Oshawa’s Music City bonafides boosted with seven Juno nominations; five for Daniel Caesar
Published February 7, 2024 at 8:45 am
March 24 will be a big day for Oshawa R&B all-star Daniel Caesar and for the self-proclaimed Music City itself, with seven JUNO nominations for Shwa rockers, including five for Caesar all by himself.
Caesar already has a bulging trophy case with a Grammy (2019), a JUNO (2018), a couple of Soul Train Music Awards and a MTV Music Award, along with a suitcase full of nominations. His five at this year’s JUNOs are second only to Montreal-born singer-songwriter Charlotte Cardin, who has six.
Caesar and Cardin will go head-to-head in the Tik Tok Fan Choice Award and both the Single of the Year and Album of the Year categories and for Artist of the Year.
Caesar is also up for Contemporary R&B Recording of the Year.
Crown Lands
Crown Lands (Kevin Comeau and Cody Bowles), the Rush-influenced prog rock duo from Oshawa who write songs inspired by Indigenous resistance to colonialism, is up for their third JUNO nomination, this time for Rock Album of the Year for ‘Fearless.’ The band won for Breakthrough Group of the Year in 2021.
Dizzy’s self-titled third album has been nominated for Alternative Album of the year, the band’s third nomination. The indie pop band (singer Katie Munshaw and brothers Charlie, Alex and Mackenzie Spencer) won in this category in 2019 for their debut album ‘Baby Teeth.’
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Dizzy
Pickering is also on the JUNO nomination action, with Hill Kourkoutis, who grew up in the north Pickering hamlet of Greenwood, up for the Jack Richardson Producer of the Year category.
The multi-talented Kourkoutis was the first woman nominated – and the first woman to win – the Recording Engineer of the Year Award at the 2022 Junos for her work on SATE’s ‘Howler’ and the Tania Joy (Uxbridge) song ‘The Drought.’
Kourkoutis is nominated this year for her work on Aysanabee’s ‘Ego Death’ and ‘Whiskey Bar’ by Tafari Anthony.
Hill Kourkoutis
She is up against Jason Brando; Lubalin; Mathieu Senechal & Sam Avant; Joel Stouffer; Shawn Everett; and Wondagurl.
Dizzy’s competition for Alternative Album includes ‘Here and Now’ by Aysanabee, ‘To Learn’ by Leith Ross, ‘See You in the Dark’ by Softcult and ‘Lord of the Flies & Birds & Bees’ by Talk, who, like Caesar, is up for five awards this year.
Crown Lands has some stiff competition in the Rock Album category in Glorious Sons (Glory), Metric (Formentera II), Beaches (Blame My Ex) AND Blue Stones (Pretty Monster).
Caesar, who went to Seventh Day Adventist School in Oshawa before striking out on his own to make it in the music business in Toronto nine years ago, is making a habit of collecting nominations, including eight Grammy nods (and the surprise 2019 win for ‘Best Part’) and six Juno nominations.
He will take on Cardin, DVBSS, Josh Ross, Tate McRae, Karan Aujla, Shubh, The Weeknd, ThxSoMch and Burlington’s Walk Off the Earth in the Fan Choice category.
For Song of the Year, his smash hit ‘Always’ is up against ‘Confetti’ (Cardin), ‘Pretty Girl Era’ (Lukala), ‘A Little Bit Happy’ (Talk) and ‘greedy’ by Tate McRae.
In the Album of the Year category Caesar and his ‘Never Enough’ album faces competition from Cardin (99 Nights), Alexandra Strelinski (Neo Romance), Lauren Spencer Smith (Mirror) and Talk (Lord of the Flies & Birds & Bees).
For the Artist of the Year – kind of like the MVP in Canadian Music – the judges will decide between Caesar, Cardin, Spencer Smith, McRae and country music and pop icon Shania Twain.
Performers at the show include The Beaches, Josh Ross, Karan Aujla, TALK, Charlotte Cardin, Nelly Furtado (who will also host) and this year’s Canadian Music Hall of Fame inductee Maestro Fresh Wes.
The 53rd annual JUNO Awards will take place on March 23 and 24 in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
For a complete list and biographies of all nominees and more information on the 2024 JUNO Awards, visit junoawards.ca.
Daniel Caesar (with producers Jordan Evans & Matthew Burnett) after his 2018 JUNO win