2013 Juno nominees are here

2013 Juno Award Nominees

Zzzz. This one's in Regina though!

Carly Rae Jepsen should win a bunch of awards, I guess. Single of the Year definitely, that could hardly be a contest.

Strange to see Rush nominated in 'Group of the Year' with bands that couldn't hold a candle to them. Sheepdogs are the only other nom in that category that isn't totally off the mark.

Breakthrough Group of the Year is an interesting category: Hey Ocean!, Monster Truck, The Pack a.d., Walk Off the Earth, Yukon Blonde. Walk of the Earth would be a cool winner, since they're pretty much an all-web thing.

2013 Oscar noms are up

Whenever the Oscar nominees are announced, the first I thing I do is check the Best Song, Score and the sound editing/mixing categories. I guess I haven't been keeping up with my films this year cause I haven't seen any of these. Skyfall is at the top of my list though.

I figure Adele will take Best Song on the extensive marketing campaigns alone. When the song first debuted there were countless stories about how it was "the greatest Bond song ever", when that just isn't the case. It's good, but doubtful it's the best ever, and it's even harder to just make that statement before the song has even been released to the public.

As for the other categories, I have no idea whatsoever. Alexandre Desplat has done some good scores, so maybe his track record gets him the award this year.

I'd vote for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo soundtrack, but I'm heavily biased.

55th annual Grammy nominees + some quick thoughts

The Grammy list

Some quick thoughts:

-not too many surprises here. Florence + the Machine and LMFAO nominated in Pop Duo/Group Performance vocal certainly is one.

-Pop Solo record: If Adele doesn't win then why bother giving out awards to artists? Just send the hardware over to the engineers and producers who made the other robots in the category what they are.

-My favourite category: Best Score Soundtrack For Visual Media, with Tintin, Hugo, Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Dark Knight Rises, The Artist, and popular indie video game Journey! I don't recall video games ever being nominated in the past, but I suppose that's why the category title was given its now inclusive title.

-What's up with Spoken Word? I think audiobooks should be split off into their own category.

-Mumford & Sons nominated under Americana? Ironic, no?

-John Adams nominated for Orchestral performance... the classical categories always strike me as odd because it's all music composed by people who have, by and large, passed on from this mortal coil. It's a stark juxtaposition to the top/highlighted categories which all emphasize newness and youth and make up the televised ceremony.