Let’s hope Junos don’t snub Drake again
The Juno Awards and Drake are not on terribly good terms.
Oh, October’s Very Own has a few Junos tucked away on his shelves — New Artist of the Year and Rap Recording of the Year for So Far Gone in 2010, three more Rap Recording of the Year trophies for Take Care, Nothing Was the Same and If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late in 2012, 2014 and 2016, respectively, and a Video of the Year award for “HYFR” in 2013 — but such “biggies” as Album of the Year, Artist of the Year and Single of the Year still elude him.
Which is kind of odd, given that Drake is arguably the biggest male pop star on the planet right now and the Junos have historically shown a lot of love to Canadians who’ve done well for themselves abroad, from Céline Dion to Shania Twain to Nickelback to Bryan Adams (who will co-host this Sunday’s CTV Juno broadcast from Ottawa with Russell Peters) and on down the line.
And yet Drake keeps getting screwed at the Junos, if not snubbed outright then simply thrown a rather obvious bone in the rap-recording category every couple of years. And he didn’t even get that one in 2011, when the Junos came home to Toronto and tapped him to host the broadcast and subsequently blanked him in all five categories in which he was nominated — including, for once, Rap Recording of the Year, which went to Shad’s TSOL that year instead of Drake’s Thank Me Later. No wonder the dude’s never bothered to come back to the party.
This year, however, Aubrey Drake Graham’s luck looks to change. Maybe. Drake is in the running for five Junos Awards this year. Most notably, last year’s megaselling Views is up for Album of the Year — against The Weeknd’s Starboy, Shawn Mendes’ Illuminate, Leonard Cohen’s You Want it Darker and Céline’s Encore un soir — and, if the Junos’ tendency to hand that award to the biggest-selling title on the list is any indication, Drake can’t lose.
Views topped the Billboard Hot 200 for 13 weeks last year and had moved 1.6 million copies and more than four million “album equivalent units” (whatever the hell that means) in North America by this past January, making it the most successful album on the planet since Adele’s 25. It’s double-platinum here in Canada, having sold in excess of 160,000 copies; only Encore un soir, currently standing at 140,000 in domestic sales, comes close. Views should, thus, have a lock on Album of the Year — at least if the baffling process that led Michael Bublé’s Christmas album to the title over Take Care in 2012 plays out again. We’ll see. Drake’s stiffest competition this year probably comes from a dead man, Leonard Cohen.
You Want it Darker is a fine farewell from a legendary Canadian performer and could indeed edge Views out for Album of the Year when the final votes are cast. The late Cohen stands a good chance, too, of taking Artist of the Year over Drake, Shawn Mendes, Alessia Cara and The Weeknd. He’s the most “artist”-y artist on that list anyway, although admittedly Cohen dying in 2016 is a very different sort of achievement from Drake basically taking over the entire planet’s radio and streaming airwaves last year.
The Juno Fan Choice Award, meanwhile, is likely lost to Justin Bieber, Mendes or Cara — young acts with the sort of followings that will actually vote in the category — and the bloated Views might not be the obvious Rap Recording of the Year victor it would appear to be, since it’s up against some strong albums by Belly, Tory Lanez, Jazz Cartier and Tasha the Amazon. Likewise, the omnipresent “One Dance” has the misfortune of being nominated against several other inescapable jams in the Single of the Year category: Mendes’ “Treat You Better,” Cara’s “Wild Things” and The Weeknd’s “Starboy,” along with the Strumbellas’ slightly more escapable “Spirits.” As we’ve seen in the past, things tend not to go Drake’s way, no matter how likely it seems they will, when the final Juno ballots are cast.
Not that Drake needs the Junos. His new album, More Life, just debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart, blasting out of the gates with 505,000 album unit sales and smashing the streaming records set last year by Views with a whopping 348 million online streams in the first week after its March 18 release. Drake also just broke his own record for the most songs on the singles chart at the same time, putting all 24 tracks from More Life on the Billboard Hot 100 versus the 20 that were sitting in the same place after Views came out last year. He’s doing fine.
Still, Drake is a sensitive soul. Deep down he probably chafes each year when the Junos pass him over again and again for the big prizes. We hate the thought of him sobbing into a hanky on Sunday night when Views goes down to Starboy or something. C’mon, Junos, be nice to Drake. Just once. And maybe he’ll come back and visit again.