7 Memorable Canadian GRAMMY Moments

As a Canadian music fan, it’s always exciting to see music from the north acknowledged at the GRAMMYs. This year, Canadians will be cheering on Drake (3 nominations), Arcade Fire (2 Nominations), and Deadmau5 (1 Nomination) on Sunday.

Let’s take a look back at some memorable moments, strange happenings, and mildly interesting facts from music’s biggest night. Here are 7 Canadian-specific highs and lows from GRAMMY history.

At just 21 years young, Ottawa’s own Alanis Morissette snagged Album Of The Year for everyone’s dance party scream-along standby Jagged Little Pill. This made her the youngest person ever to win AOTY, edging out Babs Streisand, who won the award at 22. Fifteen years later, Alanis was eclipsed by a 20-year-old country singer with a hit single called “Fifteen”—Taylor mother-effing Swift.

When Arcade Fire won the 2011 GRAMMY for Album Of The Year, amidst a literal who’s who of music industry including Lady Gaga, Eminem, Katy Perry, and Lady Antebellum, it sent America into a veritable frenzy. It even inspired a Tumblr dedicated to cataloguing the incredulous social media reactions to their surprise win. Now Arcade Fire are a household name. In some households they’re also known as “the French goofballs with the lanky guy.”

It’s hard to say what GRAMMY producers were thinking when they paired up Nelly Furtado with a shredder like Steve Vai. One sure way to let a new artist’s voice shine is to have Lord Of The Guitar Nerds ripping 40,000 notes per minute.

In 2003, Avril was nominated for Best New Artist, Best Pop Vocal Album, Song Of The Year, Best Female Pop Performance, and Best Female Rock Performance, but Norah Jones managed to shit all over her dreams, sniping pretty much all of them. The same thing happened to Drake last year, so we’re going to start calling 5 nominations and no wins the “Canadian Curse.”

In 1997, Celine Dion beat out Beck, The Smashing Pumpkins, The Fugees, and the friggin’ Waiting To Exhale Soundtrack for a Best Album win. It turns out two turntables and a microphone are no match for Celine’s five-octave warble.

How does a Canadian band have more “Mmmms” than GRAMMY Nominations? This, and more questions on how the ‘90s were batshit. This isn’t so much a memorable moment as much as it is a mind-melting, horrible truth that we all now have to live with.

Because you can’t drink out of a JUNO.