Montréal seems to be doing fairly well as far as our international appeal as a major creative centre is concerned. Aside from Arcade Fire’s big Grammy win and some solid buzz for Barney’s Version, we all know the music scene is well developed and growing. I can think of many people I know who are in bands, or who spin, or who have hosted radio shows, or otherwise perform. We have great music festivals and, in some cases, half-decent buskers too. It is a city which lives and breathes music – but in order to achieve and attract greatness, you have to pump out a lot of experiments and blind-stabs-in-the-dark; here’s a retrospective:

The Montréal Playlist:

1. Corey Hart – Sunglasses at Night
2. Men Without Hats – The Safety Dance
3. Offenbach feat. Vic Vogel – Les Blues me Guettent
4. Priestess – Run Home
5. The Planet Smashers – Life of the Party
6. Frank Marino & Mahogany Rush – Dragonfly
7. Jerry Doucette – Mama Let him Play
8. Harmonium – Depuis l’Automne
9. Aldo Nova – Fantasy
10. April Wine – Fast Train
11. Chromeo – Tenderoni
12. Kid Koala – pretty much all of Your Mom’s Favourite DJ
13. Leonard Cohen – First We Take Manhattan (every Montréaler’s dream)
14. William Shatner – Common People
15. Beau Dommage – Tous les Palmiers
16. Walter Rossi – Sniffin’ the Breeze
17. Pink Floyd’s The Wall – inspired by an unfortunate event at the Big O

This is by no means an exhaustive list, nor is it even that great of a playlist, and there are many artists I purposely excluded – just trying to demonstrate that there’s a lot of trends and currents at play, and a rather immense pool of culture to draw from.