I'm late with this, I know

I know it probably annoys people when I talk about non-South African issues on this thing, but since I couldn’t be on the jury this year, I wanted to weigh in on the Polaris Prize shortlist that was announced a few weeks ago.

If you missed it, here are this year’s nominees:

Arcade Fire – Neon Bible
The Besnard Lakes – The Besnard Lakes Are the Dark Horse
The Dears – Gang of Losers
Julie Doiron – Woke Myself Up
Feist – The Reminder
Joel Plaskett Emergency – Ashtray Rock
Junior Boys – So This Is Goodbye
Miracle Fortress – Five Roses
Patrick Watson – Close to Paradise
Chad VanGaalen - Skelliconnection

I haven’t heard the Miracle Fortress record at all, but I read that Jessie Stein plays guitar in the live band and I love her SS Cardiacs stuff, so that makes me interested. The only other record from the list that I haven’t heard is Patrick Watson’s.

Anyway, here are my thoughts on the others …

I love how The Besnard Lakes seem to have written their album title with this competition in mind. And aside from Miracle Fortress, they seem to be the biggest underdogs. But if the award was for “Most Epic Stoner-Rock Song” then they’d win hands down for “And You Lied To Me.”

If the award was given for a body of work, I think Julie Doiron would and should win (with Joel Plaskett nipping at her heels). And part of me thinks Julie should win anyway. These days I feel like Woke Myself Up is the best of her solo records—probably because it reminds me most of Eric’s Trip.

I was a little surprised to see Joel Plaskett make the list, considering that Ashtray Rock is a pretty straight-ahead rock album. It is a narrative concept album, though, so I guess the whole is more ambitious and clever than its parts. And Joel proved once again that not only is he a decent songwriter, he’s a great albumwriter. (Meghan Harrison, if you’re reading this, I’m looking forward to our next “The best Joel Plaskett record is …” argument.)

Feist is too popular to win. If the prize wasn’t money, she might have a chance, but I just can’t imagine the jurors allowing themselves to give her the cash. Whether Steve Jordan likes to admit it or not, the Polaris Prize was created as a response to the laughable Junos to recognize the supremely talented, but underappreciated and underpaid, music artists in the country, and the jurors know this.

Same goes for The Arcade Fire. But their previous work probably poses even bigger competition for them than their fame. Funeral may not officially be in the competition, but no judge is going to reward the band for making a lesser album. And Neon Bible is definitely a lesser album.

You could say that for a lot of the nominees, actually: I like Gang of Losers, but The Dears haven’t done anything that comes close to touching the down-and-out beauty of End of a Hollywood Bedtime Story; The Reminder isn’t as good as Let it Die; and Skelliconnection isn’t as good as Infiniheart (my jury is still out on Julie and Joel).

If I had a vote, I’d probably give the $20,000 to either Julie Doiron or Chad VanGaalen (probably Julie), but my hunch is that the cash will go to the Junior Boys, which would be good; So This Is Goodbye is a beautiful record.

In a very Canadian way, some of the country’s music critics have already turned on the prize, one year after it was so widely praised (see here and here, specifically). The criticisms are mainly about the lack of diversity among the nominees; how all the nominees are white indie rockers. They criticize the jurors for not including any Francophone or hip hop artists, specifically. Last year at least had Malajube, K’naan and Cadence Weapon, they say.

But I’m not ready to jump off the Polaris bandwagon just yet. There are flaws with the process, for sure, but I still think it’s something worth celebrating—and I don’t see anything wrong with giving any of the nominees 20 large to help them make another record.

I do agree with Dave Morris's criticism; there should be less jurors. There aren't enough credible music authorities in the country to merit a 174-person jury. The fact of the matter is that most of the jurors probably get paid peanuts to write about music while working other jobs and/or going to school. They can't give every album the attention it deserves and they can't be expected to be well-versed in multiple genres--at least not for what most of them probably get paid. At least that was my experience.

The shortlist is heavily weighted towards indie rock because the pool of people Steve Jordan drew from to make up the jury (music journalists, college radio programmers, influential bloggers) are largely indie-rock fans who write about and review indie rock bands for publications and radio stations that focus their content on indie-rock music. There are a few exceptions, of course. The above-linked Dave Morris, for instance, is a knowledgeable and credible critic in lots of different genres; I just don't think there are more than a dozen Dave Morrises on the jury.

Jordan could work harder in future years to diversify his jury selection; that would be much better than trying to influence the jurors decision by mandating nominees from certain genres. The prize is not supposed to give any consideration to “genre or record sales,” and I wouldn’t want them to veer from that spirit.

I think the heavy indie-rock quotient also has a lot to do with the fact that indie-rockers dominate the touring circuit in Canada, and music writers and radio programmers—especially the ones that work for certain-city-centric print publications and community radio stations—focus their writing and listening energies on bands that play their towns. The fact of the matter is that hip hop acts, turntablists, jazz bands, DJs, classical orchestras, opera singers, and Francophone rock bands don’t usually do the kind of touring that English-singing guitar bands do.

That being said, my shortlist probably would’ve included Land of Talk’s Applause, Cheer, Boo, Hiss; Shout Out Out Out Out’s Not Saying/Just Saying, Jon-Rae and The River’s Knows What You Need Holy Fuck’s self-titled EP and Les Breastfeeders’ Les matins de grand soirs. I would’ve left Miracle Fortress, Patrick Watson, Feist, Arcade Fire and The Besnard Lakes off my list.

Can anyone name a Canadian hip hop record that they felt should’ve cracked the top 10? I was kind of expecting Classified to squeak in. But I have to admit, I don’t know much Canadian hip hop from last year. I did like what I heard from Les is More and The Carps, though. I actually thought The Carps were going to be huge, but it doesn’t seem to be happening. I listened to their debut album on a whim while working at CFRC, and it was like a mix of Bloc Party and Death From Above 1979, but with house-like beats and cheeky rhymes about Scarborough. And with Bloc Party going all soft and moody (read: boring) with their latest album and DFA79 biting the dust, I thought The Carps would swoop right in to fill the void.

But I was probably most surprised that Fucked Up’s album from earlier this year didn’t crack the Top 10. It wouldn’t be on my personal list, but I really thought there’d be more aged metalheads or punks or math-rock geeks among the jury that would’ve considered Hidden World to be manna from heaven.

In closing … I think my vote would go to Julie Doiron.

But what I would love the most is if B.A. Johnston could somehow win as a last-minute write-in. Imagine how many Casio keyboards and how much poutine he could buy with $20,000.