Needle & nation: Canadian Museum of History tracks the sound of the ’60s–’80s

Tashi Farmilo

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.

Organised 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.

Québec’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 Québec 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 Montréal 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 Montréal 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 Québec’s cultural presence—formed an enduring, audible record of the country’s imagination.