Episode
When music went digital Canada was at the front of the line. What happened?
- Podcast
- CanCon
- Published
- Apr 23, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 1824
- Processing state
not_requested
Actions
POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/cancon-7243791/episodes/when-music-went-digital-canada-was-at-the-front-of-the-line-what-happened/transcription-requests
Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/cancon-7243791/when-music-went-digital-canada-was-at-the-front-of-the-line-what-happened.md
Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.
Summary
In the late '90s and early '00s, the music industry fundamentally changed. Within a decade, fans went from buying CDs in a local music store to purchasing $0.99 singles on iTunes. But before iTunes was available in Canada, and before the US giants took over the industry, Canadian startups were at the front of the pack. In this episode, we reminisce on a very strange and transformative time in media--you might remember the first CD you ever bought, but you probably don't remember the last one. We speak to Cam Gordon, author of Track Changes: The Origin Story of Canadian Music on the Internet, about Maple Music and Puretracks. And if you were a Canadian music fan in the early '00s ... you might know what we're talking about.