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Music

Polaris Short List

Long before the Polaris Prize Short List was announced it was easy to predict what the response would be from music critics and message board snobs.

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As one might expect, the complaints can pretty much be condensed down to this:

  • It’s mainly pop/rock made by white guys from Ontario
  • Many of the nominees have been on the list before
  • Most of the music is more conventional than challenging
  • Most of the acts are fairly well known, at least in indie rock circles
  • The list doesn’t reflect “quality” music as much as it does “familiar”

Well, while I can sympathise with some of these complaints, I can take solace that two (Joel Plaskett and Fucked Up) of the five artists I voted for made it on to the list, and while I’m deeply disappointed that Timber Timbre didn’t make it (all of you need to hear that album immediately), I feel like either of the two that did make the final cut fully deserve to win, albeit for completely different reasons.

The problem with hating on a project like the Polaris Prize for favouring bands that regularly fill clubs and enjoy good press over ground-breaking unknown acts is that it assigns the award a duty that it never set out to achieve. Maybe a better way of phrasing that might be that the goal it does set out to achieve just isn’t achievable.

Officially, the stated aim is to reward a band based solely on the quality of music, rather than considering sales or popularity. That’s fine, if we actually bought into the idea that “quality” was a universal or definable factor in art (which is kind of hard at this point in history, isn’t it?). Sure, in theory, polling music critics should be able to generate a list of the best music, but we all know that what you’re getting is a list of their favourite music. By now, we should be ready to accept that taste is deeply personal and molded more by one’s history and experiences than by any universal truth about art. It’s not so much that there’s good and bad music, more that there’s music you like and music you don’t.

Some commentators have floated the idea that a smaller jury pool might make the results less predictably middle-of-the-road, but I have my doubts as to what that would actually solve. Sure, unknown bands would stand more of a chance, but the overall results would be even less representative of that tricky concept of quality.

So let’s just accept that Polaris is by nature (like any award) a popularity contest, and being such, is only going to reflect what’s popular with Canadian music critics. It’s a given that the results are going to be mainly indie pop/rock made by straight white guys, and will continue to be until the demographics of the industry change (the reasons that this group currently dominates the music snob scene are a little too complicated to get into right now, but worth pondering if you’ve got the time).

Given all of these factors, I’m feeling pretty good about this year. So many Toronto critics are cheering for Fucked Up, even as they bemoan the improbability of a hardcore punk band winning, which in my mind bodes well for the strong possibility of them managing to surprise a lot of people. Of all the acts on the short list, they are really the only ones who are undeniably influential on a global level, and they’re the only ones doing something genuinely new, something that might just change music trends on a larger scale. That alone should place them among the frontrunners with jurors who are trying to do the right thing. Even if they themselves don’t want to listen to all that screaming, they have to feel pressure to vote for them because of the perceived importance of all that screaming.

I might be deluding myself, but I think it’s also quite probably that Joel Plaskett is a very likely candidate for the grand prize, but based on the opposite rational. Plaskett’s album Three sounds like it could have been recorded in 1974, and would fit in perfectly on cottage country classic rock radio. If Fucked Up are the future of punk rock, Plaskett’s offering is a look back at the history of pop/rock. Groundbreaking it ain’t, but it is an undeniably solid triple album, and album that would have been celebrated grandly had it been released 30 something years ago, and should be today as well. I don’t always agree with Sir Paul McCartney, but on this subject we do have common ground (another reason he stands a good chance at winning).

Truth be told, I’m more likely to listen to Plaskett’s more conservative offering than Fucked Up’s progressive reinvention of hardcore, but if I were on the final jury I’d probably vote for FU, even if only because I’m confidant that Plaskett will be able to make a living off his talent for the rest of his life, and doesn’t need the $20 000 as much as the innovative and game-changing punk rock kids.

Of course if neither of my picks win, I may just have to throw a tantrum and demand a full revamping of the contest parameters.

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