The Scope

It’s Juno time!

For the first time since the first time, the Junos are in taking place in St. John’s. For the remainder of this week, all sorts of events are taking place across the city and we’ll be blogging about it here. It all caps off with the award show (and simultaneous party on George Street) on Sunday night. It should be a great time and a great thing for the city.

I only have one problem with it: award shows make no sense.

I’ve never understood the concept of awarding (or more generally, ranking) art. Given two great movies, I don’t know how one is better than another. Same for actors’ performances. But the most baffling has always been how one piece of music could be better than another. Provided one of songs isn’t out of tune or performed on a rusty harp.

Take Album of the Year. The artists with albums nominated are Billy Talent, Diana Krall, Johnny Reid, Justin Beiber, and Michael Bublé. Now, these are based on sales. Fair enough. But for the winner, it comes down to a vote of Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS) members. If you can listen to a Billy Talent album and a Diana Krall album and then tell me which is better without being biased by your genre preference, you’re a better man than I.

Being a good listener

It’s hard to speak to the validity of the awards without first hearing the music. So for the weeks leading up to the Junos, I enacted a strict Juno-nominee-only musical diet. At first I was afraid. In fact, I was petrified. I mean, it’s Canadian music. How good can it be?

Turns out, extremely.

Right now my inners are completely infested with the Canadian music bug. I’m singing Michael Bublé’s Haven’t Met You Yet in the tub. Classified’s Anybody Listening runs in my head on the way to work. I hear Billy Talent’s Rusted From the Rain when it starts to pour. I’m hear The Tragically Hip’s Love is a First when I pass a beautiful woman. And I sing Drake’s Best I Ever Had to my mid-morning donut. (All songs which happen to be Single of The Year nominees. See what I did there.)

Oh, and let’s not forget Justin Bieber. Ah, Bieber. Whenever he sings, I smile.

All those artists I had heard of before. However there’s a whole slew of artists I’ve just recently discovered. Lights, Stereos and Danny Fernandes are in heavy rotation. There’s something about K’Naan’s voice I can’t explain. And I can hardly listen to Johnny Reid’s Dance with Me without feeling a longing for … something. I could go on.

I am absolutely blown away by the amount of nominated music I’ve not only grown to like, but to crave. And, well, if it took an awards show to bring this new music to my attention, they can’t be all bad.

For the full list of nominees and events, visit http://junoawards.ca