Sasha Frere-Jones weighs in on Canadian music
Frere-Jones has his own band, Ui, and expects harsh critique
The New Yorker’s pop music critic Sasha Frere-Jones — a surprisingly funny and unpretentious “music geek” — was in town Saturday to discuss arts criticism with Eric Friesen as part of the Hot Docs festival. Considered one of the top arts critics in the world, he authored the controversial essay, A Paler Shade of White: How Indie Rock Lost Its Soul, and has critiqued his fair share of Canadian acts (Arcade Fire, Leonard Cohen, etc.). So, does he think Canada has a definable sound?
Frere-Jones: “The short answer is ‘No.’”
Friesen: “And the long, interesting answer is?”
Frere-Jones: “No.”
(humble laughter from crowd)
Frere-Jones: “Fucked Up is a band that’s doing very well that recently came and played around the corner from my house at the (Brooklyn) Masonic temple. They were fantastic, and they sound nothing like Leonard Cohen or Leslie Feist. There was a bit of a cliché coming out around Joni Mitchell and Neil Young, like that the sensitive, eco-crunchy people came from Canada. But I don’t think you should say that any more. Like some of my favourite club music is being made in Montreal, that sounds like enormous fax machines fighting each other.”
“I mean, Canada is moving up and up and up and we’re hearing more and more names.”
(pregnant pause)
“That’s the part where I’ll stop talking.…That’s the long ‘No’”
“… but Canada’s beautiful,” he smiles.
Frieson then asked what Frere-Jones thinks of Canada’s Polaris Prize — not to be confused with the Sweden’s Polar Prize — which Fucked Up took home this year.
Frere-Jones: “They give (Sweden’s Polar Prize) to bands who are already massively famous and established, so what does it mean? And nobody ever remembers that, like, ‘the Polar Prize winning Pink Floyd!’ It is a bit like the Oscars, and with music like with movies financial interests conspire to reward an already valuable commodity. You can squeeze another few singles out of a Beyonce record because ‘well she won a Grammy’. … The Polaris Prize seems to be trying to establish this board of ethics to actually sort of randomize the hype. (But) there’s always going to be a consensus on what’s good – and that means something. Like we should pay attention if a whole bunch of people all decide they like Fucked up or Arcade Fire or Lil Wayne, there’s probably something going on there.”
- Marsha Casselman
[...] to world-renowned New Yorker music critic Sasha Frere-Jones, Montreal harbors North America’s edgiest electronic scene (See Ghislain Poirier, Moonstar, [...]