andPOP - Pop Culture With Substance

The weather outside will soon be frightful, and Canada’s Fucked Up is getting ready to make music to match. The Polaris Prize winners are using their prize money to record an all-star rendition of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” a remix of the 1980s charity song by Band Aid.

So far, Fucked Up have accumulated an all-star lineup of musicians, if a little peculiar.

“David Cross, members of Vampire Weekend, TV on the Radio, Broken Social Scene, the GZA, Bob Mould, No Age, and Yo La Tengo are all confirmed,” frontman Damien Abrahama a.k.a. Pink Eyes told New York Magazine. ”I’m still waiting on confirmation from Feist, Jarvis Cocker, and M.I.A. We wanted the biggest people we could get. If we could get a Jonas Brother on this, I would get a Jonas Brother.”

The song was first recorded in 1984 for famine relief in Ethiopia by Band Aid, a group featuring musicians such as Queen, Paul McCartney, Bono, George Michael, Sting, David Bowie, Bananarama, Culture Club, Duran Duran, Kool & the Gang, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Spandau Ballet, and Status Quo among others. Written by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure (Ultravox), media attention took off and the song became the biggest selling single in UK singles chart history.

Needless to say, Geldof decided to remake the song in 1989, featuring Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan and Banarama under the name Band Aid II. In 2004, Band Aid 20 appeared, starring Coldplay (who proposed the idea), Bono (again) and Dizzee Rascall rapping an interlude.

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Canadians: Want a quick 20 grand? Make an amazing album.

The Polaris Prize awards $20,000 to the Canadian artist or group that creates the best album of the year, based solely on artistic merit. Sales don’t count, marketing doesn’t count. The ten nominees – Elliot Brood, Fucked Up, Great Lake Swimmers, Hey Rosetta!, K’Naan, Metric, Joel Plaskett, Malajube, Patrick Watson, and Chad Vangaalen – all attended and performed at the Polaris Prize Gala, so I made sure to snag a few interviews before the award was given out.

The winner of the $20,000 prize? Well, check out the video and I’ll tell you.

Move aside indie-rock. This year’s Polaris Music Prize winners are a little different from the average Canadian alternative style. Toronto hardcore band Fucked Up took this year’s $20,000 award for the best Canadian album of the year on Monday, according to The Globe and Mail.

The band’s album, “The Chemistry of Common Life,” beat out nine other finalists including Metric, K’Naan, Joel Plaskett, and Great Lake Swimmers.

The Polaris Prize is an award decided by a jury made up of Canadian journalists, bloggers, broadcasters and programmers. The jury is determined by the Polaris Board of Directors and is made up of 185 members from both the local and national media.

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