Western artists shafted by Polaris Prize

Let’s get this over with first: Caribou should win this year’s Polaris Music Prize for Andorra. With his album, Dan Snaith hopped in to a time-machine, set the dial to the 1960s, and then emerged with a disc of honey-sweet guitar-pop that was nostalgic, but in the good kind of way. It didn’t yearn for the old days of sugary, Beach Boys-style ’60s pop-rock, so much as nod politely to its beginnings, then plow forward at warp nine without looking back.

But no matter who takes home the $20 000 accolade next week, the Polaris Prize needs to come clean about what it really is—not a celebration of independent Canadian music, but independent eastern Canadian music, and specifically, independent eastern Canadian rock music.

Let’s take a look at this year’s short-listed artists and do a little math. Of the ten artists to have albums nominated, how many come from Manitoba and westward? A paltry two; the other eight are from Ontario and further east. Last year’s count was only one, since Feist lives in Toronto. In 2006, there were two, if you consider that even though Wolf Parade are from BC, they reside in Montreal. Therefore, during the award’s three-year existence, only five out of 30 nominated artists live in the west. The other 25 have been from the east.

Two conclusions can be drawn from these observations. Neither is pretty, but luckily, only one is true. Either the overwhelming majority of good music in Canada is being made east of Winnipeg, or those deciding the nominees have been biased towards their brethren. The latter makes the most sense; of the eleven members on this year’s grand jury—the music journalists who decide the ultimate winner from the short-listed albums—all but three are from the east.

In order to alleviate this prejudice, the Polaris prize should make their grand jury a little more democratic and less geographically biased, perhaps by adding a twelfth seat to the grand jury, and giving each province (and territory) one a piece. Perhaps then deserving albums from western-based artists like Corb Lund’s Horse Soldier! Horse Soldier! or Cadence Weapon’s Afterparty Babies might have been nominated, and the west would be better represented.

The exclusion of Weapon’s album from this year’s shortlist also speaks of another problem with the Polaris prize: it refuses to nominate more than one rap album per year. It’s true that Weapon was nominated for his debut two years ago, but his sophomore disc is much better—and better than The Old Prince, although Shad still deserves his nomination. In fact, there are about four or five rap albums from across the country worthy of nomination. But until the jury is unafraid of nominating six such albums if they all warrant nomination, each lone rap nominee will just be a token selection. While one might occasionally win to appease those who claim otherwise, I still won’t be convinced that they’re more than just an obligatory nod to the genre.

But it’s not just rap that’s seen the short end of the stick—blues, jazz, electronic music, and even country are getting shafted. I know that folksy guitar-driven rock has been Canadian music’s number one export for the last half-decade, but the Polaris prize claims to judge “without regard to genre”—yet the nominations speak for themselves.

Andorra might be my favourite record of those shortlisted—and it’s even from the east—but I might think differently if the list were more representative of independent music in our nation over the past year. If only Cadence Weapon lived closer to the centre of the Canadian music world.