The NYT has done a significant feature on the anglo music scene in Montreal. It's mentioning it in the same breath as Seattle, Minneapolis and Austin (OK, if you're 25 or younger, that might not mean much, but trust me; once upon a time ... :) ).
Anyway, here's an excerpt:
ONTREAL
THE search for the next big thing frequently ends up in small places. Hidebound by cloying commercial radio and clueless record executives, the American pop music scene has frequently depended on cities at the edges of the cultural map to provide a much-needed shot of originality. Seattle, Minneapolis, Austin, Tex., and Athens, Ga., have all served as temporary pivot points, churning out bands and defining the sound of the moment. Even Omaha had its 15 minutes not so long ago. The momentary consensus seems to come out of nowhere - as if someone blows a whistle only those in the know can hear, and suddenly record executives and journalists are crawling all over what had previously been an obscure locale.
So which American city is the next stop on this fickle, itinerant history? It's a trick question for the time being, because the answer seems to be Montreal.
Not French Montreal, either: the next big pop movement will not involve accordions accompanied by crooning chanteuses. This one involves a coven of English speakers who have banded together up and down Boulevard St. Laurent in the Mile End neighborhood, filling lofts, community centers, bars and restaurants with sumptuous noise. Montreal, which leaves serious business to Toronto and revels its a work-to-live ethic, has drawn Anglophone from all over Canada to form bands, record labels and a full-blown scene.
The French speakers may own the town - they are a 60 percent majority - but English-speaking bands are the ones being heard beyond the city limits. Locked out for the most part by Quebec radio and television, at least a dozen Montreal acts are reversing the normal United States-Canadian cultural polarity, producing records that have American audiences and record companies paying rapt attention. The band Arcade Fire stormed into American consciousness last year with a grand, swelling, choir-inflected sound. Their transnational incursion has been accompanied by the catchy lyricism of Sam Roberts, the oddball pop of the Unicorns and the romantic goth-pop of the Dears, along with a host of other local bands. Vice magazine, a foul-mouthed, hilarious Montreal-bred phenomenon, is now in Brooklyn with a record label that includes hometown acts like the Stills and Chromeo. Toss in the more mainstream success of Simple Plan - about two million units sold - you can hear music with a Montreal address on any radio in America.