Tashi Farmilo
LJI Reporter

Music retrospective Retro – Popular Music in Canada from the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s opened June
6 at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, assembling a richly layered portrait of how
popular music in Canada became a defining cultural force across three turbulent decades. With
more than 160 artifacts, over 100 curated audio tracks, and immersive audiovisual installations,
the exhibition examines music, not simply as entertainment, but as a mirror of Canadian life, its
movements, its politics, its contradictions. The exhibition runs through January 18, 2026.

Organized into three interpretive zones, Social, Personal, and Political, the exhibition traces the
shifting relationship between music and public life. Objects tied to grassroots movements, the
evolution of music technology, and the aesthetics of stage performance illustrate how musicians
and listeners alike reshaped what it meant to be Canadian in a rapidly changing world. The
curatorial approach resists nostalgia, favouring instead a documentary sensibility that situates
music as both archive and intervention.

Quebec’s influence runs throughout. From the chanson traditions of Robert Charlebois and
Gilles Vigneault to the pop interventions of artists like Mitsou and Céline Dion, the exhibition
foregrounds the province’s dual role as incubator of innovation and bridge between linguistic
and cultural spheres. Dion’s 1988 Eurovision dress, designed by Michel Robidas, is displayed
alongside other performance attire, anchoring a narrative about international breakout moments
rooted in local beginnings. Her early career in Quebec and subsequent ascent to global
prominence reflect the era’s porous cultural boundaries and the export of francophone talent.

Mitsou’s 1988 platinum debut El Mundo , released the same year, demonstrated the vitality of
Quebec’s youth-driven pop market. Her single Bye Bye Mon Cowboy blurred linguistic lines and
stylistic conventions, capturing the assertiveness of a generation raised on both Montreal video
culture and transatlantic influences. The inclusion of her work offers a sharp contrast to the
singer-songwriter tradition, widening the frame of what Canadian pop could be—bold, bilingual,
and unreservedly commercial.

Elsewhere, the exhibition features Leonard Cohen’s Olivetti typewriter, Michie Mee’s Dapper
Dan-designed stage ensemble, handwritten lyrics by Octobre, and a drumskin painted by the
Cowboy Junkies. A piece of notepaper from John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Montreal Bed-In
connects the exhibition’s political dimension to an international peace movement staged on
Quebec soil. These fragments speak to a country negotiating identity through its artists—
sometimes in harmony, often in tension.

Developed by the Canadian Museum of History and presented by Power Corporation of
Canada, Retro is accompanied by concerts, film screenings, and in-gallery programming.
Without flattening its subjects into nostalgia, the exhibition demonstrates how Canadian popular
music—shaped in no small part by Quebec’s cultural presence—formed an enduring, audible
record of the country’s imagination.

Photo: The Canadian Museum of History’s Retro exhibition revisits the soundtrack of Canada’s

’60s, ’70s and ’80s, spotlighting icons like Céline Dion while tracing how popular music shaped

—and was shaped by—the country’s evolving identity. (TF) Photo: Tashi Farmilo