Well, this year’s Polaris Prize has come to its inevitable conclusion – my least favourite album on the short list winning. Oh well.
Though its supposed to be solely on artistic merit, the political sides of the award gets me a tad conspiratorial. Does the winner need the money? Who deserves the most press? Which choice will perpetuate the popularity of the Polaris Prize itself? Can someone win two years in row (such as repeat nominee Patrick Watson)?
I’ve done my best, though, to ignore all such frustrating fragments of the award – deciding instead to focus on the long list as a whole and enveloping myself in as much quality Canadian music as possible. I could continue arguing my two cents about how the Arkells and the Handsome Furs made better albums than many of the shortlisted artists picked by the jury… but that would suggest that there’s some kind of definitive hierarchy of quality to the albums featured. This is far from true.
For me, Polaris isn’t about about competition, but cooperation. I took it upon myself to tell as many people as I could about the best albums on the long list, sharing my opinion, and gathering the thoughts of others. I probably wouldn’t have given Elliot Brood’s Mountain Meadows a second chance if someone hadn’t told me it was their favourite on the list. Likewise, my dislike of Emily Haines didn’t get in the way of my enjoyment of Fantasies, thanks to the encouragement of others.
Spreading the word about all great Canadian music is what the Polaris should be all about.
With this in mind, I was surprised when I read that only $50,000 was spent on marketing the Polaris competition this year. That’s only slightly more than double of the prize money that the winner takes home. $50,000 to spread the word about 40 great artists, and $20,000 for just the one? Sounds like unfair economics to me.
For Polaris’ marketing campaign this year, they certainly did ramp things up. There were artists profiles in Cineplex cinemas, free download cards to highlight shortlisted albums, as well as a prominently featured page on the iTunes store. Increased coverage on Much Music helped alot too. Finally, a good $10,000 was spent on posters.
Outside of these costs, a strong relationship with the CBC and Sirius (the main funder of the event) created a good foundation to get the word out there.
Still, the Polaris is one of the greatest potential platforms for creating awareness of good Canuck music out there, and its still quite a way from piercing into the Canadian mass consciousness.
Next year, more effort should be put into marketing and branding.
For one, the Polaris website could use a hell of a lot of extra work. At the moment, we’re mostly treated to the occasional biography of panel judges. Who really gives a shit about them? It seems a little self-serving for an award created by journalists to give themselves a spotlight.
Why not feature more stuff from the actual musicians? Why not host pre-Gala events featuring artists’ performances, in order to build hype? Don’t have enough money? Charge people, they’ll pay. Having the gala as a tiny invite-only event involving media insiders excludes the public – it would make a great event to hold at a large venue like Kool Haus. Or, dare I say it, the Air Canada Centre. We can dream.
In addition, the long-list and short-list announcements could use a lot more fanfare. Rather than just offering us links to websites and a photo of each album, time could be spent on profiling artists and providing information (if applicable) on past releases.
At the end of the day, I think that the choice of Fucked Up’s Chemistry of Common Life was a good one for the Polaris. Not because I think it was the best album, but because it’s bound to create more press for the competition.
Most importantly, it offers a “fuck off” to the bore that is the prize’s past. The Polaris has finally been polarized.
Let’s hope that next time around, we see the same polarization of awareness – moving from an obscure hipster love-in to a celebrated promotion of Canadian artistry.
4 Comments
Nice work, please continue to perpetuate the media backlash against Fucked Up.
Great post, Al. Carly said that K’NAAN was easily the highlight of the Polaris show, playing shortly after it was announced that “Wavin’ Flag” was going to be the official song of the World Cup next summer. Yeah, would be have been alright to have been there for that.
Thanks fellas. As usual, Cybulski, I cannot tell if you are being sarcastic or not.
Just read an interesting article in Eye (http://www.eyeweekly.com/music/streetspirit/article/725460) that says that Sirius is mandated to spend $21.5 million on supporting Canadian music development, over their seven-year CRTC license term. That’s around $3 million a year.
Surely they can afford to put more money into the Polaris marketing next year. I’ll grant them that this was their first year as main sponsor – but it’s time to step it up a notch.
My sarcasm is only enhanced by my use of psychic pokemon! We must battle, yes?