Mapping Toronto's Music Scene Thanks to a Sweet Infographic

Toronto is a world class music city.

Sure, we have suffer from sporadic inferiority complex symptoms now and again—thanks to the belief that our scene is not as exciting or as diverse as the scenes in Montreal, New York, London, etc., but that’s simply not true.

Before some guy wearing a mouse head was on the cover of Rolling Stone and a former Degrassi star was selling out stadiums simply for his rapping abilities, Toronto’s music scene has been flourishing for decades. No matter what your tastes are, there’s something here for everbody, whether it be hip-hop, electronic, indie rock or a genre that doesn’t even have a proper name yet. Thanks to the folks at Red Bull, we now have this incredible infographic that has exhaustively (but by no means completely) detailed the city’s music history from A (Air Canada Centre) to Zed (Zed’s Dead). Painstakingly curated by local DJ and music journalist Denise Benson—whose dedication to chronicling Toronto’s music scene through her writing and “Then & Now” column for The Grid— should certainly be recognized here. It features timelines dedicated to artists, journalists and promoters (in three different categories - disco/dance floor/electronic, rock/indie/alternative, and hip-hop/reggae/soul), media (including several outlets that have died and been reborn in a different incarnation), record stores, and events ranging from Jimi Hendrix’s arrest at Toronto International Airport in 1969 to "SARSStock" with The Rolling Stones in 2003 to Deadmau5 becoming the first Canadian artist to headline the venue formerly known as SkyDome (Rogers Centre) in 2011.

As someone who has only lived in Toronto for a little over five years, it’s remarkable to me how so much has changed in that time. There’s now a fancy furniture store in the building on the corner of Queen Street West and Bathurst, which used to house The Big Bop/Kathedral, and where I crowdsurfed in the basement watching Fucked Up play for the first time. I came here from Nova Scotia for school, but I was introduced to Toronto through the music of bands like Crystal Castles, Final Fantasy, and Death From Above 1979. The timeline also serves as a eulogy for some of those groups that have since broken up, Broken Social Scene (many of whose members are still making music under different guises) and The Constantines to name two in particular. Hopefully whether you’ve lived in Toronto your entire or a few years like me, this timeline will trigger your own memories of seeing your bands with friends, buying your favourite record at a local shop or attending one of the city’s world class music festivals.

And what’s next? Toronto’s newest wunderkinds include 16-year-old producer Ebony “Wondagurl” Oshunrindie (who was responsible for creating the beat for Jay-Z’s track “Crown”) synth-pop band DIANA (whose members have being playing in various other musical projects for several years), and the EDM trap duo Thugi. Despite this infographic ending now, for Toronto it’s certainly not the end of a timeline—just a pause, while an extension cord is found for the new artists, bands, journalists, and publications that will continue to push the city’s music scene in new and exciting directions. Whatever happens, you can guarantee it will be as diverse as Toronto itself.

See the full Toronto music infographic right over here, thanks to our musical friends at Red Bull.