With the emergence of Arcade Fire in 2005 and the attention focused on its underground music scene, Montreal began to be referred to as “the epicenter of indie rock” (Niimi 2007), prompting Spin to declare Canada “now officially cool” (Perez 2005). But what the media failed to address in their quest to define the “Montreal sound” is the historical connection between the Montreal scene and progressive rock, a genre deemed so “uncool” by some critics that it was once called “an embarrassing dead end” (Sanneh 2017).

 

In this paper, I argue that scenes must be defined not only in terms of what they represent today, but also in the way they inherited the traditions of older generations. In the 1970s, Quebec was one of the first places in North America to embrace progressive bands like Genesis and Pink Floyd (Kelly 2017), giving rise to a thriving local scene in Montreal with groups such as Harmonium, Octobre and Maneige. Although relying on different strategies, many Montreal indie bands exhibit progressive features, such as the large-scale pieces of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, the elaborate instrumentation of Arcade Fire, the jarring structural changes of Malajube and the languid space-rock of The Besnard Lakes.

 

This presentation will build on the existing literature on scenes (Straw 1991; Connell and Gibson 2003; Kruse 2003; Bennett and Rogers 2016) to explore the influence of progressive rock in Montreal while challenging the notion that indie scenes often seem interchangeable in terms of style. My goal is also to discuss the conflicting nature of progressive rock, whose lingering influence often remains unacknowledged by alternative bands (Holm-Hudson 2002). Indeed, most Montreal groups would probably reject the idea of being associated with progressive rock, but still gave us 20-minute songs, odd time signatures and concept albums about living in the suburbs.

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Keywords: indie rock, Montreal, music scenes, progressive rock, music criticism