TORONTO – In recent years, Vancouver pop outfit Hedley performing at the Juno Awards has felt as much like a spring TV tradition as sweeps-week rating stunts or Duke choking in the NCAA basketball tournament.
The radio-ruling balladeers have performed at three of the past six Juno Awards while presenting an award at one of the other telecasts.
“People are going to start referring to us as the Juno house band,” joked frontman Jacob Hoggard in a recent telephone interview.
Well, they’re taking this year off. But viewers would be forgiven if this Sunday’s awards coronation and held at Winnipeg’s MTS Centre nevertheless prompts a sense of déjà vu.
Over the past seven shows (including this Sunday’s), a core of seven artists will have performed 27 times total. Three of those oft-repeating artists — Classified, Serena Ryder and Johnny Reid — are actually hosting this year’s bash, with Classified and Ryder set to open the festivities with a joint performance.
Sarah McLachlan will perform for the fourth time since 2009 while City and Colour’s Dallas Green, another of the Juno mainstays, was also to put in his fourth performance since ’09 before pulling out after failing to land a nomination.
And the other Juno repeater, Michael Buble, is getting a year off after hosting and performing at last year’s celebration in Regina.
It’s understandable, then, that some wonder whether the annual gala would benefit from diversifying.
“It does seem like the same crew,” said the Darcys’ frontman Wes Marskell, whose band’s ambitious record “Warring” secured a nomination for alternative album of the year at this year’s show.
“I watched last year and Serena Ryder performed, and now she’s hosting. It does feel like it’s a bit of an insider’s club where they definitely have a certain group of people that I guess they believe is what Canada wants to be seeing.”
READ MORE: Full Juno Awards coverage
For the artists who’ve achieved recent Juno ubiquity, the challenge can be keeping things fresh.
But in separate interviews, Ryder and Classified both said that playing different songs each year, with a different look, means Juno fatigue is not an issue.
Hoggard, meanwhile, said worries over viewer fatigue only motivate him further.
“Any time you’re faced with repetition … the creative side of you can’t help but jump out,” said Hoggard, who said he was “truly stoked” his band reeled in four nominations this year, including group and pop album of the year.
“Every year I wonder, ‘This time, can we light something on fire?’ I’ll ask them every time if I can light my piano on fire.”
Junos CEO Melanie Berry points out that while some acts have spent a disproportionate amount of time on the Junos stage, others of this year’s performers are making their first appearance.
Aside from Saskatoon shag-rockers the Sheepdogs — set to perform for the second year in a row — the remaining lineup does feature a range of newbies. Tegan and Sara, Matt Mays and Walk Off the Earth are among the acts set to perform at the Junos for the first time.
And to some extent, the Junos have a smallish pool of broadly appealing acts from which to draw.
Nowadays, most deeply established Canuck artists only see fit to make sporadic appearances on the show, cameos typically tied to some sort of heady honour.
Neil Young and Shania Twain, for instance, both last appeared at the big 40th anniversary show in Toronto in 2011, when the former received the Allan Waters Humanitarian Award and the latter was ushered into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.
Celine Dion is dutifully lavished with multiple nominations every year but no longer seems interested in attending (and, notably, hasn’t won since 1999), while fellow perennial honourees Avril Lavigne and Justin Bieber also haven’t booked in-person Juno appearances in years (since 2008 and 2010, respectively).
And superstar Toronto rapper Drake hasn’t given the Junos the time of day since he simultaneously contributed a charismatic hosting performance and suffered through a six-category shutout in 2011.
In the case of the arguably limited star power available to the Junos right now, Berry counters that “more people are out on big tours nationally and internationally” these days.
“We’re a product of our own success,” she said. “Yeah, we haven’t had Shania in a while, but I don’t see it as moving downwards. It’s part of a cycle.”
Other industry observers echoed Berry’s point.
“The interesting thing is the Canadian industry is quite small and at any given time we only have X level of superstar acts,” said veteran radio host Alan Cross, who acknowledged that he sits on the board for the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, which puts on the Junos.
“There is a certain amount of repetition that happens. But every once in a while, there is a big period of renewal and we see all these new artists coming in. So maybe we’re at the end of one particular cycle and close to the beginning of a new one.”
Still, the show might do well to look deeper into its own pool of nominees for performers. The likes of Grimes, the Weeknd and Japandroids have accumulated ear-splitting international buzz — and Juno accolades — but have yet to grace the Junos stage. (Whether that’s for lack of interest on behalf of organizers, however, is unclear).
There are certainly those in the industry who chafe at the Junos’ seeming conservatism when it comes to booking acts. In 2012, for instance, Arts & Crafts president and co-founder Jeffrey Remedios called it “frustrating” that affable folkie Dan Mangan was apparently worthy of a leading four nominations but not a performance slot in the show.
“Who’s making those decisions?” he asked at the time.
Yet even some who would urge the Junos to dig deeper for prime-time-ready acts understand that the show has a tricky balancing act, seeking to represent the best in Canadian music while also reeling in the largest possible audience.
Increasingly, the Junos straddle a line between rewarding and fostering success that — to steal a lyric from one of this year’s first-time performers, Robin Thicke — might be blurring.
“Obviously I want to say that my band should perform,” said Marskell, whose band has shows in Manitoba, Alberta, B.C. and London, Ont., over the following weeks.
“It’s a great showcase for Canadian music and for young Canadian bands doing interesting things, and I think that those showcases will help grow smaller bands and make them bigger bands for when they need them on the show in years to come.
“But I mean, it has to be a ratings game. They have to be sort of trying to satisfy advertisers and trying to make money — and trying to pay off the money they’re probably offering to Robin Thicke or whatever. And obviously, they can’t go rogue and just put a ton of bands no one’s heard of on national television.”
Comments