The JUNO Awards
The JUNO Awards are Canada's premiere musical awards program. The program was originally established in 1964 as the RPM Gold Leaf Awards. In 1971 it were renamed to the JUNO awards in tribute to Pierre Juneau, the first Chairperson of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommincations Commission (CRTC). The awards were founded to raise the public profile and recognition of musical artists in Canada.
In 1974, a group of music industry representatives created what would become the Canadain Music Awards Association to act in an advisory role for the JUNOS. In 1977 that organization was renamed to the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS) and took over full management of the Juno Awards.
You can find out much more about the JUNOS on the their website at juneauawards.ca
Submitting your recorded work to CARAS for a JUNO consideration can be confusing. So we have tried to present a few guidelines here to get you started. You should refer to the submissions page on the JUNO website for more specific information.
As a bluegrass or old-time music artist there are a few categories that you may qualify for. These include:
- Traditional Roots Album of the Year
- Contemporary Roots Album of the Year
- Traditional Indigenous Artist or Group of the Year
There are a few other categories that might apply as well but remember that generally you'll have to have pretty high sales numbers to be selected. These include Instrumental Album of the Year, Contemporary Christian/Gospel Album of the Year, and a few others.
Next, there are some criteria that your recording will have to meet to be considered. Some of these cross all categories and some are specific to each. Details are available on the JUNO submissions page, but in general...
- Artists / Groups (50%) must be Canadian
- A minimal amount of AI (Artifical Intelligence) in the submitted work
- Only humans are eligible - I know the sounds weird...but...
- Product must be released in brick and mortar stores or on a recognized streaming service for national sale between September 1 of Year-2 and November 2 of Year-1 for eligibility in Year.
- Submissions must be made before November 1 of Year-1 to the CARAS office or online for consideration in that Year's awards.
- In some cases, a single submission may be used to apply to multiple categories. Refer to the JUNO website for details.
- CARAS does make EPs eligilbe for submission in some cases.
There are also criteria by category that you can review on the JUNO site. Here is an exerpt of the criteria for Traditional Roots Album of the Year as stated on the site...
"Music from instrumental and song traditions that are specific to a cultural or geographic group or groups is eligible for this category. It is generally acknowledged that the repertoire and stylistic elements of traditional music have been shaped through oral transmission over a period of years. Although a great deal of traditional repertoire consists of older songs and tunes, this does not exclude recent compositions which model themselves on specific traditional musical structures (e.g., recently composed jigs and reels or songs rooted in a traditional form).
Music from all languages and traditions are eligible.
There are no sales qualifications for this category."
We at BMAC hope this helps to get you started and to understand the JUNO process a bit better. Remember that complete information is available at the Juno website.
