Well, no. Although a post dedicated to ancient Roman deities would be fun. But I'm more familiar with Greek mythology (Orpheus = first rock star?) and in any case I'm not going to do that right now.
If you're into that kind of thing, Canada held its national music awards show, also known as the Juno Awards. I hope you watched it. If you didn't, I did a nice little irritating play-by-play on Twitter, which is pretty much like watching it, right? If you're wondering specifically what you missed, here are some thoughts and extrapolations of mine.
The show was two hours long (including commercials) but there were only 7 awards handed out. The non-televised gala event the night before saw 32 awards given, including Rock Album of the Year, Single of the Year, and Pop Album of the Year. While it was a bit of an odd balance for an awards show, I actually liked it. There was more emphasis on live performances, and that's more of a celebration of the year's music than some pats on the back.
That being said, the triple set of Serena Ryder, Crystal Shawanda, and Divine Brown doing a song each didn't do much for me. It all sort of washed over me as some well-formulated pop, so I guess I either need to investigate these people more (I'll forget) or be ok with not liking that style of music (I'm ok with that).
Whatever lighting trick they used for Sam Roberts' performance of "Them Kids" completely blew my mind. I also love that song, but I am convinced the stage lighting was the work of a mighty sorcerer. I didn't know we had any in Canada.
You know what else I didn't know we had in Canada? Loverboy. I honestly did not know they were Canadian, and I'm sorry for that. Giving them a lifetime achievement brought up the cheese factor for the show, but that's true of any such award.
On a personal note, it seems like every rock band that performed had a guitar in the same style as mine. Or mine is like theirs, more accurately. The semi-hollow guitar just looks beautiful and I'm glad I jumped on the right bandwagon.
No matter how many times I hear people tell me they absolutely hate Nickelback and have for years, they end up winning one award after another. I know I'm not buying their shallow pool of song-writing ability, but someone is. Enough people to net them Album of the Year among others. The real problem is that they also won the Fan's Choice award. So either the Nickelback-haters are lying, or not being vocal enough.
When all is said and done, though, the Juno Awards remain just that - an awards show. The accolades go to the artists who sell well, who play the pop-music game right and rake in the dollars. The Polaris Prize is a different animal altogether. They call themselves a "not-for-profit organization that annually honours, celebrates and rewards" Canadian bands, "without regard to musical genre, professional affiliation, or sales history". In other words, they just like good music, as chosen by an expert panel. So if the Junos and Grammies left a bad taste in your mouth - Nickelback? Seriously?! - then check out the Polaris. Also, Dallas Green agrees with you.
Oh yeah! I'm going to write about the CBC later. So stay tuned or whatever it is you do with blogs.
Listen. You can almost hear the leather pants.
Oh yeah! I'm going to write about the CBC later. So stay tuned or whatever it is you do with blogs.
Listen. You can almost hear the leather pants.
I think the best performance of the night was Bryan Adams and Kathleen Edwards. Their on-stage chemistry was amazing.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the Divine Brown, Crystal Shawanda, and Serena Ryder set, felt a bit weird. Kind of like they just stuck them together because they were three female artists.
I haven't heard Crystal Shawanda before. But, I like Serena Ryder who has a cool folksy, blues kind of sound (though she does look a bit weird when she twists back and forth when she plays), and Divine Brown has an amazing voice.
I actually have Serena Ryder's album if you want to grab a copy to listen.
I think their on-stage chemistry was amazing because there's off-stage chemistry as well. They are so totally into each other :)
ReplyDeleteI missed it, but I saw a few clips on ctv.ca. Kathleen Edwards has such a beautiful voice and I didn't know she played violin! I also saw the Sam Roberts clip, and the lighting was mind blowing, I'm going to have to ask some tech friends about that.
ReplyDeleteI wanted to play the drinking game they had posted on chartattack =(.
I'm rather excited for Polaris nominations, I'm already making a list and we have 2 months of albums left to be released...