I decided to start tagging the music I listen to on my last.fm page, powered by Audioscrobbler. The first tag I created was entitled "Canadian" and I applied it to every artist I've listened to on my computer since May 2004 that was Canadian. By the time I was done, I had tagged 148 artists and you can see this list here.
This practice got me thinking about Canadian artists and that got me thinking about essential Canadian artists and songs. Naturally, I started making lists. Prepare yourself for what I believe to be the top ten essential Canadian artists and songs. Consider yourself warned.