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Maestro Fresh Wes, Skinny Puppy Win Polaris Heritage Prize

The following is another Billboard Canada story penned by Rosie Long Decter.

Maestro Fresh Wes, Skinny Puppy Win Polaris Heritage Prize

By External Source

The following is another Billboard Canada story penned by Rosie Long Decter.


Two influential '80s albums have won this year’s Slaight Family Polaris Heritage Prizes. Skinny Puppy’s Bites and Maestro Fresh Wes’ Symphony in Effect both helped bring their respective genres — industrial-electronic and hip-hop — to broader attention in Canada. The Heritage Prize designation honours their contributions to Canadian music culture.

Each year, a jury of experts selects one album for the Heritage award, while the second honouree is decided by a public vote. Like the annual Polaris Prize, the albums are selected with regard for their artistic merit, not their commercial success. Previous winners include Jagged Little Pill by Alanis Morissette, And Now The Legacy Begins by Dream Warriors, and Feist’s Let It Die.

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Maestro Fresh Wes' Hip-Hop Breakthrough Symphony in Effect

Symphony in Effect, the 1989 debut by Scarborough’s Maestro Fresh Wes, is this year’s jury selection. Released on Attic/LMR Records, the album went platinum in Canada and helped Toronto’s rising hip-hop scene get international attention. The album’s high-energy lead single, Let Your Backbone Slide, was the first Canadian Top 4 hip-hop hit and won the first Juno Award for Best Rap Recording. It was inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2019.

While the Polaris Music Prize awards the best Canadian album of the year (this year's went to Debby Friday), the Polaris Heritage Prizes serve as a kind of critic’s hall-of-fame for albums released before the Polaris Prize was created in 2006. It's awarded annually to two classic Canadian albums. – Continue reading here.

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Avril Lavigne at Festival d'été de Québec in Quebec City on July 4, 2025.
Stephane Bourgeois

Avril Lavigne at Festival d'été de Québec in Quebec City on July 4, 2025.

Concerts

Avril Lavigne and Simple Plan Cover Blink-182's 'All The Small Things' at Festival d'été de Québec

Pop-punk is having a moment, and two of its biggest stars of the early 2000s teamed up to cover another at FEQ in Quebec City.

Pop-punk is having a moment, and two of the most popular bands from the genre's early 2000s peak teamed up for a celebration at Festival d'été de Québec (FEQ).

Avril Lavigne headlined the gargantuan main stage on the historic Plains of Abraham in Quebec City on Friday night (July 4) for more than 80,000 fans, which also coincided with the final date of her Greatest Hits tour with fellow Canadians Simple Plan.

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