Owen Pallett: Pole Star

photo from Polaris website

I realize that this post is a bit overdue; after all, it's been about a month since the wrap up of the first ever Polaris music prize contest. However, since an apology began the last post, and since apologies are an apparently overused form of introduction, I make no apologies for my (un)timeliness.

The Polaris is Canada's response to the Mercury Prize, a U.K. music award that recognizes the best British or Irish album of the year. The Mercury prides itself on being a counterpoint to the more mainstream Brit awards, and generally, the Mercury goes to artists just on the cusp of being a global name (i.e. past winners include Gomez, Badly Drawn Boy, The Arctic Monkeys etc...). While the cusp was kinder to some (Franz Ferdinand) than others (Anthony and the Johnsons), the award gets a lot of press and generates a healthy amount of worldwide sales and recognition for British artists.

This year, Steve Jordan, a former A&R music exec proposed a similar schtick for the Canadian music industry. Dubbed the Polaris, after the brilliant pole star, the organization's mission statement claims to celebrate and reward "creativity and diversity in Canadian recorded music by recognizing, then marketing the albums of the highest artistic integrity, without regard to musical genre, professional affiliation, or sales history, as judged by a panel of selected critics and experts." The debate about the short-list (and who was left on/off of it) raged in papers, blogs, radio shows etc. for months leading up to the final gala in Toronto; I have no desire to repeat it here. I'm more interested in the fact that there is room for an award show that claims to recognize what should be at the core of any "best of" award given at like events (i.e. The Juno's). In other words, we shouldn't need the Polaris.

Sadly, we do. The key line in teh Polaris mission statement is "regardless of sales history". Since Juno nominees acquire that distinction simply by achieving a certain number of sales, freeing the judgement criteria of that variable supposedly allows the Polaris to focus on what really matters: the music. Their point of difference is the difference between "best" and "best-selling". In theory. In practice, most of the ten nominees are also some of Canada's best selling (indy-ish) artists. So what's the point of an award that recognizes many of the very same artists that our other major award show does? In light of this question, the Polaris seems meant to square the conflicting desire between being hip and wininng an award (awww, the poor unhip Juno).

But before we completely write off an award show that wants to be the official police of Canada's hip music (imagine the RCMP in hipster outfits), the winner of the first ever Polaris prize throws a wrench in my rant. Owen Pallett is not one of Canada's best-selling artists (nor do I imagine he will be, even with the added recognition). He did not get nominated for a Juno (other than tangentially for his work with the Arcade Fire). He wasn't a household name in Canada. He's a guy with a violin who's interesting and different and who now represents what the Polaris has to strive for in future years.

More dear to my heart, he's also incredibly skilled with looping pedals. Check out this incredible video of a cover of Bloc Party's "This Modern Love" to see Pallett (and his pedals) in action. Then keep your ears open for where both Pallett and the Polaris prize go from here.