MMVA nominations offer something for everyone this year, still manage to make us feel old
The MuchMusic Video Award nominations were released on Tuesday, featuring a who’s who of Canadian musicians. Beach-based band Down With Webster leads the pack with four nominations, including the fan pick categories of “Ur Fave Artist” and “Ur Fave Video” (this type of shameless teen pandering sure does make us feel old), while a parade of other usual Canadian suspects also scooped up nods, including Drake, Arcade Fire and Justin Bieber.
As usual, Toronto’s music scene is heavily represented in the nominations this year, with indie types like Tokyo Police Club, Metric and Broken Social Scene filling out categories alongside a few names we haven’t come across since the early millennial years, like Billy Talent, Shawn Desman and Fefe Dobson. In fact, Desman and Dobson both match Down With Webster’s four nominations, and Dobson even goes up against the biggest Canadian stars in the “International Video of the Year by a Canadian” category, earning a nod for her “Stuttering” video. Also nominated in that category are Grammy-winners Arcade Fire for the Spike Jonze–directed video “The Suburbs,” sk8er girl Avril Lavigne’s “What the Hell,” local boy Drake’s “Find Your Love” and “Somebody to Love (Remix)” by Justin Bieber, featuring Usher.” This year also marks the first nods for Maritimes rapper Classified and Toronto’s own Shad.
Slated to perform are American rockers The Black Keys and City and Colour, while Bieber’s girlfriend, Selena Gomez, takes on hosting duties. And did we mention the Queen of Pop herself, Lady Gaga, is also set to return, hopefully reprising some of the outrageousness of her memorable 2009 performance? We’ll be watching, even if it does all make us feel a tad old.
The MMVAs air June 19 on MuchMusic.
