The 2010 Polaris Music Prize will be awarded in Toronto on Monday, Sept. 20 when a bunch of this nation's music critics will get together papal conclave-style in an old Masonic temple to drink beer and decide what the best Canadian album of the year was.
While last year's winner seemed relatively easy to predict — Fucked Up were the lone rawk act, had a subversive name that made critics titter, and many of their fellow competitor/nominees were standard white dude adult alternative artists (who therefore split each other's votes in final balloting) — this year's award holds far more intrigue.
First off, the Grand Jury — the revolving cast of 11 critics who do the voting — will be more optically "French" this year. But four of the 10 short list artists also have tight Quebec connections (Radio Radio, Karkwa, The Besnard Lakes, Tegan And Sara). So does that make for a shoo-in Quebec act victory, or the same sort of giant vote-splitting mess that did in Joel Plaskett-Elliott Brood-Great Lake Swimmers-Chad VanGaalen-Patrick Watson last year?
The other major factor? Two past winners — Caribou and Owen Pallett — are also nominated for their current albums. The Polaris Music Prize is only in its fifth year of existence, so it's impossible to trend what having two previously-vetted artists in the nominee pool really means. But we're going to try to hazard some reckless guesses about this stuff anyway.
Here, then, are CHARTattack's official odds on who'll win the 2010 Polaris Music Prize:
53-to-1 Dan Mangan — Nice, Nice, Very Nice
Lots of things are nice: The feel of a new pair of socks. Finding a quarter on the sidewalk. Soft serve ice cream cones. They're all great, but are they the single best, most exciting thing you'll experience this year? No.
Mangan's a capable and compelling artist, but wispy singer/songwriter as a type seems in full backlash mode, at least as far as the Polaris jury club is concerned.
47-to-1 Broken Social Scene — Forgiveness Rock Record
In true Polaris tradition, the most popular artist amongst the finalists never wins. Forgiveness Rock Record is arguably Broken Social Scene's best album — it's certainly the one that ear-wormed this writer more than any of their previous efforts — but that won't mean a lick in the voting.
46-to-1 Radio Radio — Belmundo Regal
Radio Radio's first problem is the whole chiac rapping thing. While music critics are predisposed to be more open than average to such bold adventures, appreciating a new and challenging form is a lot different than thinking said new and challenging form makes for amazing records. That, plus nobody will vote for an album full of party jams as the best "artistic" album of the year, even if this one has a bit of a concept to it and is more serious than their last one.
40-to-1 Owen Pallett – Heartland and Caribou — Swim
The albums from these two past Polaris winners are going to face a lot of scrutiny. Not only will there be a healthy dose of music critic contrarianism working against them ("They've already won, so fuck 'em"), both Heartland and Swim have to compete against their own discographies — He Poos Clouds and Andorra — respectively. There's a psychological barrier there — any juror who doesn't think Pallett and Caribou's latest works exceed the ones they won with previously are going to vote them down.
There's also another factor working against them — the peaking of fey indie rock as a trend. Despite indie rock's ubiquity in the '00s, it wasn't until the three-straight wins by Pallett-then-as-Final Fantasy, Patrick Watson and Caribou that the greater Canadian music community fully realized and acknowledged our artistes have musical skills just as worth lauding as Nickelback album sales. Now that the baseline has been established, there's no longer that same deep subconscious need to rally behind these people any more. Don't underestimate the perception that they're no longer fringe/underdogs working against them.
8-to-1 Tegan And Sara — Sainthood
Tegan And Sara are so adorable. You want to pinch their cheeks and, like, hide them under your bed so you can pull them out and have conversations with them at night about sitcoms and stuff.
Really, though, if you like Tegan And Sara, you really like Tegan And Sara. And if you don't like Tegan And Sara you think the people who do are batshit nutsos.
We're going to go out on a limb and guess there aren't enough T&S superfans on the jury to propel them to the top.
7-to-1 The Sadies —
Everybody likes The Sadies, and Darker Circles is very likely the best album they've ever made. So could they win?
There's a moderate chance of it for sure, especially considering they stand virtually alone as musicians with "twang" unless you really, really stretch and count Mangan and T&S, too.
Short of every juror smoking a bowl before they vote, though, I can't imagine too many music critics throwing down and backing the notion that The Sadies are The. Absolute. Best. More dangerous is their position as the band who could siphon some of the "occasionally-gets-high" votes away from The Besnard Lakes.
5-to-1 Shad —
With D-Sisive not making the top 10 and the collective realization that Drake is to rap what ransom notes are to proper English, the carpet has been laid for Shad to stroll right up there with the top Polaris contenders.
Indeed, he's got a serious chance of winning this thing as long as pro-hip-hoppers on the Grand Jury feel that he's The Man and not the man who they have to define themselves against.
See, TSOL is full of the old-school beats and savvy lyricism most music critics desperately want out of a rapper, but does that make them nerdy relics who need to get over their A Tribe Called Quest worship? And if they're self-aware enough to understand that a vote for Shad is really a vote for the hip-hop records they loved in '93, does that leave Shad SOL?
9-to-2 Karkwa — Les Chemins De Verre
If the French vote is going filter anywhere it'll be to Karkwa, not Radio Radio. They're ready for the next level and "Quebec's Radiohead Win Polaris Music Prize" has no shortage of romantic appeal.
The problem with this is in the cold, cruel evaluation of Les Chemins De Verre, it puts them much closer to "Quebec's Coldplay" territory, and when someone stands up in the jury room and says, "Aren't they really just a French Pilot Speed?" it has the potential to take the wind out of a lot of homers' sails.
4-to-1 The Besnard Lakes — Are The Roaring Night
A rock record winning the Polaris Prize for the second straight year seems unlikely if you take into consideration the critic contrarianism factor, but there are a number of things that could work in The Besnard Lakes' favour.
First, by being Montrealers they may be able to court some of that "French" vote.
Second, they're the most "rawk" act amongst the nominees by a large margin, so this is the sole voting option for any juror who cares about riffage in even the slightest.
And thirdly, though the whole album Are The Roaring Night is an engaging and slightly twisted conceptual journey, de facto lead off track "Like The Ocean, Like The Innocent: The Innocent Pt. 1" represents the biggest, most bombastic start to any of the nominated albums. Music critics hear so much music that it's hard to stand out. That gigantic lead-off track is unmistakable, though, and if that song hypnotically implants itself in juror minds The Besnards could ride those waves of feedback to victory.
