Meet the 2017 Polaris Award Short List

(This blog post is likely to come off as cynical. Take it as you will...)

The Polaris Prize used to mean something. Since 2006, the award has been given to a Canadian artist deserving of merit by artistry, not by album sales. But, like all awards as they age, it's lost its shine and has started to become irrelevant.

This year's crop of ten shortlisted albums doesn't seem like a particularly strong one. Though there are some great albums here, this seems cobbled together by tin-eared hacks looking to make a statement of some sort.

I was a Polaris juror once upon a time, just a few years ago in 2010. The online debate over what albums should be included in the long list, then the final ten, and the final voting, are something I'd like to forget. You can boil down the jury into three camps. 1) Those jurors with the loudest voices, self-aggrandizing and arrogant, vain believers that they are the taste-makers of Canada. 2) Jurors looking to make a statement, advocating for whatever artist made a social or political statement, regardless of the quality of the album in question, and 3) music fans who like music and want to celebrate that. Sadly, the first two seem to be the loudest groups, and the smallest in size, but the ones that generally get the most attention.

My own participation was earnest at first, but when the conversation degenerated into non-music topics, like the politics of the performers, or the ethnic background or sexual orientation of the artists, I quickly lost interest. I don't believe I even participated in discussion once the short list was announced.

I've talked about this in the past, and referenced Johnny Regalado's infamous blog post, "I Was a Polaris Juror, and it Sucked". Regalado's on the other side of the fence from me as to the ethnic make up of the musicians (I think it doesn't matter at all, it's the music that counts), but he's spot on about the talk about the music in general. It's juvenile, and dominated by a few louder voices.

This year's nominees:

A Tribe Called Red - We Are the Halluci Nation
BadBadNotGood - IV
Leonard Cohen - You Want it Darker
Gord Downie - The Secret Path
Feist - Pleasure
Lisa Leblanc - Why You Wanna Leave, Runaway Queen?
Lido Pimienta - La Papessa
Tanya Tagaq - Retribution
Leif Vollebekk - Solitude
Weaves - Weaves

Looking at the list, I see what you would call a nice Grammys style mix there. We've got a few great albums, some albums on the list because the artists pulls at the heart strings or represent some political or social ideology, and some safe picks there because the albums are decent, but not great.

Falling into the first part are my two picks for best albums, likely Weaves and Leif Vollebekk. Weaves I picked for one of my favourite albums of 2016, and I truly think it's a groundbreaking and innovative. Vollebekk has simply made a really enjoyable indy-rock/folk album that's a joy to listen to from front to back.

I'd put Tanya Tagaq and A Tribe Called Red in the first group too, with both albums straddling genres and blurring the lines between First Nations traditional music and modern indy rock and electronic styles. Though these albums do have the distinction of also being First Nations artist, which is going to muddy the waters a bit. The question will come up, "Are they being recognized for the music or for their background?" I point back to the strange win of Buffy Sainte-Marie's thoroughly mediocre album in 2015 for my cynicism there.

Gord Downie and Leonard Cohen are the Grammy style nominees this year, the "sorry for your personal problems, here's an award" award. Cohen's album was quite average. Downie's album was fairly decent, but his diagnosis of cancer is going to colour his nomination.

Then the safe picks. Feist has already won the prize twice before. Pleasure is an average album. Lisa Leblanc's work was groundbreaking gritty country, up until this latest album, which is very plain. Same with BBNG, a plain album that pales in comparison to their previous album, but this one has more big name guest stars.

I've not heard the Lido Pimiento album, so I can't comment on it.

If I were a gambling man, I'd go with A Tribe Called Red this year. Their album was a stunning statement, a wildly ecclectic album, confronational, genre-bending album, difficult to listen to but awarding once dug into. I'd love to see Weaves take the prize, but I think it's a long shot at this point.

Best of 2014 #6: Viet Cong - Viet Cong (Flemish Eye)

This was an earlier pick for album of the year for me. Viet Cong were formed out of the ashes of the great Calgary-based post-punk band, Women. Women had been one of my fave Canadian bands for a while, in fact, their second album Public Strain made my best of list back in 2010 at #4. The band's style of post-punk is very similar to what Women were doing. Women had a more structured and subtle sound, Viet Cong is a bit more chaotic, noisy and gloomy. "Continental Shelf" is the stand out track here, channeling the moody traditional Joy Division style of post-punk through a beefy bass line. A couple of tracks, "March of Progress" and the closer "Death" have some nice, noisy electronic noodling in them. The album is short though, just seven songs. This feels like a teaser for something bigger.

Viet Cong caused some controversy over the summer, when they were accused of having an offensive name. I wrote about this back in September, and honestly, it still ticks me off a bit. The whole social justice movement really boils my potatoes in general. Viet Cong, wanting to focus on music, have decided to change their name, though they don't have a name nailed down yet. So, right now they're The Band Formally Known as Viet Cong.

SJWs Invade Music!

A few days ago, I read an interesting article that was linked up from the BC Musician magazine Facebook page, called I Was a Polaris Juror and it Sucked. Having been a Polaris juror myself several years ago, I found the article an interesting look back into the world I had left. When I was a juror, I was called in due to my position as music director at CFBX and enjoyed the opportunity to help determine the best music in Canada, regardless of commercial success. I only stayed as a juror for one year, since I found a lot of the discussion fairly off-putting, as the article above points out. The politicking, sometimes harsh (if passionate) arguing and name calling often drowned out the actual discussion about the music. I kind of shrugged the rest of the article off as sour grapes, finding the tokenism of the author wanting to include more diverse voices as a point of social commentary, rather than a discussion of music.

That is until this happened:



The very same band the author of the article was campaigning against has changed their name, due to pressure from outside sources. I understand why the band did it, to silence people complaining about the band rather than talking about their music, but it's a shame they were forced to do so. They didn't choose the name because it was offensive (though that would be a totally post-punk/middle finger kind of thing for a band like this to do), but because it resonated with them. Today I realized, after watching the hilarious and spot on portrayals of SJWs (Social Justice Warriors) as bullying frat boys from Monday's season opener of South Park, that SJWs are beginning to infiltrate the music industry. And it sucks.

The SJW movement has it's roots in something noble, the feminists movement, but has turned into something extremely offensive and often unintentionally hilarious. Check out the TumblrinAction subreddit for the type of thing I'm talking about. Yes, the rights of the trans-gendered, the gay and otherwise marginalized members of society should be protected. No, just because you think you're a wolf in a human body (or even more ridiculous things like a galaxy in a human body, or a colour in a human body (yes, that's apparently a thing), does not make you special nor deserving of special treatment. Because you think you have a mental illness and you are "triggered" by someone saying you're not special does not make you special. It makes you delusional. Real people with mental illnesses don't brag about their illnesses, they instead work through them. And when they're triggered (actually triggered, not whatever you think being triggered is), they curl up in a ball in the corner, a quivering mess of uncontrollable anxiety or depression. They don't blog about it. Nor do they whine on the internet, unless they're looking for attention. Like most of these otherkin folk on Tumblr.

Yes, Johnnie Regalado, Viet Cong's name could be seen as offensive. But does that in any way reduce how good their music is? Fuck no. Their debut album is one of the best albums of the year so far, and I'd be pretty proud if the Polaris Prize went to them. Grant Lawrence is completely right pointing out that you don't seem to have any problems with other bands that have offensive names. The Dead Kennedys, named after the assassination of John Kennedy, are one of the most respected punk bands in the world. Joy Division are named after the group of "pleasure ladies" used to service Nazi leaders, and are one of the most important post-punk bands ever. Gang of Four are named after the repressive inner circle of Mao's revolutionary government in China, but still made several amazing and highly influential dance punk albums. The Lee Harvey Oswald Band, Marilyn Manson, Anal Cult, The Fucking Champs, The Dwarves. The list goes on and on of bands with offensive names that are making great music. Yet Viet Cong somehow twists your nipples and twisted a bunch of other people so hard that the band were forced to change their name because they got all offended by the choices they made. What right do you have to say that the band is wrong? How punk is it to knuckle down and bow to public pressure? Not very punk at all. And it robs the band of their ability to make an artistic statement.

This reminds me so much of the PMRC debates that happened back in the 80s, back when some morally upright politicians and their wives were openly complaining about depravity in the music industry. This was back when people were afraid that kids were killing themselves due to listening to heavy metal albums. The hearings that followed were amusing in a lot of ways, with Frank Zappa making the most poignant speech of the hearings. It's interesting to note that Zappa's Jazz from Hell album ended up with a parental advisory sticker on it, even though the album contained no lyrics, and there was nothing offensive on the album sleeve or liner notes. And Zappa was a staunch conservative. And, John Denver, who the establishment thought would for sure stand up for the depravity in the music industry, actually stood up for artistic expression.

Get your stinking moral high ground out of art and music. That sort of judgement stunts the artistic process and damages art and music. Viet Cong should not be forced to change their name.

FYI, here's Zappa's speech. It's a bit long, but worth listening to.