Beyond the branch plant: Capitol-EMI's first Canadian record press and national music industries in the 1970s

This paper explores the wider political economy surrounding the opening of Capitol Records' first Canadian record pressing plant in 1976. This celebrated facility encapsulates much of the optimism for Canadian music during this period. As a site of research it reveals a great deal of the complex relationship between a multinational corporation and an evolving national record industry. Further, this paper explores the materiality of popular music and places it within the context of national industrial and cultural policy. This material history brings forth a different account of the role of government policy in the development of this industry, with a greater emphasis on Canadian trade policy than on broadcast regulation. The plant began operation a few years after Canada's broadcasting regulator, the Canadian Radio-Television Commission, implemented Canadian Content regulations in 1971 for the programming of music created by Canadians on Canadian radio stations. 'Beyond the branch plant' draws from archival materials from the EMI Music Canada Archive, housed at the University of Calgary, to offer primary accounts of the development of this plant as well as the economic externalities beyond the music industry that were shaped by this new facility. The conclusions of this study call into question long standing positions regarding the place of national broadcasting content quotas and the growth of cultural industries. It highlights an industrial logic that was largely American in structure and one that indicates that the legacy of these content regulations is more complicated than it is often assumed to be.

Automated summary

This paper explores the wider political economy behind the opening of Capitol Records' first Canadian record pressing plant in 1976. It analyzes the complex relationship between a multinational corporation and the evolving national record industry, and examines the materiality of popular music within the context of national industrial and cultural policy. By studying archival materials from the EMI Music Canada Archive, this paper provides primary accounts of the development of the plant and the economic externalities it brought beyond the music industry. The conclusions challenge long-standing assumptions about national broadcasting content quotas and the growth of cultural industries.