In a Drake SkyYard clustered with representatives from pretty much all Canadian music media, journalists munched on clotted-cream croissants awaiting this morning's announcement of the Polaris Prize shortlist. Having whittled down a 40-album long list of nominees across the country, 185 jurors cast their shortlist ballot of five deserving albums for the final 10. The winner, representative of the best album made by a Canadian musician within the eligibility period of July 2008 to June 2009, will be awarded a prize of $20,000 — just enough for a full tank of gas and a silk-screened merch line these days.
CBC Radio host Grant Lawrence fumbles the location of Holy Fuck’s next gig as the band's keyboardist Graham Walsh — serving as this morning's co-presenter — stands awkwardly by his side. A few orders of house business are taken care of as Lawrence thanks corporate sponsor Red Bull and announces the new location of the Sept. 21 awards gala — the Concert Hall inside the Masonic Temple — and that the ceremony will be (oddly) webcast by MuchMusic (instead of current Temple tenant MTV Canada).
Conspiracy rumours start to fly. We wager that being from anywhere east of Manitoba is worth nearly $5,000 of Polaris cred in and of itself, $7,000 if you are any other ethnicity other than white, $2,000 if you sing in French, an extra thousand for every girl you have in your band, $3,000 if your album could be identified as hip-hop, electro or jazz, with an additional $2,000 if you are Joel Plaskett. In true journalistic fashion, our cynicism would prove to be right on the money.
Oversized album covers are displayed to the crowd by Walsh, Vanna White-style, as Lawrence lists off the 10 nominees in alphabetical order. I hold my breath for a $100 announcement, but Elliot Brood instead gets the local roots-rock nod for Mountain Meadows. The crowd cheers for Fucked Up’s The Chemistry of Common Life and Great Lake Swimmers’ Lost Channels, then quiets again for St. John’s Hey Rosetta!'s Into Your Lungs (and around in your heart and on through your blood). (“Our first-ever nominee from St. John’s,” Lawrence notes, as if that’s a reason to get excited.) K’Naan's Troubadour, Malajube's Labyrinthes and Metric’s Fantasies are listed, while my heart sinks in anticipation of the inevitable Joel Plaskett nomination (for Three). Filling out the final two spots are Chad VanGaalen’s staggeringly good Soft Airplane and 2007 Polaris winner Patrick Watson's Wooden Arms, a selection that raises eyebrows around the patio.
“We have mimosas!” Lawrence pronounces, as a flurry of iPhoned and Twittered opinions resonate through the media’s fingertips, though they’ll be too polite to divulge in person. One deems the shortlist “middle of the road,” though it’s a good chance 90 per cent of Canadians are only faintly aware of any of these bands’ existence. I talk to Elliot Brood percussionist Stephen Pitkin, who is not so sure of his band's chances. “It’s just too early to tell,” says Pitkin. “There are just so great many albums — even in the long list — that we’re just lucky to be here.” He wagers that $20,000 could account for “two flights to Australia for us.” Sadly, there are three people in Elliot Brood.
Waiting to speak to Metric, social media magnate Justin Beach of Canadian blog North By East West quips, “No one is ever happy with the shortlist unless they’re nominated.” Even then, they’re still not happy if the only thing people can talk about is how your band is too successful to be nominated in the first place.
“There’s the Polaris — and then there’s the Polaris that it could become,” says a mimosa-drinking Emily Haines, clad in dark shades next to RayBan-sporting mate Jimmy Shaw. “The identity of Polaris depends on the identity of the band. And a band like Metric needs the recognition. What people don’t realize is that we self-released our latest album, we release our own records… Metric is in line with the original premise of the award, it’s just that there’s this Canadian mentality that as soon as you become successful, you become locked out of any artistic recognition in this country.”
“Success for the most part exists in the mind of the fan,” says Shaw. “It’s an imaginary conception where some bands will play for years and years to 80 people in a room and be completely satisfied.”
“Versus Glastonbury, where we played last weekend,” says Haines. “Neil Young played to 150,000 people and we played at 1 o’clock in the afternoon on a Monday. Is that really the top tier of success?”
“Until we get over our fear [of success], Canada will always remain the little runty sister to the US,” says Shaw.
Whether the shortlist validates our own or encourages skeptics to hate on them further, these 10 nominees are at least representative of the Canadian music that critics believe in. Do we hate it when our friends become successful, or does mediocrity still rule in Canada? Until the dream of a Joel Plaskett-fronted indie-rock/rap band with Calgary roots group signed by Secret City Records forms (and I become their manager), the Polaris winner is never a lockdown. For now… Dom Péringon mimosas for everybody!