Junos Still Feel Irrelevant to Me

I caught a bit of the Junos Awards, which I always assume are supposed to be for the best in Canadian Music. This year was notable for the high profile appearances of hostess Pam Anderson and bands such as Coldplay, who may as well be honourary Canadians given how much love they seem to have for us.

I caught Broken Social Scene win Best Alternative and they performed too. But I clicked back later to find myself watching the award for Album of the Year. The Sun, of all places, put it best:

What's up for album of the year, for instance? Surely The Arcade Fire's Funeral, which has sold half a million copies. No doubt Neil Young's Prairie Wind. Perhaps Jully Black's This Is Me, Blue Rodeo's Are You Ready, Stars' Set Yourself On Fire, K'naan's Dusty Foot Philosopher or The New Pornographers' Twin Cinema?

Nope. While Canadian indie music is selling out shows around the world, breaking the top of the charts everywhere, our best album nominees were a Diana Krall Christmas album, Michael Buble's (a Sinatra-esque singer) collection of retro standards, albums from Canadian Idol leftovers Kalan Porter and Rex Goudie and a bland release from a vanilla bland band, Nickelback's All The Right Reasons.

Fans have their favourites, but if you were to judge Canadian music by those nominees, we live in an easy-listening nation who don't like anything new. It's too bad the Junos don't reflect the banner year that Canadian musicians are having, recieving accolades throughout the world. Mainstream bands like U2 and Coldplay are always raving about Montreal's Arcade Fire. Metric and The New Pornographers were being touted as the next big things at the South by South West music festival. These are exciting times to be a Canadian music fan, it's just lame that we can't get up the support to acknowledge it in some grand way. We're Canadian: we need a little validation once in a while.