Godspeed You! Black Emperor wins Polaris Prize, promptly announces that Polaris Prize is fucked

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      As you might have heard by now, Montreal’s Godspeed You! Black Emperor won the 2013 edition of the Polaris Prize last night, and then proceeded to give every indication that the Polaris Prize makes them want to puke (and not just the 2013 edition.)

      The post-fun art-rockers had their record-label flunkee take the podium and announce that the $30,000 cheque that comes with the prize will be used to fund music programs in Quebec prisons.

      This morning Godspeed You! Black Emperor has let the world know why it wasn’t at the Toronto Polaris gala to accept the cheque for ‘Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!, and why it won’t be spending the prize money at Montreal’s Salon Octopussy strip club.

      Below is the band’s official statement on why it’s not a huge fan of the Polaris Prize, the condensed version being that: 1) the awards ceremony isn't held in a grimy abandoned factory in some bombed-out neighbourhood of rural Quebec; 2) cool music and giant novelty-sized cheques are uncooler than Carrot Top; 3) Toyota blows dinosaur dicks; 4) Mitsou probably deserved the money more.

      At press time, Polaris organizers were asking themselves why the hell they didn't just give the prize to Avril Lavigne.

      Here is GSYBE’s full statement:


      hello kanada.
      hello kanadian music-writers.

      thanks for the nomination thanks for the prize- it feels nice to be acknowledged by the Troubled Motherland when we so often feel orphaned here. and much respect for all y’all who write about local bands, who blow that horn loudly- because that trumpeting is crucial and necessary and important.

      and much respect to the freelancers especially, because freelancing is a hard fucking gig, and almost all of us are freelancers now, right? falling and scrambling and hustling through these difficult times?

      so yes, we are grateful, and yes we are humble and we are shy to complain when we’ve been acknowledged thusly- BUT HOLY SHIT AND HOLY COW- we’ve been plowing our field on the margins of weird culture for almost 20 years now, and “this scene is pretty cool but what it really fucking needs is an awards show” is not a thought that’s ever crossed our minds.

      3 quick bullet-points that almost anybody could agree on maybe=


      -holding a gala during a time of austerity and normalized decline is a weird thing to do.

      -organizing a gala just so musicians can compete against each other for a novelty-sized cheque doesn’t serve the cause of righteous music at all.

      -asking the toyota motor company to help cover the tab for that gala, during a summer where the melting northern ice caps are live-streaming on the internet, IS FUCKING INSANE, and comes across as tone-deaf to the current horrifying malaise.

      these are hard times for everybody. and musicians’ blues are pretty low on the list of things in need of urgent correction BUT AND BUT if the point of this prize and party is acknowledging music-labor performed in the name of something other than quick money, well then maybe the next celebration should happen in a cruddier hall, without the corporate banners and culture overlords. and maybe a party thusly is long overdue- it would be truly nice to enjoy that hang, somewhere sometime where the point wasn’t just lazy money patting itself on the back.

      give the money to the kids let ‘em put on their own goddamn parties, give the money to the olds and let them try to write opuses in spite of, but let the muchmusic videostars fight it out in the inconsequential middle, without gov’t. culture-money in their pockets.

      us we’re gonna use the money to try to set up a program so that prisoners in quebec have musical instruments if they need them…

      amen and amen.

      apologies for being such bores,
      we love you so much / our country is fucked,
      xoxoxox
      godspeed you! black emperor

      Comments

      2 Comments

      Dave

      Sep 24, 2013 at 11:42am

      God damn, mike, how can you miss the point so consistently and completely

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      everything

      Sep 24, 2013 at 11:47am

      It's that simple folks - just ban parties till the "current horrifying malaise" passes. Also, don't enter contests you don't want to win or else you look stupid.

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