Pre-Polaris: Grimes

Tonight I’m part of the jury voting for the winner of the 2012 Polaris Music Prize. Today, my notes on all 10 albums, that I made in advance of a juror dinner last night. What you see here is entirely my opinion, in no way reflecting the conversation at that table, other than that I vocalized many of these points, and was merely one of 10 very intelligent and articulate people in the discussion.

Grimes – Visions

First impressions (published Feb. 23, 2012):

Who would dare earnestly embrace Mariah Carey and Animal Collective? Meet the deliriously confounding 23-year-old Montreal musician Clare Boucher, aka Grimes.

On her third album, Boucher’s girlish and acrobatic voice is delivered rich with reverb, layered with towers of her own harmonies and electronically pitched into the stratosphere. No matter how strange she makes herself sound, she is almost always singing bubblegum melodies. Her sonic backdrop owes as much to Robyn as it does to Aphex Twin or to The Weeknd—or, given the ’80s sheen of Visions, she conjures sonic images of the Cocteau Twins singing Debbie Gibson songs with Men Without Hats as the backing band.

Like Braids—her fellow weird Western Canadian transplants, Montreal neighbours and Arbutus label mates—her love of sound supersedes all else. So even if Visions boasts big beats here designed for dance floors, even if she’s writing sing-song melodies, the ecstasy of Grimes’s music comes from the opaque luxuriousness of the sonic landscape, a world as stimulating, disorienting and brightly lit as Tokyo at night, a trip through a psychedelic children’s cartoon, an abstract collision of sounds that perhaps only an ADD-addled, self-taught musician could stumble upon and decide to assemble together.

It’s entirely possible that Boucher may be a lucky musical naïf—a listen to her nebulous, earlier recordings would suggest this—but Visions displays a bold sophistication and originality, not to mention confidence and drive (she recorded this in a three-week stint, locked in her bedroom with blacked-out windows). As good as it is, Visions also suggests a dozen different directions she could go from here. An intensely creative and restless spirit, Boucher may find herself in Bjork’s company sooner than later.

Pros:

--Of all the albums on the list, this is the only one I enjoy more with each listen (and I liked it to begin with). Whereas everything else falls into a fairly easy and predictable formula, one never knows with Grimes exactly when the beat is going to drop, when the drums are going to lurch in a different direction, how high exactly her voice is going to go, even what her voice is going to sound like from one song to the next.

--Though she has a few synth sounds she favours, every song has a different enough palette that nothing here sounds like a crutch.

--Grimes manages that ideal balance between avant-garde abstraction and pure pop melodies; some songs here are downright bubblegum (“Oblivion”).

--On a 13-track album, only one track (“Eight”) falls flat entirely, due to Boucher pitch-shifting her voice both into the stratosphere and into a low, Vocoder monotone; lo and behold, it's under two minutes long, so it's easily forgivable.

---Many debts are owed here, though to nothing much older than Boucher herself, born in 1988. From the '80s: Prince (there's an almost-obvious beat crib from “When Doves Cry” on “Colour of Moonlight,” and many harmonies throughout Visions would only ever appear on Prince albums), Debbie Gibson (for the chipper sing-song elements), Kate Bush (all-around adventurousness) and the Cocteau Twins (for indecipherable, atmospheric abstraction). From the '90s: some new jack R&B (there's a delicious "mmmmmm" in “Vowels = Space and Time”), some post-rave chillout ala Aphex Twin, the gravity-defying vocals of Mariah Carey and a healthy dose of Bjork's first four game-changing albums. (Boucher says she worshipped Marilyn Manson as a kid; that's not at all evident here.) From the '00s: the artsy precociousness of the Williamsburg scene (Animal Collective, Coco Rosie, the Juan Maclean, etc.), genre-collapsing pop stars like Robyn and Beyonce, and self-sampling solitary showmen like Owen Pallett and TuneYards. If someone consciously set out to imitate all these artists, they would fail miserably. If someone conjures those allusions entirely effortlessly, that's the mark of a true original.

Cons:

--Boucher already has a high voice: why does she feel the need to pitch-shift it into helium territory? It's distracting and occasionally downright annoying. There's a fine line between girlish and infantile.

--If you don't like the sound of her voice, there is no way you'll ever be able to sit through this record. Ostensibly that shouldn't be held against her, but even the most open-minded listener knows of a quirky voice or two who drives you up the bend within a few syllables, no matter the merits of their music (for me: Drake, the Mountain Goats' John Darnielle, and any of the whiny emo-metal my teenage stepkiddo listens to).

--Lyrics are all but incomprehensible; maybe that's a good thing, as the few snippets that emerge through the atmospheric layering are nothing worth writing down. Do they matter? Are they the point of this album? Should I think of this the same way I would consider a foreign-language album?

--This is one of the rare albums that sounds better on MP3 (which is how I first heard it) than on a CD; the bass tones in particular are less appealing in higher definition. 

--Despite everything Boucher achieves on this album (almost in spite of herself, it seems), there is a sense that the whole thing is entirely ephemeral and weightless; there's zero sense of gravity or meaning here, just pure pleasure, one continuous hit of ecstasy or morphine. Maybe that's all pop music has to be; maybe that's all it can be in the 21st century--music like this couldn't exist any time before now.

Things I shouldn't be considering:

No woman has yet to win Polaris; the only woman even in a winner's band is bassist Sandy Miranda of Fucked Up, one of six people in that band. [UPDATE: How on Earth could I get that wrong? Of course, there are two women in the core lineup of Arcade Fire. Consider me completely embarrassed for missing that, considering my history with the band.] Grimes is a one-woman show, making this 100 per cent estrogen-powered. Though she became Grimes in Montreal, Boucher grew up in Vancouver; that would make her technically the first winner west of Hamilton (Caribou is from adjacent Dundas, Ont.). Visions is a 10,000 per cent improvement over anything else she's done; she deserves points for serious growth alone. On the con side, this is the ugliest album cover ever for a shortlisted album; it's beyond hideous, and inside, it's not much better. And every time I see a picture of Boucher in some ridiculous get-up combining the worst crimes of '80s new wave, rave culture and Japanese anime--or worse, sit through one of her excruciatingly embarrassing videos--I honestly have trouble fathoming her winning the prize.

Pre-Polaris: Fucked Up

Tonight I’m part of the jury voting for the winner of the 2012 Polaris Music Prize. Today, my notes on all 10 albums, that I made in advance of a juror dinner last night. What you see here is entirely my opinion, in no way reflecting the conversation at that table, other than that I vocalized many of these points, and was merely one of 10 very intelligent and articulate people in the discussion.

Fucked Up – David Comes to Life

First impression (June 16, 2011):

I was one of the few unconvinced that this Toronto band’s 2008 album The Chemistry of Common Life was somehow a watershed moment for hardcore punk, despite the fact it won the Polaris Prize, got them signed to one of the most-respected American indie labels, and garnered attention from plenty of mainstream press and even public radio both here and in the U.S. To an aggressive genre born and ossified in the early ’80s, Fucked Up brought broad ambition, flutes, violins, female vocals and other distractions to counteract Damian Abraham’s visceral one-note growl. But on the album itself, somewhere underneath the 70 layers of guitar tracks, they forgot how to be a great punk band (which you can hear them be on the 2009 compilation Couple Tracks); Common Life was as bloated as the prog rock that punk was created to slay in the first place.

Now comes what the band claims is a rock opera. At 18 tracks and 70 minutes, Fucked Up prove once again that they don’t lack for ambition. And the first third of this album sounds like it’s paid off: the production is 10 times better than on Common Life, with the guitars roaring out of the speakers, Abraham comfortably placed in the mix instead of sounding like the guy who’s always belching loudly at the party, and songs that match fist-pumping punk energy with, well, the idea of a rock opera that The Who pioneered in the late ’60s.

Yet the album loses steam quickly after that, and not just because Abraham sounds monotonous even on a good day, and not because it’s impossible to honestly comprehend the narrative, which apparently has something to do with living in Thatcher’s England. After the initial burst of inspiration on the opening tracks, the music doesn’t function as punk, not as prog, not as pop, and certainly not as rock opera. The production—especially the guitar tones—is the only consistent strength here, and it’s curious how close the band comes to sounding like U2 at times, which surely was not what they were going for. But who knows?

Pros:

--The three-guitar attack sounds utterly fantastic here, in ways this band never has before. 

--Drummer Mr. Jo whips everyone into shape and provides solid drive even when the guitarists start phoning it in.

--The production is perfect for a rock’n’roll record, sounding raw yet crisp at the same time. 

--At his best, singer Pink Eyes has developed from a monotonous growler to an inspiring howler.  

--Several tracks here capture this band at what they do best, mixing hardcore punk fury with influences ranging from The Who, The Clash, and, uh, early Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: “Ship of Fools,” “The Other Shoe,” “Running on Nothing,” “Queen of Hearts, Under My Nose.”

Cons:

--Outside of the tracks mentioned above, and despite the high energy level throughout this is terribly boring. Shouldn’t I be on the edge of my seat, pumping my fists in the air? There is very little, if any, dynamic range—which is fine for a 30-minute album, not a 70-minute one. For an album called David Comes To Life, it is remarkably moribund. And that’s not always the fault of the band—it’s the fault of the songs, and the fact that none of them has a vocal melody consisting of more than one note.

--Track 12 of 18, “Ship of Fools,” is the last time this album sounds like it has any life in it. Why plod on for another six tracks?

--Pink Eyes: he is far more effective in small doses, which is the only Fucked Up record I’ve ever enjoyed is their singles collection. I’m also inherently suspect of any singer who maintains an exaggerated emotional state over the course of an entire record.

 --As an ostensible concept album, I have no idea what’s going on.

Things I’m not supposed to think about:

This band has already won the Polaris Prize. And I know from anecdotal evidence that even people who love this band and admire this ambitious project (and who even voted for it to be on this list) can't make it all the way through this album.

Pre-Polaris: Feist

Tonight I’m part of the jury voting for the winner of the 2012 Polaris Music Prize. Today, my notes on all 10 albums, that I made in advance of a juror dinner last night. What you see here is entirely my opinion, in no way reflecting the conversation at that table, other than that I vocalized many of these points, and was merely one of 10 very intelligent and articulate people in the discussion.

Feist – Metals

First impressions (published Oct. 6, 2011):

Four long years after Feist’s breakthrough album The Reminder, the Toronto singer admits that she became entirely burnt out on relentless touring, as that album’s slow-burn success made her an international star. And so after taking on a full-on break from making music, she returns singing: “Makes me remember the things that I forgot / it’s as much what it is as what it is not.”

What Metals is not is obvious. It is not an album with a peppy hit single like “1234” or “Mushaboom.” It is not an album that gives away all its goods on first listen. Though it is rich in melody and harmony, it is not a pop album. Though there are many intimate moments featuring only Feist and her guitar, it is not a singer/songwriter album. Though it has supple grooves borrowed from the slowest, sexiest side of Al Green, it is not a soul album. And though it contains elements of The Reminder’s quieter moments and the majesty of her long-unavailable debut album Monarch, Metals marks new territory for Feist.

Many songs start from a bluesy base, something very simple and primal, built around a tension of delicate but forceful instrumentation; but from there, a song can easily move from a solitary guitar motif before erupting with a strident choir, electric guitars crashing in a loping waltz time, and punctuated by clanging chain percussion. Few songs here fall into a steady template; they wait to be pulled or pushed apart, to have their meter toyed with, suspended while a string section or the sound of scraping metal sneaks into the background scene.

  

Then of course there is Feist’s calm, steadying, pitch-perfect voice, one that’s almost devoid of emotion, conveying everything and nothing at the same time. What is she singing about? Who cares? It’s “true life in haiku,” she sings, but whatever you’re looking for in these songs—either love or loss, comfort or concern—you’ll find them.

That tabula rasa extends to the music. While Feist was the undisputed star of earlier Feist records, Metals is much more communal. The various accompanying ensembles are one reason: string sections, brass sections, and choirs all transform the most intimate moments into something larger and yet still tender. But even though Feist’s voice is front and centre, it’s just as important as every piano chord, bass drum kick, or subtle sonic shading; together, every carefully arranged element establishes the tenor of the album, which works remarkably well as a whole. The only odd duck is “A Commotion,” pushed along by pulsing cellos and a man choir shouting the chorus; it’s curious, joyous, sparse and somewhat unsettling, the closest Feist gets to rocking out here, and it’s one of the most captivating tracks she’s ever recorded.

Metals also sounds like the most honest album since her debut: if Let It Die was her role-playing as a pretty pop star, and The Reminder found her trying to reconcile several different sides of her musical personality, Metals is its own world entirely—a world where Feist roams freely, devoid of expectation or constraint, a world with plenty for all to explore.

Pros:

 --Yes, the songs are very good and Feist is a fantastic singer, but it’s the dynamics and arrangements here that really stand out. The horns and strings are not just syrupy decoration; they provide tension and texture, and are often doing something extremely subtle and playful under the radar that takes the song somewhere else, like Colin Stetson’s arpeggiating bass clarinet that pops up near the end of “The Bad in Each Other.”

--The percussion here is in a world of its own, often defining an entire arrangement, like the rattlesnake tambourine of “Undiscovered First.”

--At times this sounds like Sigur Ros arranged a blues album for the Rheostatics’ Martin Tielli.

--Feist’s take on primal blues and soul music registers far more deeply with me than Cat Power’s attempts at the same thing; Feist is also far more creative with her pursuit, whereas Cat Power too often gets by on charisma alone.

--No matter how stellar the arrangements and the production, any one of these songs would be just as effective with just Feist and her guitar or piano.

--At the end of “Undiscovered First,” as the band abandons its crescendo and retreats to the smallest of sounds, we hear Feist singing off-microphone, seemingly trudging off in the distance, still singing “is this the right mountain?”—questioning, even as she embarks on the adventure.

--Three of these songs are in ¾. That always scores points with me.

--“A Commotion,” with its hollering man chorus, is totally unexpected and gloriously heavy. I love the relentless pulse of the string section, the obtrusive organ that echoes her vocal line, the a cappella staccato chanting in the final verse, the push-and-pull of the whole thing, and the fact that a song this heavy—later covered by metal band Mastadon—appears in the middle of this otherwise very pretty record.

--The one line in “The Circle Married the Line,” “It’s as much what it is as what it is not,” sums up much of what I love about this album.

Cons:

I honestly can’t think of any. I don’t think there’s a wrong note on this record. Yes, it’s all a bit mannered and pleasant to listen to, but I don’t think it goes for easy answers. I also get that some people find Feist’s vocal delivery somewhat stilted and removed; that’s entirely subjective. If I vote for another record over this one, it will be because that record does more for me emotionally or intellectually or zeitgeist-y—or all three—than Metals does. (Or because everyone else in the room hates this album.)

Things I’m not supposed to think about:

This is a safe and solid choice. Something inside me wants to resist safe choices. I have to resist that urge to resist safe choices. You follow?

Pre-Polaris: Kathleen Edwards

Tonight I’m part of the jury voting for the winner of the 2012 Polaris Music Prize. Today, my notes on all 10 albums, that I made in advance of a juror dinner last night. What you see here is entirely my opinion, in no way reflecting the conversation at that table, other than that I vocalized many of these points, and was merely one of 10 very intelligent and articulate people in the discussion.

 

Kathleen Edwards - Voyageur

First impressions (published Jan. 12, 2012):

In the advance hype leading up to Voyageur, much has been made of Kathleen Edwards’ creative and romantic partnership with Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, the indie sensation whose 2010 album topped many year-end lists and garnered several Grammy nominations. On the surface, it’s a strange combination: Edwards has rarely strayed from the Canadiana roots rock template of her peers Sarah Harmer, Jim Bryson and Blue Rodeo; Vernon makes sensitive, mellow pseudo-folk music that sounds like it’s sung by space aliens and a ’70s L.A. studio band. What would Vernon do with Edwards’ music? Hook her up to a helium tank? Demand she strip away any literal language in her lyrics? Impose a five-piece horn section on every song?

Vernon is all about the opaque; Edwards is never anything but blunt and direct. Using their lyrics, let’s imagine a typical conversation between them. Edwards: “I know your heart is a sacred thing. You’re a comedian hiding behind your funny face.” Vernon: “In a mother, out a moth, furling forests for the soft, gotta know been lead aloft.” Edwards: “Out of the shadows, out of the cameras and the lights, you’re a chameleon and you hide behind your darker side.” Vernon: “I’m ridding all your stories. What I know is, what it is, is pouring—wire it up!”

Thankfully, Vernon doesn’t impose himself on Edwards’ music; the production is crisp and clean, and there’s little here to distinguish it from any other Edwards album, other than her continuing maturity as a writer—although 2008’s Asking For Flowers was the real sea change, where she expanded her writing voice, constructing strong narratives that were clearly not autobiographical, setting short stories to songs. Here she’s back to writing what could easily be seen as personal stories; in the last year she divorced previous collaborator Colin Cripps before taking up with Vernon, and much of the album is about beginnings and endings of relationships. She and Vernon have very little in common, musically, although her “House Full of Empty Rooms” shares chords and sounds somewhat like Bon Iver’s “Beth/Rest,” only without a Mike and the Mechanics backdrop and with about 1/20^th the amount of reverb.

And yet if enough potential fans who would never give Kathleen Edwards the time of day before are suddenly interested because of the Bon Iver connection, more power to her. Edwards has yet to make a weak record, and Voyageur finds her more than ready for her close-up.

Pros

--The production is fantastic, although, as no fan of Bon Iver records, I prefer to think this is due to a more experienced Edwards and her band learning to let the music breathe, and utilizing more interesting guitar and keyboard textures (see: “Going to Hell”) than most standard roots rock bands do.

--“I’m looking for a soft place to land”—is there a more tender admission to a new lover from someone on the rebound? That’s the sound of the evening proposal; "Sidecar" is the sound of the buoyant next morning, the couple ready to burst out of the house, hand-in-hand, jump on their bikes in jubilation and watch the world erupt into a giant lip dub in their wake.

--Edwards has a way of drawing maximum emotional resonance out of a chorus lyric like “I don’t need a punchline.”

--The opening, descending half-note piano chords on “Soft Place to Land” are as delicate as snowfall; the spaces between notes on this album often speak volumes.

--She calls in some heavyweight guests here—Bon Iver, Norah Jones, Bahamas, Hawksley Workman, the Good Lovelies, Jim Bryson—but they all fit seamlessly into the puzzle. I didn’t even recognize Norah Jones on “For the Record.” This is a great singer/songwriter album where the woman in question is always front and centre; everything else is just texture. (“For the record, I only wanted to sing songs.”)

--Gord Tough’s guitar sound captures Canadiana roots rock—from Neil Young to the Grapes of Wrath to the Rheostatics to Weeping Tile—like very few others; he’s a major asset here.

--“House Full of Empty Rooms” is hardly an original metaphor in a divorce song, but title aside, Edwards expertly captures the slow dissolution of a couple falling out of love.

--“Pink Champagne” has this awesome zinger: “In a dress to kill and a glass to fill.”

Cons:

--I’m still not sold on Edwards’s upper register; the notes she’s aiming for always seem just ever-so-slightly out of her grasp (not unlike Joel Plaskett, who really, really milks this). When she’s competing with Feist and Cold Specks, this is a major shortcoming.

--“Change the sheets and then change me” is not a great lyric to hang a chorus on.

--It’s hard to fault Voyageur for much, but at the same time there’s little that would ever make me place it above all other records I heard in any given 12-month period.

Things I’m not supposed to think about:

Her 2008 album, Asking for Flowers, was much better, rooted more in obviously fictional narratives and showing her development as a short-story teller. 

Pre-Polaris: Drake

 

Tonight I’m part of the jury voting for the winner of the 2012 Polaris Music Prize. Today, my notes on all 10 albums, that I made in advance of a juror dinner last night. What you see here is entirely my opinion, in no way reflecting the conversation at that table, other than that I vocalized many of these points, and was merely one of 10 very intelligent and articulate people in the discussion.

 

Drake - Take Care

First impression (published Nov. 24, 2011, in a joint review with Nickelback):

…Wasn’t Drake that charming young man who hosted the Junos? Isn’t he a well-adjusted TV star from a tony Toronto neighbourhood? Isn’t Stevie Wonder on this new album? Isn’t his new single with Nicki Minaj, called “Make Me Proud,” supposed to be an empowering ode to the fairer sex?

Drake can play the sensitive guy all he wants, but his lyrical output is nothing short of vile, a portrait of a guy who is “addicted to naked pictures and sittin’ talking ’bout bitches,” and who loves breast-implanted strippers even more than Chad Kroeger does. It’s not like he hides this part of his personality: on the first track, “Over My Dead Body” (with music by Chantal Kreviazuk), Drake goes on about his six-figure salary, white women, and gives a bizarre “shout out to Asian girls / let the lights dim sum.” As an opening salvo, it doesn’t bode well. It’s actually one of the better tracks here.

“I don’t make music for niggers that don’t get pussy,” he claims, a throwaway line that would be more offensive if it wasn’t so ridiculous—especially over decidedly unsexy beats. What’s actually offensive is how much insipid whining he does about his broken heart, like a crybaby emo teenager instead of the supposedly macho playa that he pretends to be on 80 per cent of the tracks here. His defenders claim that dichotomy is part of his appeal; mostly he sounds like a two-faced hypocrite. “I know you’ve been hurt by someone else,” he pays his ex-girlfriend Rihanna to croon to him on the title track. I’m sure it wasn’t her idea.

Take Care is one of the most anticipated albums of the year. It’s also by far the dullest: 17 songs of Drake discussing his fame and sexual conquests over hook-less music that’s just as tedious as his rhymes. It’s one thing to make a terrible album; it’s another to make a terrible album that’s interminable.

Drake’s dry delivery throughout—when either singing or rapping—is devoid of charisma and impossible to take seriously. That doesn’t stop him from aiming for maximum gravitas at every available opportunity, especially on the eight-minute drunk-dialling epic “Marvin’s Room.” It’s ostensibly a Marvin Gaye homage (?) about a jilted lover cursing his ex’s new partner. But the lyrics are downright laughable: he croons softly in the chorus, “fuck that nigger that you love so bad,” calls his lover only after he’s been left alone by all the bitches he invited over to party, and he boasts about having sex four times that week to help him get over his pain and adjust to fame. What a charmer.

"Marvin’s Room" is made worse by Drake’s earnest, AutoTuned vocals, which are shamelessly trying to ape his protégé The Weeknd—an artist who, on his own records, nails the fine line between distasteful decadence and self-loathing better than Drake could ever dream of doing. (Plus, Abel Tesfaye of The Weeknd can actually sing.)

So why does Drake get such a free ride, not just from his audience but from respectable mainstream media? Is his million-dollar smile really so blinding that we can overlook his countless shortcomings? Speaking of millions of dollars, listening to Take Care—what a condescending title, by the way—is like enduring 70 minutes listening to Marie Antoinette blather on at the precipice of the French Revolution. Do regular schmoes listen to Drake for the same deluded and self-defeating reason that poor people vote Republican?

Even worse—Drake doesn’t make it sound like his life is any fun at all. Say what you will about Nickelback, they’re having an amazing time being kings of the world and don’t care what you think…

Pros:

--I’ll admit that some tracks on this album have grown on me since I’ve subjected myself to this album on endless rotation as part of my Polaris duties. So let’s focus on the positive for a second: the first voice you hear is not Drake’s but Chantal Kreviazuk, an artist I’ve never cared for until now, when she offers respite from Drake.

--That opening track, “Over My Dead Body,” has one line I’ll admit is pretty good: “Jealousy is just love and hate at the same time.”

--The first five tracks on Take Care are tolerable, if not pretty good. I respect Drake’s decision to downplay the beats, which is almost heresy in hip-hop. There are no drums at all on “Over My Dead Body”; Shot For Me has little more than fingersnaps on the verses. The opening suite culminates with the title track, produced by Jamie “xx” Smith, based largely on his remix of a track from the final Gil-Scott Heron album; obviously, it owes a large debt to The Xx, featuring guitar by Romy Madley-Croft (surely the only woman on this album who isn’t singing), but Drake also manages to get the most honest, emotional vocal performance out of Rihanna—perhaps ever. The first two minutes of this track, before Drake steps in, is completely sublime.

--As much as I hate Drake’s flow and his vocal timbre, I have to admit that it actually works on “Headlines,” and the drum programming is superb. The drums are even better on “Crew Love,” probably this album’s production high point, and featuring a vocal by The Weeknd.

--The production on “Marvin’s Room” could have been done by Grimes; as much as I loathe this song in general, again, I have to respect that Drake is reaching for something different here.

--I’m mysteriously intrigued by this line: “Slave to the pussy but I’m playing the field nigger.” Is there supposed to be a comma between “field” and “nigger” or is he purposely baiting anyone whose studied African-American history? I’m not sure this is worth expending any energy trying to decipher.

--On track 12 (when there’s still 1/3 of the album left to go, people!), “Doing it Wrong,” Drake finally sounds like he’s singing in his own voice, not run through a thousand machines. Did the fact Stevie Wonder shows up to play some plaintive harmonica here make Drake want to step up on the soul quotient? Wonder’s presence is the most incongruous element on this entire record: absolutely no one has played harmonica in any genre in the last 30 years, except maybe Beck when he was trying to do Dylan, and so it’s a strange, archaic moment in this otherwise entirely 21^st century recording to hear that old familiar wheezing sound.

Cons:

--I love downer records. I love that this is a relatively minimal, atmospheric record flying in the face of overproduced mainstream hip-hop. But if Drake was merely drowning in his own misery, that’d be fine. Instead, the fact that he—or his narrator—is such a pompous ass in love with conspicuous consumption makes it impossible to relate to him on any level at all, or even enjoy him vicariously. He’s a spoiled, whiny motherfucker, and spending 80 minutes with him is torturous.

--Eighty minutes—that’s far too long for any album, but especially Drake. Has anyone other than masochistic Polaris jurors ever sat through all 17 tracks in one sitting?

--I hate everything about both his singing voice and his flow as an MC; he has zero personality as a vocalist. It would be one thing if he faded into the background as just another element of the music, ala Massive Attack (where the raps are the weakest link), but this is all about Drake, all the time. Hating his vocals is, of course, entirely subjective, but: “All those flows borin’ me / paint dryin’.” Hey, you said it.

--Those first five tracks I like hit a brick wall with track six, “Marvin’s Room.” Playing a jilted, drunk ex-lover, he croons “fuck that nigger you love so bad” as a chorus, and sounds suitably ridiculous doing so, with loathsome delivery. Is there a woman in the world who finds this endearing? What is it about the fact he fucked four bitches before pleading with his ex like a jealous, jilted dick, that people find sexy? Is there a man in the world who wouldn’t find this song whiny and humiliating? I almost feel embarrassed for Drake listening to this. “I’m just sayin’, you could do better.”

--Here’s the heartwarming verse in question: “I think I’m addicted to naked pictures and sittin’ talking about bitches that we almost had / I don’t think I’m conscious of making monsters out of the women I sponsor until it all goes bad / but it’s all good / We threw a party, yeah we threw a party / bitches came over, yeah we threw a party / I was just calling because they were just leaving / talk to me please… / I’ve had sex four times this week, just sayin’ / I’m having a hard time adjusting to fame.” Cry me a fuckin’ river, pal.

--The first line of “Crew Love,” as crooned by The Weeknd, is, if I’m not mistaken, “Take your nose off my keyboard.” WTF?

--“Make Me Proud” is supposedly his sensitive-guy shout-out to the fairer sex. Drake is so proud of his lady because … her hair looks good when she comes out of the shower? Because “she sounds like” she graduated college? Because she has the internal stamina to stave off horny jackals? When Nicki Minaj takes charge halfway through, she injects the track with so much life it doesn’t matter that she’s barely saying anything—it’s all in her delivery. The woman has sheer charisma and can get away with talkin’ shit in the middle of a puzzling, patronizing track from a guy trying to prove he’s not a total dick. And that octave-jumpin hook? Juvenile—save it for your Crazy Frog collab.

--The drummer on the overblown, choir-laded bombast of "Lord Knows" insisted that his credit read in part “of www.indiestudiodrummer.com”

--It’s hard to pick the worst verse on this album, but my vote goes to this one from “Lord Knows”: “I’m a descendent of either Marley or Hendrix / I haven’t figured it out because my story is far from finished / I’m hearing all of the jokes I know they’re trying to push me / I know that showin’ emotion don’t ever mean I’m a pussy / I don’t make music for niggas who don’t get pussy.”

--Even his guests sink to new lyrical lows, like this one from Rick Ross: “I fell in love with the pen, started fucking the ink.” Let's all meditate on that for a second. Or not.

--Just when you think it couldn’t get any worse, final track "The Ride" features this doozy about his latest conquest: “Brand new titties, stitches still showin’ / she’s just praying that it heals good / I’m just praying that it feels good.” He later admits, “I blew six million on myself and I feel amazing.” Bully for you, buddy. Go hang out with Mitt Romney; I’m sure he’s a big fan.

Things I’m not supposed to think about: 

The Polaris money wouldn’t even cover a weekend with his buddies: “There are times when I might blow 50k on a vacation for all my soldiers just to see the looks on all their faces / all it took was patience / I’ve never really been one for the preservation of money.”

Pre-Polaris: Cold Specks

Tonight I’m part of the jury voting for the winner of the 2012 Polaris Music Prize. Today, my notes on all 10 albums, that I made in advance of a juror dinner last night. What you see here is entirely my opinion, in no way reflecting the conversation at that table, other than that I vocalized many of these points, and was merely one of 10 very intelligent and articulate people in the discussion.

Cold Specks – I Predict a Graceful Expulsion

First impression (published May 24, 2012):

Cold Specks is the young singer/songwrier Al Spx (not her real name) from the Toronto suburb of Etobicoke, and her debut album has been building buzz ever since she leaked the song “Winter Solstice” online. Listening to that track, there is much to love: Spx’s full-throated, soulful voice, with its deep gospel and blues influences, is put to work on a slow build of a song that’s stirring and spiritual.

Listening to the rest of the album, however, there is not as much to love. Spx’s amazing voice (reminiscent of another great Toronto singer, Kate Fenner) only goes so far: her songs don’t carry the weight her voice deserves, and her accompanying musicians are often plodding and unexpressive. Too often, her voice overpowers this material: like Aretha Franklin trying to make a sombre Leonard Cohen album.

The graceful expulsion promised by the album title sounds like it’s still a bit off in the future.

Pros:

--That voice. Holy crap, that voice. Spx can take a simple phrase—“sons and daughters,” “I am a goddam believer”—and make it sound like Shakespeare delivered by Laurence Olivier. For her voice alone, Spx is a major new talent who has been vaulted from obscurity to have the ear of the world.

--“Winter Solstice” is a stunning track, and if the rest of the album was just as good, I’d have no problem handing her the Polaris. The first minute, with just Spx and piano, is breathtaking—and then it only gets better once the pulsing bass drum, electric guitar, and choir of male hummers enter for the chorus, leaving immediately again for the second verse. The strings, when they come in closer to the end, are just as simple, sparse and effective as the percussion. For a song that never strays from one chord, the overall effect is stunning.

--“Hector” is the one track that breaks from the formula—it’s also the only one that requires a full band, which Spx employs to great effect.

--She recently opened for Great Lake Swimmers across Canada; on “Elephant Head” she namechecks the sequential Toronto subway stations Bathurst, Spadina, St. George and Bay, which to me is an obvious nod to the Swimmers’ song “I Will Never See the Sun,” which does the same thing, and often the mood on Expulsion reminds me of the Swimmers’ finest work.

Cons:

--“Heavy Hands” is indeed, heavy-handed. With a two-note chorus melody consisting of just two words—“Fire away!”—it’s echoed each and every time by a groaning violin, just in case we missed it. It’s a shame, because outside of the choruses, it’s a lovely, subtle song—until that ocean of obviousness comes cascading through the chorus.

--As beautiful as “Winter Solstice” is, I feel like the exact same chord progression, with only slight variations, appears throughout this record (despite the fact that, um, “Winter Solstice” only really has one chord). Often I start singing “Winter Solstice” to myself when one of any number of other tracks is playing. On its own, “Blank Maps” is a great song—except the arrangement is almost identical to “Winter Solstice,” substituting a steady build for the second-verse dropout.

--One could argue that any historically great folk singer recycles motifs and musical themes; one could also argue that Spx is still a very green songwriter. If this record was massively popular and subject to a major backlash, I’m sure some mash-up artist could successfully sync up every track here.

--The entire album ends on a suspended, non-root chord, which sums up the entire album: something is not quite finished.

Things I shouldn’t be thinking about:

Polaris has never gone to a debut album before. Why start now?

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Pre-Polaris: Cadence Weapon

 

Tonight I’m part of the jury voting for the winner of the 2012 Polaris Music Prize. Today, my notes on all 10 albums, that I made in advance of a juror dinner last night. What you see here is entirely my opinion, in no way reflecting the conversation at that table, other than that I vocalized many of these points, and was merely one of 10 very intelligent and articulate people in the discussion.

Cadence Weapon – Hope in Dirt City

First impression (published June 14, 2012):

The former poet laureate of Edmonton resumes his rap career after moving to Montreal, and delivers a tour de force of storytelling and genre-jumping. He’s no longer the 19-year-old outlier overachiever he was on his debut album; now he’s an album artist at the ripe old 26, having relocated to a bohemian paradise where he “walks down St. Laurent avec les filles de roi.”

The MC born Rollie Pemberton has little competition in Canadian hip-hop—outside of Drake, with whom he shares a default position of a laid-back, laconic flow. Except unlike Drake, Cadence Weapon is in love with language rather than just himself, spitting more lyrical head-turners in one verse than most MCs’ entire tracks.

Pemberton’s skills as an MC were never in doubt; here, he proves to be an impressive singer as well, and a rapper with more varied flow than he’s shown before. Cadence Weapon is no longer just an abstract MC: he’s a punk rock howler on the climax of “Jukebox”; he’s a soul singer and shouter on “Conditioning”; he’s a slow-jam crooner on “No More Names.” He’s also an effective character actor, as on “Hype Man,” a comical role-playing narrative about the fractious relationship between an MC and a member of his entourage; it’s funny not just for its skewering of a well-worn convention in hip-hop culture, but because it applies to all sorts of power dynamics (think Michael Scott and Dwight Schrute on The Office).

That’s not even the most compelling part of Hope in Dirt City. Musically, Pemberton pays homage here to go-go funk, punk rock, Southern bounce, icy electro, R&B balladry and anything else he can find. Several tracks are constructed as rock songs, with killer bass lines and intense climaxes, and yet never veer into dreaded rap-rock crossover territory. "There We Go" is an intoxicating, icy electro ballad with a lurching, sparse beat and ominous synths, suggesting Pemberton has been hanging out with some Mutek festival folk in his newly adopted city of Montreal; the title track, on the other hand, sounds like a whole other Montreal influence: Corey Hart. Seriously, this is some Boy in the Box shit—and even more seriously, trust me when I say I’m probably one of the few people who mean that as a compliment.

The only time any one recognizable genre during the course of a whole track is the dub reggae vibe of "Small Deaths." Otherwise, anything and everything is fair game and filtered through pitched snare drums, old synths and—in a stint of seemingly stunt casting—the wailing tenor saxophone of Pemberton’s uncle Brett Miles, an Edmonton session player who lets loose in ways that haven’t been heard in hip-hop since the trumpet solo in LL Cool J’s "Going Back to Cali." Miles isn’t interested in jazzy interludes; this saxophone is out to steal the entire show, which he almost does.

For a record with broad reach, Hope in Dirt City is remarkably concise, clocking in at 11 tracks in under 40 minutes. Cadence Weapon is going for the gold and makes every sonic second here count.

Pros:

--Opening track “Get On Down” begins with a blistering verse that

suggests Pemberton is out to prove something, toying with meter and internal rhymes, and references to Cessna, Telsa, Stephin Fetchit, disinfectant and Roy Orbison, over what sounds like a bastardized Bollywood funk beat, courtesy of Doldrums.

--“Jukebox” sounds like a collision of DJs squaring off at full volume at the same time (in a good way): Latin percussion, descending metal rock riff and squealing jazz saxophone, and the eight-bar breakdown of simultaneous bass and saxophone solos is brilliant. 

--Pemberton is not just clever and thoughful, he's funny ("She said she used to be the hottest girl in Ajax / but in Montreal she's just an 8 1/2").

 

--Every soundscape is a story unto itself; there’s very little repetition here, other than the recurring sax leads of Brett Miles. Neither cheesy nor tentative, Miles takes hold of every note, never overplays, and is a welcome reminder that not everything about ’80s sax solos was terrible.

--The Buck 65 cameo on “The Machine” is a pitch-perfect interlude, and totally hilarious: complementary but with a whole other flavour, threatening to steal the show and lightening the mood with absurdist images that stand out as some of the album’s best lines.

--“No More Names” speaks to much more than a lyricist’s concern about committing his current lover’s name to tape, lest he be haunted by it for the rest of his career. It’s about all preservation of memory, all those photos of old lovers that we can’t bear to throw away but that we’re certainly not going to display when we bring someone new home.

--“Hype Man” isn’t just about the useless sidekick of a rap superstar; it’s the classic second-banana syndrome. It’s Ed McMahon, it’s Edgar Bergen, it’s Batman’s Robin. It’s Dwight Schrute. It’s Joe Biden. It’s John Baird.

--The pitched snare on “Hype Man” functions more as a malletted instrument, like a marimba, than as a mere effect, the way it is on Drake tracks.

Cons:

--That first verse I like so much is followed by a lame spelling of his own name, followed by a limp chorus of “party people get on down,” both of which act as a buzzkill right off the top. In fact, several tracks fall apart once they hit the chorus, depending on the verses to rebuild momentum: “Conditioning,” “The Machine,” “Hype Man.”

Things I shouldn’t be thinking about:

A hip-hop act has yet to win the Polaris. Nor has anyone born in Edmonton. And although I like this record, it’s received some serious hate from hip-hop fans, for reasons I can’t for the life of me figure out. Picking Cadence Weapon as winner would ignite a damaging (and futile) debate over what is and what is not hip-hop, and what kind of hip-hop scores points with crossover fans.

Confessions of a Polaris juror, preliminary

The Polaris Music Prize, now in its seventh year, suffers from many misconceptions. When the prize first began in 2006, it was a welcome antidote to the Juno Awards, which seemed only to ever celebrate artists with big money and mainstream radio support behind them, leaving many worthy and influential Canadian artists unrecognized.

By Polaris’s own definition, nominees are chosen by a grand pool of critics, without any regard paid to genre or commercial sales. The only goal is to reward the “best” album from a 10-album shortlist, as selected by 11 sequestered jury members the night of the gala.

Some think Polaris is a prize given to up-and-coming Canadian artists who could use the $30,000 prize. Some think it’s an indie hipster runoff that inevitably goes to the one act on the shortlist that mainstream listeners couldn’t pick out of a lineup (Final Fantasy, 2006). Some think the award means something when it’s won by a francophone act (Karkwa, 2010), when it’s won by an electronic act (Caribou, 2008), when it’s won by a hardcore punk act (Fucked Up, 2009), or when it’s won by the same album that the Grammys and Junos decided was Album of the Year (Arcade Fire, 2011).

This year I get to pick the winner. At least, after six years of being a part of the larger pool of critics that votes on the long list and the shortlist, I’m now going to be one of 11 angry geeks sequestered in a Masonic Temple with a $30,000 cheque in our hands, and at the end of two hours of runoff voting, we’ll decide who gets the oversize novelty cheque at the end of the gala.

In the running: Cadence Weapon (former Edmonton poet laureate’s hip-hop alias), Cold Specks (soulful, dark blues), Drake (mainstream new-school hip-hop star), Kathleen Edwards (rootsy storyteller), Feist (chanteuse extraordinaire), Fucked Up (hardcore punk concept album), Grimes (avant-garde electro bubblegum), Handsome Furs (electro-Clash), Japandroids (anthemic rock), Yamantaka/Sonic Titan (psych-prog metal with Asian pop melodies).

Can those artists even be fairly judged against one another? No, of course not. The best thing about that list, however, is that it’s impossible to dismiss as homogenous. This is not a case of the same-old, same-old. And picking a “winner” is going to be extremely difficult.

In past years, I’ve been content to advocate to the larger jury, to try and predict the shortlist, and scratch my head at the winner. Only twice in six years have I approved of the winner: Final Fantasy in 2006 and Arcade Fire in 2011. And only last year did I genuinely like every album on the shortlist (well, except one). This year, however, I’ve been immersing myself in 10 albums—seven of which I didn’t seriously consider for my ballot, and three of which ranked low on the ballots I submitted over two rounds of voting. (The top spots on my ballot went to Mark Davis, Leonard Cohen and Kathryn Calder, who I think made the best Canadian albums during the current Polaris period. If you haven’t heard those albums, buy them now before you forget. And thank me later.)

Apparently, the jury is constructed so that every album on the shortlist has a champion in the room. Yet I feel like I don’t have a specific horse in this race. I genuinely like eight of the 10 albums (to varying degrees, of course); should any of them win, I’ll be happy. If I manage to successfully argue the two stinkers off the first round of voting, then I’ll consider my evening well spent. Attention, fellow jurors, should you be reading this: I am easily swayed.

I want to listen all the way through the album in question without being bored once, a tall order these days. I want the album to be inspiring in some way; not pleasurable, necessarily, or one I’ll reach for at the end of every work day, but fascinating and rewarding. Ideally, I want to hear new things every time I listen.

I’m not thinking about an artist’s previous work, about stupid things I’ve heard them say in interviews, about whether or not they “need” the money, about their dorky videos (a serious problem this year for one album I like quite a bit), or about their live show (not a problem this year: I’ve only seen two of these acts live in the last 12 months).

There are, however, three things I’m not supposed to think about that I inevitably will. I can’t help but compare these albums to artists’ previous works: is this really the best they can do, is it better than Album X from four years ago? I’ll also go in with a bias against previous winners. When I thought both Owen Pallett and Caribou made the best albums nominated for the 2010 award, I didn’t want either to win for that reason alone.

I think the album should sound like 2012. That doesn’t mean it has to be an electro-hip-hop-punk-jazz-Afro-Balkan hybrid, or that retro or traditional elements disqualify it. It just has to mean that, to me, the album is somewhat situated in the zeitgeist. There is no such thing as a complete vacuum in which these decisions are made, and the winner should, I think, say something about this moment in Canadian music. So if ostensibly objective arguments don’t lead me to favour one album over another, this is the criterion with which I will cast my ballot.

I’ll offer my own detailed final arguments to the jury in this space shortly, but to give you a history lesson and an idea of how I might vote, here’s a list of the winners, who I would have picked that year, and who was the most commercially successful artist on the shortlist the year in question.

2006

Winner: Final Fantasy – He Poos Clouds

My choice: Final Fantasy – He Poos Clouds

Popular choice: Metric – Live It Out

2007

Winner: Patrick Watson – Closer to Paradise

My choice: Miracle Fortress – Five Roses

Popular choice: Feist – The Reminder

My favourite albums not on the shortlist: Amon Tobin, Feuermusik.

2008

Winner: Caribou - Andorra

My choice: Weakerthans – Reunion Tour

Popular choice: Stars – In Our Bedroom After the War

My favourite albums not on the shortlist: Buck 65, the D’Urbervilles, Veda Hille, Corb Lund, Pas Chic Chic. This was perhaps the year I was most disappointed in Polaris. They instituted the 40-album long list the next year.

2009

Winner: Fucked Up – The Chemistry of Common Life

My choice: Chad Van Gaalen – Soft Airplane

Popular choice: K’naan - Troubadour

My favourite albums not on the shortlist: Bell Orchestre, Handsome Furs, Snailhouse, Charles Spearin, Timber Timbre.

2010

Winner: Karkwa – Chemins de Verre

My choice: Broken Social Scene – s/t (though Caribou’s Swim was my favourite)

Popular choice: Tegan and Sara – Sainthood

My favourite album not on the long list: Schomberg Fair – Gospel

2011

Winner: Arcade Fire – The Suburbs

My choice: Arcade Fire – The Suburbs

Popular choice: Arcade Fire – The Suburbs

My favourite album not on the shortlist: Doug Paisley – Constant Companion

 2012 

This year all my favourite records made the long list. I was shocked.