Julie McLaughlin

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Pengrowth Saddledome

In 2003, the minds behind the Juno Awards decided enough was enough — it was time to breathe new life into what had become a rather tired ritual. For starters, the ceremony was uprooted from its traditional home in Hamilton and sent travelling cross-country, destined to move to a different Canadian metropolis every year. The new-and-improved Junos also promised to bring several non-broadcast events to host cities, encouraging residents to get off the couch and enjoy the local music scene.

This year, the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS) is bringing the awards to Calgary and they make a fairly compelling case that the celebration will include something for everyone, musicians and music fans alike. JunoFest, a sprawling, multi-day, multi-venue series of concerts, boasts an impressively diverse lineup of local and national talent. The Juno Cup pits Canadian musicians against retired NHL greats in a charity hockey game. Songwriters’ Circle gives fans a chance to hear some of the nation’s most talented musicians discuss their craft in a relatively intimate setting. Indeed, there’s no lack of diversity on the Juno weekend schedule.

Pleased with the willingness of host cities to embrace the new-and-improved ceremony and encouraged by higher-than-ever broadcast viewership (around 1.5 million a year), the powers that be are beginning to see their once-humble Juno Awards as a major destination event for Canadians from all walks of life.

“People travel for big sporting events like the Grey Cup or the Stanley Cup, so I think that’s a good basis for comparison,” says Berry, whose leadership as president of CARAS has brought about many of the recent improvements. “I would love to see people travel for the Juno Awards and to come out and celebrate music with us. And I do know a lot of people that have come since it started to move, especially after it’s come to their city. Loads of people are coming to Calgary this year from Saskatoon and Winnipeg and Halifax, and I’d love to see that snowball.”

Naturally, not everyone shares Berry’s enthusiasm. Especially among the ever-expanding, increasingly noisy “indie” scene, there is a palpable sense of disdain for award shows, and the Junos are no exception. The big bone of contention tends to be the decision-making process, which is often derided as being too sales-focused and oriented towards the much-loathed “major label mentality.” Many argue that the awards should be based solely on artistic merit.

“[That] would definitely change things,” says Dallas Green, whose City & Colour project took home last year’s award for Alternative Album of the Year. “I think fans would see a lot more of the bands and artists that they appreciate. And it would change for artists for sure — mainly because more people would be recognized and it would be a fair fight. Even if they say that sales don’t affect who gets nominated or ends up winning, that’s how it seems. Some of the best bands go unnoticed.”

In fact, only seven of the 39 Juno decisions have an official sales component, and every category is subject to scrutiny by a panel of industry experts, either in the form of small jury votes or CARAS membership ballots. Furthermore, each year’s results are subjected to a rigorous post-mortem geared towards deciding whether the nomination and voting schemes worked as intended. In fact, just last year, the sales component was removed from the album of the year awards for rock, pop and instrumental. In spite of CARAS’s best efforts, some critics refuse to be silenced.

“When you’re watching the Junos, who’s the one that fucking picks the artists that are there?” asked 2006 Juno performer and 2008 Juno nominee Patrick Watson in an interview last November. “Why are they picked? Are they the best artists in Canada? No, they’re not. They’re the albums that sold, and that’s a fact. And what’s happening is that people who don’t have the opportunity to learn about music see that and go ‘these are the best musical artists right now, and this is all I have to listen to.’ I find that’s a disservice to the listener and the band.”

Watson’s ire isn’t wholly unfounded — the majority of awards presented during the broadcast are for categories partly based on sales, and while JunoFest features lots of lesser-known local talent, the broadcast is crammed full of less-than-exciting outfits that already enjoy national followings. Most lifelong music lovers find it difficult to stomach that, in terms of all-time wins, Nickelback is pretty close to overtaking Canadian legends like Bruce Cockburn and Gordon Lightfoot.

“People need to remember that the awards are supposed to be a celebration,” responds Berry. “Nickelback are internationally known, and they’ve had huge sales, so for the categories that they’re winning in, how could you possibly argue with that? But you will notice that there’s absolutely no category in the Juno Awards that says ‘best.’ If you think about it, that’s a very important point: the categories are ‘...of the year.’ It doesn’t mean that one is better than the other, it’s talking about what we’re recognizing in the past year.”

It’s no surprise that Berry is emphatic regarding this point, since the transition from “best” to “...of the year” is another recent initiative, having occurred for the first time at her inaugural Junos in 2003. She also vehemently defends the makeup of the broadcast and festival lineups, eager to remind that bringing obscure content to a wider audience needs to be a gradual process, because if no one watches, none of the artists get any exposure, period. In her mind, there needs to be a trade-off between sales and artistry, a philosophy shared by many established musicians.

“For survival in the arts today, we believe sales and artistic merit are fundamentally related,” says Jeff Nelsen, a French horn player whose work with the legendary Canadian Brass has earned him multiple Juno nods. “We could create a magnificent recording that would be Juno-nominated wholly on its artistic merit, and those ‘Juno Nominated’ stickers would sit in a warehouse, not piquing sales-related interest. We fill concert halls because we succeed in the sensitive balancing act of mixing familiar music with new music to which people can relate. We believe this has huge artistic merit for society and for artists as well.”

Whether you agree with Nelsen’s pragmatism or the vitriol of the indie set, for a long time, the Junos were the only major award in town. Then, in 2006, an upstart award emerged to challenge its effective monopoly. The Polaris Prize is an accolade for the best Canadian album of the year, based solely on artistic merit. Early supporters were quick to assume that this stern rejection of sales-related criteria was a reaction to the failure of the Junos to showcase genuine artistry, but the brains behind the award are eager to dispel this sentiment.

“People tend to suggest that it’s the anti-Juno, but that’s absolutely not the case,” says Polaris head honcho Steve Jordan. “They’re completely different awards. The Polaris prize is a critics’ prize for a single album, whereas the Junos try to offer something to everyone, and I think they do a great job of it. I don’t want to comment on some of the more mainstream stuff that the Junos do, but in terms of the craft categories like classical, jazz, blues and country, they really do recognize great art in Canada.”

Even the presumed competition is on the same page as the Junos to a certain extent. The awards may never have the incisive impact on a particular group like the Polaris Prize has had on the Canadian independent music scene,, but it’s hard to argue with the sort of broad-base appeal the organizers have managed to achieve. While Berry is enthusiastic about the prospect of serenading more discerning music fans by expanding the broadcast to include more craft-driven events like Songwriters’ Circle, she is quick to remind everyone that CARAS is a not-for-profit organization whose support of music goes far beyond the broadcast.

“We gave over half a million dollars worth of instruments to schools across the country this year,” says Berry of MusiCan, the primary recipient of money raised during Juno events. “The music education program has really taken off, and to be able to say that we’ve given that back is incredible, because we really believe in the future of music. Every child should have the opportunity for music education. Unfortunately, that’s the kind of thing that’s being cut, so we’re spending time and energy on that, and we’re lucky that the entire industry has been so supportive of this initiative.”