Does Canada need another music award? That’s what the folks over at XM Satellite Radio Canada think. Three years after Steve Jordan shook up the country’s music industry with the merit-based Polaris Music Prize, XM has announced their inaugural Verge Music Awards. The Verge ceremony will take place Sept. 24 at Toronto’s Tattoo Rock Parlour — a mere five days before the massive Polaris gala at the Phoenix. Cat fight!
“You can never have too many awards shows,” insists cheery programmer and on-air personality Kelowna Vincent. Along with Jeff Leake — a major driving force behind the establishment of the new music awards — Vincent is one of the voices of the Verge (note that the name sounds vaguely like The Wedge), the XM channel (No. 52) with a stated mandate of promoting “new and emerging indie and alternative sounds from Canada.” According to their site, “Artists You’ll Hear” include The Stills, Metric, Broken Social Scene, the Arcade Fire and The New Pornographers.
Vincent maintains that the Verge Awards are a completely different beast than (read: not trying to compete with) the Polaris Prize. Awards are handed out in two categories — Album of the Year and Artist of the Year (the latter of which, she notes, is not restricted to those acts who’ve released an album within the last year) — and nominees are drawn from acts in “regular rotation” on the Verge. There are currently 150 contenders in the artist category and 73 albums up for consideration. Public voting (at www.xmradio.ca) determines the winner of each category, honours that come with a substantial $25,000 cheque (that’s $5,000 more than the Polaris) apiece.
“I only went to the Polaris Gala in its first year, and I’ve not been on the jury,” says Vincent. “But Jeff Leake, our director, was. It seems like the Polaris is more about critics and people involved in the industry — it’s an industry decision-making process. With us, it’s a fan thing. I think we’re both great entities. The more the merrier!”
I’m curious about what determines “regular rotation” on the Verge. What’s the difference, say, between an artist in “light rotation” and an award nominee? Vincent’s explanation doesn’t entirely clarify things.
“It’s within our station on the last year,” she begins. “When we first launched the station, we had a core group of Canadian artists who were selected on the basis of familiarity — people like Feist, Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, even Nickelback — because we had to have an anchor. We’re not just broadcasting to Canada, and we want listeners throughout North America to recognize what they’re hearing. From those roots, our sound evolved into something that’s comfortable for all ages, not just a young indie crowd.
“We’re required by the CRTC to play 85 per cent Canadian content, but within the last month, we’ve played pretty much 100 per cent CanCon. I mean, basically,” she continues, “to get regular rotation, you’ve gotta be good. We get submissions all the time, and maybe the band isn’t quite there yet. Or maybe they’re punk and too extreme or folk and too mellow.”
Right. Along the same lines, I also wonder aloud whether the Verge Music Awards serve as a handy demographic survey for Vincent and her fellow programmers. Will the results of the Awards shift some of the station’s in-house decisions?
“I don’t think that it necessarily feeds into programming decisions,” Vincent says, slowly. “It’s definitely a tool to educate us. But we very much keep connected with our listeners already. We have email and phone lines, we’re on Facebook and MySpace. Either way, this is still a showcase to celebrate best artists in Canada. I’d hope that it would generate more interest in the nominees and raise their profiles.”