Saturday, May 08, 2021

A census playlist is a bizarre but strangely endearing idea

I just completed the 2021 Canadian Census, but one thing I apparently didn't notice was a link to the 2021 Census Soundtrack, a series of playlists of Canadian talent for all tastes produced by the good people at StatsCan.

You can choose from Spark and Soul (some of Canada's chart-topping pop and R&B artists), Friday Night Kitchen Party (Canadian country and western hits), Studio Sessions (alternative and folk acts, which is actually not that bad, including the likes of Pottery, Weaves, Helena Deland, and many more even more obscure artists), True North Rap (self-explanatory), Voices from the North (Indigenous artists), and many more.

It's a bizarre idea. I guess the intention is that you nod along to your selected playlist to make the act of filling in the census seem less onerous. The Globe and Mail's ever-witty Cathal Kelly has contributed his own withering verbal demolition of it. But I just find the idea of StatsCan bean-counters getting together to come up with playlists rather endearing.

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