Canada Post has unveiled its latest stamp set which celebrates the early years of MuchMusic and MusiquePlus.
Depicting the iconic buildings that housed MuchMusic at 299 Queen St. West in Toronto and MusiquePlus at 355 rue Sainte-Catherine Ouest in Montréal, the stamps are drawn from the perspective of the crowds that regularly gathered outside the stations.
CHUM Ltd. launched MuchMusic in August 1984, with MusiquePlus following in 1986 as the country’s first French-language specialty channel, co-founded by Moses Znaimer and Pierre Marchand. Both channels, which were largely fueled by “VJ’ed” music video block programming, are credited with helping boost the careers of both homegrown and global artists, in addition to buoying a generation of media personalities to household recognition like Erica Ehm, George Stroumboulopoulos, Rick Campanelli, and on the French side, Geneviève Borne, Sonia Benezra, Claude Rajotte, and Paul Sarrasin, among many others.
Both channels had largely pulled back on airing music video-related content by 2019 and MusiquePlus was replaced by the fall of that year. Bell Media continues to operate the MuchMusic brand exclusively on social media.
Printed by Lowe-Martin, the stamp issue includes a booklet of eight Permanent domestic rate stamps, and two Official First Day Covers. They’re available at canadapost.ca and postal outlets across Canada.
