Just as Vancouver psychic numerologist Cassandra MacLeane predicted last week, Montreal's Arcade Fire topped up their 2011 award haul on Monday night with a Polaris Prize win for The Suburbs which has already earned the group Album of the Year honours at the Grammys, Junos and the Brits.
Although any of the other nine lesser celebrated acts shortlisted for this year's Polaris – Austra, Braids, Destroyer, Galaxie, Hey Rosetta!, Ron Sexsmith, Colin Stetson, Timber Timbre, The Weeknd – could've benefited much more from the profile boost that comes with the award – not to mention the $30,000 cash bonus – Arcade FIre's unsurprising win just confirms that the Polaris Prize really is nothing more than an indie rock popularity contest.
Not that there's anything wrong with rewarding success, however, the time has come for the Polaris executive board to give up the pretense that Canadian artists working outside the indie rock realm in say jazz, blues, pop, country, R&B, folk, gospel, reggae, metal, electronic, experimental, or classical music have an equal shot at Polaris glory – they don't.
No comments:
Post a Comment