Awful Things People Said About Polaris Short Listed Albums

09/22/09 3:08pm

by Kate Harper, with files from Aaron Brophy (CHARTattack)

The 10 albums on this year's Polaris Music Prize short list may have been lauded by music critics, but there was always at least one person full of bile who wanted to crap all over the positive reviews.

Patrick Watson, who won the Polaris Music Prize for 2006's Close To Paradise in 2007 and were short listed again this year for Wooden Arms, were particularly dismayed by Pitchfork Media's review of their latest album.

"They actually went song by song to explain why it was a terrible record," drummer Robbie Kuster said. "Who gives someone a 3.2? Where'd the point-two come from?"

"It's kinda funny," Watson interjected. "I think we must have slept with his wife or something. Something must have happened."

Joel Plaskett said he was surprised his triple album, Three, didn't get more of a toasting when it came out earlier this year.

"I think I saw somebody write 'boring boring boring' That's pretty good, right?" he said.

"People have been pretty good, though. There's been a couple digs here and there, but I expected a helluva lot more of it considering I put out a triple record, quite frankly. I was setting myself up to be roasted over an open flame, but people listened to it, which was kinda cool."

Elliott Brood's Mountain Meadows drew some particularly angry reviews from people who didn't understand Mark Sasso's voice... and some also led the band to wonder whether some of those critics had even listened to the record.

"Oh, I read one yesterday from Radio Canuckistan, he said that 'His voice reminds me of a Rod Stewart nightmare' or something like that," multi-instrumentalist Casey Laforet said. "Like, some people go way out of their way to be incredibly shitty to bands."

"The only review I've ever kept was one from UBC that just destroys us," Sasso continued. "It was very personal, like we've done him harm, like we hurt his stereo or something.

"The guy who said that, he's like, 'Why don't they just go do some Afro-beats or something?' Like, did you even listen to the record? Why would you say that?"

Malajube didn't particularly understand what a French journalist had to say about their music.

"He said we were writing third grade poetry in French," keyboardist Thomas Augustin said. "To me that's fine, but this guy... he wasn't even talking about this album [Labyrinthes]."

Metric were flabbergasted by one lone reviewer on iTunes who had nothing but bad things to say about John O'Mahoney, who mixed Fantasies.

"[The review is like], 'O'Mahoney ruins another record,'" guitarist Jimmy Shaw said. "He put so much love and affection and attention into our record."

"He mixed the Coldplay record, he's worked with The Strokes, he's worked with all these great bands, and this person, they were like, 'He's brought out the worst of Coldplay and he's brought the worst of The Strokes out,'" singer/keyboardist Emily Haines said.

"For some reason, it's, like, still the first one out of, like, 10,000 or whatever that are up there," Shaw finished.

K'Naan said he was particularly taken aback when he read a review that lambasted Troubadour's "Wavin' Flag."

"I guess there are some critics who just don't understand the context of my music at all or who don't get it," he said. "It's rare, but there are those who absolutely don't get it... I read something where somebody actually called 'Wavin' Flag' cheesy. That's just stupidity on another level.

"You can dislike the song or whatever, but just because it's powerful and far-reaching, people are afraid to feel and they don't get it and so they call it cheesy. But they love the album. It's just songs like 'Wavin' Flag' where they're like, 'You're kidding me.'"

Hey Rosetta!'s Tim Baker said he was pretty surprised when bassist Josh Ward showed him a video made by someone who didn't reserve any vitriol for the St. Johns, Nfld.-based band.

"It was just a video of this guy at the back of the crowd [at this year's Osheaga Music & Arts Festival in Montreal], and he was quite drunk and the video was sloppy, and he was like, 'This band, man! The only people who like this are from Newfoundland or people who like shitty music!'

"I thought that was pretty funny."

Fucked Up vocalist Damian "Pink Eyes" Abraham says he can't understand reviewers or scenesters who hate on his band's Polaris Music Prize-winning The Chemistry Of Common Life because the band recorded it calculatingly so they could become popular.

"No! No, we didn't! I assure you. If we knew this would have worked, we would have done it a long time ago," he said.

"If we knew an 18-minute song would get picked by the NME as one of the songs of the year, we would have done it a long time ago, I assure you. We would have cut down on the crap in between when no one gave us free clothes and we would have skipped right to the free clothes part.

"Everything I'm wearing's free. I am living proof that an idiot in a band will wear anything."