The 2024 Juno Awards were held in Halifax, Nova Scotia on the weekend. It was the first time that Halifax hosted this national music awards show that honours the best and brightest music stars in Canada. The Juno Awards were first held in 1970 and were called the Gold Leaf Awards at the time. The idea for honouring our nation’s best musical talent came from two men: Stan Klees and Walt Grealis. Klees and Grealis were music executives who wanted to raise the profile of music in Canada. Initially, these awards were based on readers’ poll results in RPM Magazine. The winners were announced in the magazine, and the awards were handed out at ceremonies in Toronto that were not televised. The natural evolution of the awards ceremony was to televise it and announce the awards live on TV. To coincide with the move to television, the name of the awards was changed to the Juno Awards. The name “Juno” is in tribute to a man named Pierre Juneau. Mr. Juneau was the former head of the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission. His big claim to fame was spearheading the creation of laws regarding Canadian content legislation. These laws forced broadcasters to reserve a certain percentage of air time exclusively for Canadian artists (as opposed to simply always playing music by American stars). Cancon rules, as they came to be known, allowed the fledgling Canadian music industry to get on its feet. In the time since then, the likes of Bryan Adams, Celine Dion, Corey Hart, Shania Twain, Michael Bublé, The Barenaked Ladies, The Tragically Hip, Rita MacNeil, K.D. Lang, Rush and dozens of other A-list Canadian acts have performed on the Juno stage and won awards there, too. The 2024 Juno Awards set aside some time to honour their past with the induction of Maestro Fresh Wes into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. The show featured the politics of Tegan and Sara, a moment of great redemption for Amanda Marshall, as well as being hosted by the talented Nelly Furtado. But more than anything, the 2024 Juno Awards was a coming out party for the freshest faces on our scene with multiple awards for groups such as The Beaches, Tate McRae, as well as star turns for singers such as TOBi, Charlotte Cardin, Talk, Lu Kala, as well as a record 33 nominations for Indigenous artists, many of which were in non-Indigenous categories. All in all, it was a fun time in a fun town for everyone who loves and supports Canadian music and the people who make it. Without further delay, let’s get on with the show.
Nelly Furtado: 2024 Juno host
Nelly Furtado is a former Juno Award winner and international music star. In the early 2000s, she burst onto the Canadian music scene with a song called “I’m Like a Bird”. That song, from her debut album Whoa, Nelly!, won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance and the Juno for Single of the Year. Her third album, Loose, featured more of an image change that saw Furtado produce songs on the steamier side, such as “Promiscuous”, “Maneater”, “Say It Right” and “All Good Things (Come To an End)”, which were produced in association with happening US producer Timbaland. The sexy turn in Furtado’s image was a calculated move to capitalize on her Portuguese ancestry, which was thought to give her an exotic look, not unlike that of stars such as Jennifer Lopez and Shakira. Although Nelly Furtado is a beautiful woman, she always had a vision of who she was in her heart, and that vision went more than skin deep. And so, in 2007, as Furtado promoted an album called Mi Plan, which was an album of Spanish songs, she suffered a nervous breakdown while performing at a concert in Australia. She had recently become a mother and was trying to raise her own voice amid a sea of expectations that she become a sex symbol instead. Eventually, the pressure all became too much and she stepped away from the spotlight for a few years. In the decade or so since then, Nelly Furtado formed her own record label and has followed the example set by Taylor Swift by controlling the publishing rights for her own musical catalogue. Furtado has released a couple of new albums in the meantime and is slowly returning to the front of our country’s musical stages. This gig hosting the Juno Awards is her highest profile venture in several years. I hope that it opens the door for her to resume her career that is filled with the type of music that is important to her. Maybe her future songs will have commercial potential, and maybe they won’t. What we can know for sure is that Furtado’s music will always belong to her and will be an authentic representation of who she is as a person. As Juno host, she did well with her performance of her biggest hits *(which you can watch here). She also guided the show well as it moved from category to category. All in all, it was nice to see Nelly Furtado in the spotlight again. I hope this is just the start of a rebirth for her and that her best years are still to come.
Maestro Fresh Wes: Induction into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame
Just once in my life I want to enter a room after having been introduced in such a stupendous manner as rapper Kardinal Offishall did at the Junos for Maestro Fresh Wes. There was a lot of history going down on that stage. First of all, Maestro Fresh Wes’ induction was built on the foundation of being the trailblazer who started it all for Hip Hop in Canada. “Let Your Backbone Slide” was a Hip Hop anthem that inspired scores of young rappers to ready their rhymes and follow in his footsteps. One of those who was so moved was Kardinal Offishall, the man who introduced Maestro Fresh Wes. Kardinal Offishall is one of Canada’s top Hip Hop stars. In his speech, he described the importance of what Maestro Fresh Wes accomplished for Canadian Hip Hop and acknowledged his own debt to this influential man in the process. His speech was electric, and you can watch it all here. When Maestro Fresh Wes took to the stage, he paid homage to his family. Then he gave a shout-out to his mentors Ron Nelson (my former classmate) and Chuck D. from Hip Hop supergroup Public Enemy. (You can read about Maestro Fresh Wes, Ron Nelson and Public Enemy from previous posts here, here, here and here). Hip Hop’s formal recognition as a music genre was long in coming, but now, with Maestro Fresh Wes’ induction into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, that journey is complete. The job now is to fill the ranks with other worthy rappers. Will someone like Kardinal Offishall be next? The Maestro Fresh Wes Juno medley is here.
Tegan and Sara: Juno Humanitarian Award.
Tegan and Sara are Juno Award winners and are well known for their songs such as “Closer” and “Everything is Awesome” (from the Lego Movie). They are also members of the LGBTQ2s+ community and have been very open about that throughout the entirety of their career. Like many people in the public eye, Tegan and Sara have willingly accepted the responsibility that comes with being role models. Being a white heterosexual man, I have no personal knowledge of how it must feel to live as my true self while having to constantly look over my shoulder to see if I am safe. To transition from who you were to who you were meant to be is a decision that should be deeply personal and not fodder for public debate. To love openly and freely in a consensual relationship should be something that is available to us all, not just those of us who do so following a certain set of guidelines. But to be a member of the LGBTQ2s+ community today is to live a life of increasing danger and restriction. Tegan and Sara have worked tirelessly to raise funds for those who may be struggling with the life choices they have made in this regard. The political climate of our times is not one that is systemically empathetic and compassionate. In the US and around the world, the rights of many in the LGBTQ2s+ community have been stripped away. Schools are now being forbidden to even talk about the subject of alternative lifestyles or to have books available on the subject in their own libraries. There is a coldness and a cruelty to how women and members of the LGBTQ2s+ community are being singled out by white fundamentalist legislators carrying the banner of Christianity. As access to role models becomes more necessary than ever, the Juno organizing community deserves recognition for the statement they made by bestowing the Juno Humanitarian Award on Tegan and Sara and providing them a platform to speak on this issue on national television. *(You can watch that speech here). That they were given the award by actor Elliott Page only added to the poignancy of the moment. Tegan and Sara used their time to specifically criticize Alberta Premier Danielle Smith. The sisters are from Alberta themselves, so they can attest to the danger to LGBTQ2s+ people from Smith’s policies, which greatly mirror those of MAGA supporters in the US. At an awards ceremony that celebrated the many fine achievements of women and Indigenous artists, it was a speech about the importance of protecting the rights and independence of marginalized people that made the biggest statement of all.
Amanda Marshall: Best Adult Contemporary Album of the Year
Amanda Marshall was one of Canada’s brightest musical talents in the 1990s, and then she “disappeared” from the public eye. A protégé of Blues guitarist Jeff Healey, Amanda Marshall burst onto the Canadian music scene with hits such as “Let It Rain”, “Birmingham”, “Fall from Grace” and many more. But contractual issues with her record company effectively silenced Marshall for several decades. It appeared as though her career might actually have been permanently derailed because of these lawsuits. I wrote about her career in a previous post that you can read here. In that post I offered the wishful dream that one day she would be able to overcome all that was keeping her down and get her career back on track. As it turns out, that is exactly what happened. Amanda Marshall released a new album in 2023 called Heavy Lifting. At the 2024 Juno Awards, Heavy Lifting was named as Best Adult Contemporary Album of the Year. I can only imagine how satisfying it must have felt to receive that award after all she had been through. Congratulations to Amanda Marshall on an achievement that was twenty plus years in the making. Bravo!
Feist: Best Adult Alternative Album
Leslie Feist is such a wonderful performer. I am very pleased that she won the Best Adult Alternative Album of the Year Award for her album Multitudes. Feist, as she is known in the business, continues to produce thoughtful and creative music and Multitudes is no exception. An excellent review of this record was written in Pitchfork Magazine. You can read that review here. This was not Leslie Feist’s first Juno win, nor will it be her last. I can’t wait to see what she conjures up next. I’m sure it will be amazing.
I think that I will stop here for now. Next week I will conclude our look at the 2024 Juno Awards by focusing on some of the newer performers who took home hardware, such as The Beaches, Charlotte Cardin, TOBi, Aysanabee, Talk, Lu Kala and many more. Until then, take care. Thanks, as always, for reading my words. Your presence here inspires me. Take care, bye for now.
The link to the official website for the Juno Awards can be found here.
The link to the official website for Nelly Furtado can be found here.
The link to the official website for Maestro Fresh Wes can be found here.
The link to the official website for Tegan and Sara can be found here.
The link to the official website for Amanda Marshall can be found here.
The link to the official website for Feist can be found here.
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