Holly Gordon

Holly Gordon focuses on connecting audiences with new and notable music, using artist discovery, careful curation and pop storytelling to shape entertainment coverage at CBC Music. She works as a journalist and digital producer, combining interviews, features, lists and interactive projects to show how artists build careers, communities and moments of impact. Her work centres on contemporary music and its culture, with a particular emphasis on Canadian artists and the scenes that sustain them.

Songs You Need to Hear

Gordon’s most consistent strand of work is a recurring “Songs You Need to Hear” format that highlights trending new tracks from Canada. In these pieces she selects a small set of current releases, introduces each artist in a few direct lines and explains why the song matters right now, whether through its sound, lyrics or reception.

One instalment frames Lido Pimienta’s tropicalia-inspired track as the lead recommendation, followed by three more songs, positioning the feature as a weekly checkpoint for listeners looking for fresh music with momentum.

She uses the same structure for themed editions, such as a collection timed to Asian Heritage Month that spotlights new tracks from Asian Canadian artists. In that package she keeps the focus on the artists’ work rather than biography, drawing out what each track adds to the current landscape and how it fits into broader conversations about representation and genre.

Across these pieces the tone is concise and welcoming, and the emphasis is on guiding readers quickly to songs they can play while still giving enough context to place each artist within a growing catalogue.

Canadian music history and pop culture

Alongside weekly curation, Gordon contributes to longer projects that document Canadian music history and pop culture. In an interactive feature on the complicated history of Canadian boy bands, she is part of a team that interviews former group members, executives, marketing staff and pop culture commentators to reconstruct how these acts were built and promoted.

The piece blends reported quotes with analysis, tracing both the commercial machinery behind the groups and the emotional weight they carry for fans who grew up with them.

She has also worked on large-scale lists such as a ranking of 100 best Canadian songs of 2017, where multiple writers and producers combine their perspectives into a single canon-building project. That type of work shows her comfort with collaborative selection and the framing of songs as part of a shared national narrative.

These projects extend her beat beyond the present moment, anchoring current releases in a longer story about how Canadian music evolves over time.

Awards, performance moments and industry coverage

Gordon’s role includes coverage of major music events and awards, where she helps lead digital editorial planning and execution.

Her work around the Junos illustrates a producer’s approach: coordinating digital content, shaping packages that highlight key performances and winners, and ensuring the site reflects the breadth of artists represented. She also participates in industry-facing roles such as serving on the Polaris Music Prize jury, which positions her as an evaluator of albums as well as a reporter of them.

Her entertainment coverage extends to performance moments where music intersects with television and celebrity, including stories such as Angine de Poitrine’s UK late-night debut that drew praise from Shania Twain. In that type of piece she zeroes in on how a single televised performance can amplify an artist’s profile and connect scenes across borders and generations. This strand of her work treats media appearances and awards stages as key touchpoints in an artist’s trajectory, not just promotional stops.

Reporting background and approach

Gordon’s author information and professional profiles describe a broad remit at CBC Music that spans interviewing, writing, editing, researching and project management for national digital coverage. She spends significant time listening to new music and attending shows, using that immersion to identify emerging voices across genres and to champion artists from underrepresented scenes, including East Coast acts.

Her background includes arts and culture reporting and editing at local and niche outlets, as well as freelance work for publications focused on books and visual arts, which contributes to a cross-disciplinary perspective in her music writing.

Across formats, Gordon’s through-line is a preference for clear, compact prose grounded in specific songs, albums and performances. She links artist stories to concrete work rather than personalities, and she favours structures - weekly roundups, ranked lists, oral histories - that make it easy for readers to move from context to listening. For communications work around music, awards or pop-history projects, her coverage reflects an interest in artists who are contributing to the ongoing story of Canadian music rather than chasing one-off viral moments.