I have always been familiar with the Juno Awards. 2006 has been the first time I have been able to actually see them. Prior to now, it was always entertainment reports that briefly mentioned that they happened with limited details of who won some of the awards.
For those of you that are unaware, these are Canada’s music awards. These go out to the top music acts of the nation. In fact, this year saw Brian Adams get inducted to the hall of fame. That turned out to be a pretty huge affair, almost the highlight of the night. Some would say that Nickleback was bigger, but I’d rather stick a pencil in my eye.
Overall, I was kind of let down by the whole event. Broken Social Scene‘s performance was pretty cool. And Michael Buble is bound to be the next big crooner, good for him, hope he has fun with that.
The big let down stems from one of those awards that Buble walked away with. Right after the whole acceptance speech, in the commercial break that followed, there was an ad for his latest album. It said something to the effect of “get the album that won the 2006 Juno Award for album of the year…” In the speech he just gave shortly before that, he was all surprised and astounded that he won.
If it were true that all the other nominees were on the same record label, they had the same commercial for all the other artists ready, and then just aired the corresponding one when the time came, I’d buy the reasoning that no one knew about the winner beforehand. But that’s not true. Someone had advance knowledge that Buble won album of the year. Either he’s a good actor or the promotion people at his label are really good at keeping secrets.
That put a sour note on the Junos for me. I guess I had it in my head that there was something that put them a little bit above what goes on back in the states, but what reigns true back there is true here. The music industry in both countries have the mucky music industry execs pulling strings, no matter where you go. And it makes more sense why Kevin Drew of Broken Social Scene yelled at the end, “Fight for better music, Canada! Fight for better music!“
i thoroughly enjoyed this report on the junos and agree with your thoughts and opinions although being someone born n raised in canada i have a slightly different perspective. never the less, the show was okay – it’s never usually spectacular and someone’s always boycotting (usually that someone is bryan adams) and many of the performances were really annoying – especially the whiny weird guy from cdn idol and his band… but… that’s just the way these things go… glad we didn’t tune in for the entire program – crappy commercials and all