Our cold but very nice neighbors up north, who we hope respect us again now that we have a brand new change-y President, have just announced their nominees for this year’s Juno Awards. It’s the Canadian version of the Grammys, you see. And we’re just a little bit confused.

The logical stuff, first. Among the nominees are three Uncensored Interview-heralded acts: City and Colour, nominated for Artist of the Year and Songwriter of the Year; Plants and Animals and The Stills, pitted against each other for New Group of the Year; and once again, Plants and Animals and The Stills for Alternative Album of the Year. Parc Avenue vs. Oceans Will Rise! Healthy competition! If the Stills triumph, no doubt they’ll treat themselves to some of that fancy American alcohol they like so much.

But really, we wish all three outfits could take home shiny trophies covered in glitter, magical snow that never melts and a never-ending supply of poutine. (Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it. This heart-attack on the plate may well be the secret to the Montreal music scene. Wonder if they serve it at any of the places Plants and Animals recommend above?) What we don’t understand, or perhaps want to understand, is why Nickelback has gotten the nod in no less than five different categories. Everyone loves to pick on Nickelback. We get that. We’re happy they’re around, doing their thing, and that they have fans who appreciate them. But Canada, seriously? You genuinely like these guys?

(KEEP READING JUNO AWARDS HEART UNCENSORED ARTISTS)

Everyone says that radio sucks these days. In fact, people have been saying it for at least a decade. I had fond memories of listening to the radio growing up, but I was also listening to one of the coolest commercial radio stations at the time, WFNX in Boston. But even that holy grail of radio seemed dim on my last visit to the Bay State. This weekend I had the opportunity to travel down the east coast to check out some local radio, and I thought I’d share some lessons I have learned.

Someone covered “Lollipop.”
Yes, a “modern rock” band called Framing Hanley band covered a Lil Wayne song. You can listen to it over at their MySpace page–actually watch the Youtube video there for the “full version.”

311 is now “Classic Rock.”
Yep, I heard “Down” back to back with the Rolling Stones. Apparently, the Toadies are also in that genre now as well.

M.I.A. gets no props for T.I.’s “Swagga.”
Before the title came up on the radio dial, I actually thought this was T.I.’s bizarre M.I.A. remix. The song is officially titled “Swagga Like Us (feat. Jay-Z, Kanye West and Lil’ Wayne)” with no mention of M.I.A.

Casey Kasem is still alive!
And apparently when the holidays roll around, he counts down the top Christmas songs…still! Though I don’t think the “top” songs on the list have changed since I was a kid. Quite sad as they do need to sneak “Christmas in Hollis” somewhere onto the list.

Everything is filtered through Auto-Tune.
Not just the obvious stuff like Kanye West and Lil Wayne, but even listening to rock radio you can hear the weird noise that often happens when Auto-Tune is used. It’s not nearly as obvious, but it’s there.

Oh, yeah, and…
People DO, in fact, like Nickelback.

Aubrey thinks music consumers need to get their shit together:

My friend Josh only eats potato chips and cereal. Occasionally he’ll eat a burger or a sandwich but mostly he has the diet of an 11-year-old latch key kid. Until six months ago he’d never eaten sushi. Though Josh does indeed love potato chips and cereal, his love of these things aren’t the sole reason he eats them.
When I was a kid my best friend’s little brother would only eat peanut butter. That was all he wanted to eat. When his parents tried to cure him of this socially awkward nut butter fancy by putting a giant bowl of it in front of him and forcing him to eat it, he ate it all and asked for more.

With Josh it’s different. He carb-loads out of laziness. Chips and cereal are easy. They’re portable, tasty, they’ll quickly remove the pangs of hunger without all of those pesky nutrients, and they’re available virtually everywhere. Josh would eat other things, unlike the peanut-butter hound, but he’s just got other priorities and a culinary deficiency. He’s surviving fine the way things are and doesn’t feel that the added bonus of eating healthier, tastier food will be worth the extra effort it will take to figure out how to cook his own vegetables.

(READ MORE ON VITAMIN DEFICIENCY)

Oh, The Shark just HAD to bring up the whole Nickelback controversy again, didn’t he? For the love of all that is holy, I am going to start wearing a Nickelback t-shirt to CMJ events to piss people off. Hey, wait, is loving Nickelback ironically the thing that will cause all hipsters to die? I think it might be. Come, let us all love Nickelback so that Williamsburg will again be habitable!

That’s okay though, because you know who will be on board with my newfound Nickelback love? Awesome UI-Approved, Must-See CMJ Marathon Artist Juliana Hatfield! Check it out. Nickelback’s her guilty pleasure!

The other day while driving with a friend Nickelback’s latest atrocity came on the radio (we had the dial on “scan,” don’t get any ideas) and so began five awkward seconds of waiting for the station to change, because we were both too lazy–or maybe frightened–to do it manually.

Once our ears were finally cleansed of the shitfest, my friend (let’s call him Joe The Plumber) looked at me and said “God I just wish Nickelback would die.” Any sane, patriotic, God-fearing person’s first instinct would be to nod their head and agree, but right then and there I had an epiphany of sorts–music NEEDS Nickelback.

Jeremy from Project Jenny Project Jan might rightfully have a beef with major labels throwing craploads of money at crap bands, but one needs to look at the BIG picture here–if it weren’t for those crap bands, we’d have no basis to judge actual GOOD music against. Remember, good cannot be defined without evil, existence without nothingness–you get the idea.

So how could anyone make a subjective judgment about the quality of music without having the absolute extreme opposite to contrast against? Yes, Nickelback sucks giant steaming shit balls through a pea-sized vacuum–their music is obnoxiously commercial, bland, and derivative of itself–but if it didn’t exist, how would we truly know what the lowest end of the spectrum sounded like?

Fair readers, I give you my own personal tool to help you judge music for yourself, The Nickelback Shitmus Test

Hey, hate bad music all you want, but at the very least, respect it for allowing you to draw a distinct parallel between music of value and disposable trash. Thank you, Nickelback, for existing.

It’s the second installment of breaking down indie myths. One of the most common is that once a band becomes popular, they are no longer talented. Maybe they sold out, or compromised their sound. Any band who has been popular from the beginning must be talentless hacks that pander to the stupid masses.

Ask any hipster what they think about a very popular band and they will get visibly angry at worst, or laugh and pretend to like them ironically. No self respecting hipster can say they earnestly like the Pussycat Dolls unless they can construe their work as “societal commentary.” Just say the word Nickelback and see indie rockers become visibly angry. No, really! Look here, here, and here:

(After the jump, that is)

The Shark mentioned he is offended by the idea that Nickelback achieved some level of musical credibility by affiliating with Live Nation and going indie. As you might have guessed by now, Freebird almost spat coffee at the screen in order to shout, “Bullshit!”

Now let’s underline that I am not a Nickelback fan. Previous to reading their Wikipedia entry five minutes ago, I could not name one song by them. I assume I have heard them but I couldn’t tell you anything about their music. So this defense is not out of a fanboy love of Nickelback.

Let’s say you’re in an awesome band. You make amazing music and the world loves you (basically, what happens when you play Guitar Hero). You get so much money and power, you call the shots. If you care about music, wouldn’t you support the indie movement (not to mention your profits) by going indie? As a person who supports indie musicians, how can you vilify any band that tries to take profits away from corporations, and increase the popularity of the indie movement in terms of money and people? Go Nickelback, I say!

And if the point of being in a band is to reach the largest number of people with your awesome music, why not take every opportunity to make that possible? And if you can, with your money and power, help other bands do the same, how can I argue?

Now you may say that the music of Nickelback could not be called awesome. Fine. But their bringing the issue of independently producing music controlled by and benefiting the artist to a large group of people who wouldn’t normally care about the issue IS awesome. And for those about to rock independently, I salute you, Nickelback.

But it’s not just me! Bands love selling out if it gets more people to their music. And so why shouldn’t the reverse be true? Man in Gray discussed the difference between having an indie versus major label in terms of how it can benefit your music, not your cred. And isn’t that ultimately what it’s about? Music? Not cred?

With a video title like “Go Ahead, Sell Out!” you can imagine they aren’t crying over Nickelback ruining indie