Whatchu Talkin' Bout Junos?!

The nominations for the 41st Juno Awards were announced earlier this week and...zzzzzzzz... Oh, sorry, I dozed off. What are you gonna do? Year after year, the Junos just really know how to bring the boredom and the disappointment. Last year I actually had my hopes up: Neil Young and Robbie Robertson were on hand, the Arcade Fire, that tribute to the Younge St. scene in the 50s/60s that featured Canada's best band, The Sadies. But even with all that the show was terrible. Oh well. No sense dwelling on the past. Let's move on to the present and acknowledge that this year's show promises to be terrible too. Shatner's hosting. Need I say more? Okay, well look at these nominations. And some of the categories: look at the "Adult Alternative Album" nominees. No need to explain why Jim Cuddy, Ron Sexsmith, and Jill Barber are considered Adult, but Alternative? Is soccer mom the new alternative? And don't even get me started about The Sheepdogs -- a national embarrassment, but that's for another post. Sure, Destroyer, Fucked Up, Timber Timber and a few other actually good artists are nominated, should be on-hand, and may even perform. But, as I learned from last year's show, a little bit of good is just not enough to offset the crushing Nickelback-Buble-Beiber-Hedley factor. Not that the Grammys are any better. But the Canadian music scene, as relatively small as it is, had so many brilliant things going on in 2011. And these nominations, and media coverage of the event itself, just don't do anything to capture what was truly great about Canadian music last year.

So don't watch the show when it airs April 1. Instead, be content with my list of the ten best Canadian records of last year, keeping in mind that this is my anti-Juno list so I'm leaving off Juno nominated records that I loved (Destroyer most notably). Read the list after the jump...

In alphabetical  order:

Bloodshot Bill, Thunder & Lightning 
Buck 65, 20 Odd Years 
Chad VanGaalen, Diaper Island
Daniel Romano, Sleep Beneath the Willows
Dirty Beaches, Badlands 
Handsome Furs, Sound Kapital
Mark Sultan, Whatever I Want & Whenever I Want (2 separate records released same time)
Miracle Fortress, Was I the Wave 
Moonface, Organ Music Not Vibraphone Like I'd Hoped 
One Hundred Dollars, Songs of Man 

Hey, let's not forget these EPs,
The Besnard Lakes, You Lived in the City 
The Hoa Hoa's, The Hoa Hoa's EP