If you want to know who’s the next big thing in music or who’s the artist with staying power, just ask Holly Gordon, BJ(Hons)’06. As a digital producer for CBC Music, her work entails interviewing, writing, editing, researching and project management—everything that a Bachelor of Journalism degree at King’s prepared her for.
Holly’s job is national in scope, but she mostly works online from her home in Herring Cove, N.S. She also clocks a lot of extra time listening to new music and going out to concerts—she covers a diverse intersection of artists across genres and backgrounds and is especially passionate about championing East Coast artists.
Of course, one doesn’t land a dream job like this right after graduation. Like so many journalists, Holly learned to hustle and adapt until she found her rhythm in the industry.
What does your role at CBC involve?
Technically, I’m a digital producer for CBC Music, where I have been working for 13 years this month. My job title has changed a few times. I am a writer and an editor for the website and because I’m a producer, I’ll do a lot of other things, too. I’ll help research some of our radio specials, I have been a guest on some of our radio specials, or a guest on Information Morning or Mainstreet for some local coverage. I do a lot of project management. I lead our digital editorial team at the Junos.
What made your King’s experience an asset?
It didn’t teach me everything I needed to know but it did give me everything I needed to get started. King’s taught me how to work for it. It set a pace, so I was able to do all of the work. So, I could hustle. It was many years of hustling before I landed a full-time permanent position.
It gave me the curiosity I needed to do the job … It gave me the opportunity to travel. It opened my eyes to what journalism could be. For example, while I was at King’s, I did a military journalism course. We went to Calgary and Edmonton and learned about how the military works.
There was a feature journalism contest that I won, and the prize was to go to South Korea. So, I went there with journalists from around the world. I did so many cool things because I was studying at King’s.
Let’s talk music—where does your knowledge of music come from?
It wasn’t my plan to work at CBC Music. I’m not a musician and I didn’t study music. It’s come from the job. The Coast was [my] training ground and it’s through The Coast that I got introduced to many of the local artists that I would know for years to come. And then I worked as an arts reporter after that. I just kept leaning to the arts.
I think one of the secrets to doing well is just showing up. I go to a lot of shows. I go to Nova Scotia Music Week every year. I went to Yarmouth for the Congrès mondial acadien to see more Acadian artists. I’m not a very traditional networker but I have many friends who are in the music industry and I am constantly talking to them. I read a lot. I listen to a ton.
If you’re out enough, you’re going to find the stories. I am almost always working. I’m out at 2 a.m. at Junofest so I can catch those artists.
What’s a story for CBC Music that you loved writing?
I did an oral history on the making of Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill. I’ve been a fan since I was 13 so to talk to her as an adult about a formative album was pretty mind blowing. She was very generous with her time and her answers.
It took me six months to get the interview. I kept bugging anyone who would listen and finally they’re like, “OK, you can have this interview.”
Because it was an anniversary piece, sometimes you don’t get anything new out of an interview like that. But I learned a ton about how she recorded that album, where it was recorded and that they used the original demos of her vocals—those are things that I had never heard before.
What was your most memorable red-carpet encounter?
One of my favorite interviews has to be Feist at the 2017 Juno Awards in Ottawa. She was just very present, and we had a real conversation.
Who is an East Coast artist whom we should be listening to?
I have a few in my brain. I think Pillow Fite is one of my favourite Halifax bands at this time. They make very sad folk pop music. It’s quite heartbreaking but it also can be really fun and catchy, which is really the best way to be served heartbreak.
Another artist I’ve really been loving is Wolf Castle, a rapper from Pabineau First Nation. He’s charismatic, very funny, a great rapper.
I really wish Aquakultre was better known in Canada because the work he does is so good and so important. He played one of our Road to the Junos shows last January and it was so powerful.
What new opportunities are you pursuing these days?
I just did a six-month course as part of the 2024 cohort for the Oxford Climate Journalism Network, offered through the Reuters Institute at the University of Oxford. They accept 100 people a year into the program, and I was one of two Canadians who attended. It’s mostly for journalists who work outside of climate journalism and who would like to cover climate within their own work sphere. I’ve been trying to cover more climate-related stories within music in the last couple of years, so it was really helpful.
Can you give an example?
I did a piece about how the 2024 Juno Awards in Halifax implemented these much more sustainable programs by partnering with Music Declares Emergency. That’s an organization that’s really trying to work within Canada to get artists and festivals and bigger events to become more climate-focused and environmentally friendly.
Who is an artist with staying power, who we’ll still be listening to 25 years from now?
I think William Prince is going to be one of the artists in Canada that people are going to continue to remember. Jeremy Dutcher too. He makes entirely different music, he’s so groundbreaking.
I’ve also been listening to The Weather Station. Tamara Lindeman is the woman behind that band and she has been writing about climate and climate grief in her work. Her albums—the first is called Ignorance (2021) and the new one is called Humanhood—are both really intense interrogations of grief about how we move through the world now that it’s literally burning. I find her music can also be quite comforting. I think she’s one of those artists who is doing a lot of important work at the intersection of music and climate.