at the very top of the list, are completely obscure Toronto and Southern Ontario bands that are virtually unknown outside of Southern Ontario. Note that this show operates in an indie band context where Chad Van Gaalen and Matt Mayes are well known acts nationally, and Buck 65 and The New Pornographers are global superstars, yet 4 or 5 of the top bands on each list I’ve seen I’ve never heard of and virtually all of them have been from Toronto or Southern Ontario. After a searching for more information on them I found that most of these bands have made brief stays on the college charts, but the only place I can find that they are getting anywhere near this level of attention is on this show, and that essentially gives this away as a bogus list of some sort. Dave-

Try filling yourself in on what CBC Radio 3 is. Promoting "obscure" indie acts is the whole point of the station, so listener feedback is obviously going to be based on what people who like the station, and therefore are amenable to hearing and calling in to request bands that aren't yet that well known, are requesting to hear more of among "obscure" stuff that the station already plays and promotes. Prioritizing established acts like Matt Mays and Buck 65, who are already getting airplay on a dozen other Sirius channels as it is, isn't really what the station is about; publicizing and promoting emerging artists has always been the station's primary mission statement. And Sirius is not "around the world"; it's available only in Canada and the United States. I won't bother pointing out that a Wikipedia talk page is not the place to discuss your own personal opinion of the topic. Bearcat 05:18, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

It’s very interesting, and I suspect very telling, that you are trying to fundamentally misrepresent the point I raised. But first some context for other readers here. The CBC is a public broadcaster in Canada and is paid for by taxpayers from coast to coast and it has a mandate as a network, as does CBC 3 as a channel, to fairly represent artists in all parts of Canada. Second, let me restate what I explained in my first post about obscurity. The indie scene is almost by definition obscure to many Canadians, but within the scene bands tour and they get attention and they get playing time on University and college radio stations and on other independent stations like CKUA and others. Bands like Shotgun & Jaybird and Great Aunt Ida are bands that have toured and are beginning to make a name for themselves in the national indie scene. They have become popular enough that they have spent a number of weeks on the national campus radio charts and to have risen quite high on those charts, and therefore they aren’t obscure to that audience anymore, although they are new to them. This is the kind of band that CBC's Radio 3 was meant to promote and take up another level in their exposure to a broader Canadian audience. Note also that this R3-30 list is played over the air on Radio 2 on Saturday evenings, which is where I first heard it, so it reaches a much larger and much different audience than it does on Sirius and globally on the internet, and for many of its listeners I’m sure it will be an introduction to the indie scene in Canada. Now, if we look at this R3-30 list, which this Wikipedia entry at least claims is a national list, a statement that was unreferenced I might add, we find in the top 10 alone 4 or 5 bands that will be virtually unknown outside Toronto, or perhaps Southern Ontario. They are bands that have made little and in some cases no impact at all on the national campus radio charts, or in any other national forum that I know of. These bands are obscure even in an indie context, and frankly there is nothing distinguishing about their music that would suggest they should have gotten more national attention. The point, however, is that this cannot possibly be a genuine national list as bands like Henri Faberge & The Adorables, Jon-Rae and the River, Jewish Legend, Uncut, Spiral Beach are virtually unknown outside of Toronto, presuming they are known to some extent even within Toronto. There wouldn’t be enough people outside of Toronto, even if we’re looking at the indie scene, who even know about these bands to vote them on to such a list, let alone get them into the top 10, let alone get 5 of them into the top 10. Also note that the recent lists have also included Tom Waits, who is clearly not a obscure Canadian indie artist by any definition, and Buck 65, a very big name indie artist even in the global context. Bearcat is clearly not only trying to be deceitful and spin what my stated concern was in a different direction, but he also doesn’t even appear to be familiar with what bands on the list, so I’ll just assume that he’s some kind of crank. The suggestion that R3-30 list is some kind of national list was unreferenced so I’ll delete it for the time being. Unfortunately the CBC Radio 3 website has been recently redone and I wasn’t able to quickly find a description of what the show is intended to be. I’ll keep looking as they work out the bugs in the site and if by some chance it does claim to be a national list then there is some serious fraud going on here and not only are Canadian taxpayers being cheated, but even more importantly Canadian indie musicians are being cheated, and I would find that truly despicable and I and every other fan of Canadian indie music should go up the ladder at the CBC and do our best to see that that fraud was put to an end. There is some truly great Canadian indie music being produced these days and deserving artists who have produced quality, original work, and who have done the touring to get their music established in the Canadian indie scene, very much deserve exposure on our public broadcaster, and if someone is manipulating a prominent indie forum on our public broadcaster to try to pass off a group of very marginal acts from his home region, acts that have not produced the same level of work and who have not earned the same kind of national indie audience, as some kind of nationally important or even nationally up and coming indie bands, then that is a fraud and an attack on Canadian independent music, and that is something that I and all Canadians concerned about Canadian music and culture should take very seriously. Back to the main point, however. This is clearly not a national list, and Bearcat’s behaviour and apparent lack of familiarity with what is actually played on the show lead me to discount him as some kind of crank, so I’ll go ahead and delete the reference to this being a national show until the website is updated to the point where something definitive can be found on what the show is claiming to be about. Dave - 137.186.223.97

One: I'm very familiar with what's actually played on the show; I listen to it every week.

Two: I'm most certainly not misrepresenting your point.

Three: I've heard of every band you single out here as "obscure", and they're obviously not known only in Southern Ontario, because CBC Radio 3 operates out of Vancouver and plays all of these acts regularly. So nobody in Toronto can stack the list in favour of his own preferred artists despite their purported lack of attention elsewhere. And you're going to have to back up the claim that the bands are unknown outside of Toronto, because it doesn't jibe with (a) the fact that a station based out of Vancouver plays them, (b) the fact that they've toured across Canada and gotten press coverage across Canada, (c) the fact that Jon-Rae and the River are from Vancouver, and only moved to Toronto within the past year or so, (d) the fact that campus radio across Canada has played all of the bands you single out as "obscure". Every last one of them made the national campus radio charts in 2006; every last one of them got press and blogosphere notice; every last one of them got into the CBC Radio 3 playlist (which, again, is programmed in Vancouver); every last one of them has toured across Canada and internationally. That you haven't heard of them doesn't make those facts any less true.

Four: both Shotgun & Jaybird and Great Aunt Ida are also on CBC Radio 3's playlist and on the R3-30 charts, so you really don't have a viable case that the CBC is somehow ignoring the "real" stuff. And, for the record, I've contributed to the Wikipedia articles on both Great Aunt Ida and Shotgun & Jaybird.

Five: you're certainly not going to be able to make any kind of convincing case that Kinnie Starr, Amy Millan, The Stills, The Hidden Cameras and Chad VanGaalen are too obscure for it to be worth mentioning that they've hit the #1 spot. That's certainly not any kind of Toronto-centrism; those are all internationally known acts. Tokyo Police Club, perhaps not so much, I grant you that. But they still got to #1 and have gotten attention in Rolling Stone.

Six: CBC Radio 3 is not restricted to playing exclusively Canadian music, and never was; that their main purpose is to promote up-and-coming Canadian indie acts doesn't mean they can't and don't throw the odd Tom Waits or The Decemberists into the mix. Their Canadian content requirement is 85 per cent, not 100 per cent.

Seven: campus radio charts are highly subjective, very much reflecting the personal tastes of DJs. So I fail to understand why subjectivity in a campus radio chart makes campus radio a bastion of musical integrity, while even the remotest possibility of that very same subjectivity entering into a CBC Radio 3 chart suddenly makes R3 some vast fraud being committed upon the taxpayers of Canada.

And, finally, seven: you can dismiss me as a crank all you like, but I'm a Wikipedia administrator — have been for a few years, actually — and there's no place for anyone's personal opinions in the article. Not yours, not mine. Bearcat 08:42, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not going to get into this argument (actually I didn't even read the whole thing, so delete this comment if this is already being discussed) but I'm pretty sure that the R3-30 isn't just "determined by airplay, listener feedback and requests". I'm pretty the chart is somewhat of a human construct. I'm pretty sure the people who put the show together select the songs they do based on their own criteria. Sometimesthinking 06:13, 14 January 2007 (UTC)