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Culture

MuchMusic and MusiquePlus Are Getting Their Own Canada Post Stamps

The influential TV stations, which helped shape Canadian music culture, will be featured on new stamps as of Oct. 10.

MuchMusic headquarters

MuchMusic headquarters

Promotional image for '299 Queen Street West'

Canada Post is honouring two Canadian TV stations that helped shape the country's music industry.

MuchMusic and its Quebec counterpart, MusiquePlus, will get their very own stamps this month.


The announcement arrives as Much celebrates its 40th anniversary. The station first began broadcasting in 1984, following the launch of MTV in the U.S., and helped foster young Canadian talent in the music and media industries. MusiquePlus launched two years later in 1986.

MuchMusic hosts — known as VJs — often went on to high-profile careers, like broadcasters George Stroumboulopoulos and Sook-Yin Lee, while the channel's music video focus helped boost Canadian artists on the rise. In the 2010s, the station moved away from music programming, rebranding as Much. The MuchMusic brand, meanwhile, lives on as a digital media presence.

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The stamps mark the latest acknowledgment of MuchMusic's influence on Canadian culture. Former VJs celebrated the 40th anniversary with online tributes last month, and last year saw the premiere of the documentary 299 Queen Street West, which chronicles the station's heyday (amidst copyright controversy, the documentary hasn't made a streaming debut).

Canada Post will reveal the tribute stamps at events in Montreal and Toronto on October 10, held at the buildings that housed MuchMusic and MusiquePlus, Canadian Press reports.

The postal service also recently honoured another pillar of Canadian music, issuing a Sarah McLachlan stamp on September 17, ahead of the singer-songwriter's induction into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame.

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Carole Pope and Kevan Staples of Rough Trade
Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame

Carole Pope and Kevan Staples of Rough Trade

FYI

Obituaries: Rough Trade Co-Founder Kevan Staples, Country Hall of Famer Dick Damron

This week we also acknowledge the passing of hit Memphis record producer/engineer Terry Manning and Canadian country singer Harry Rusk.

Kevan Staples, a Toronto songwriter, film and TV composer and multi-instrumentalist best known as co-founder of the adventurous Juno-winning rock band Rough Trade, died on March 23, of cancer, at the age of 75.

His creative partnership with charismatic and provocative vocalist and songwriter Carole Pope was at the heart of Rough Trade, a group that made a colourful mark on the Canadian rock scene in the late '70s and early '80s.

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