Meet The 2021 Country Album of the Year JUNO Award Nominees

Show me a more dynamic crop of JUNO Award nominees than those corralled in the 2021 Country Album of the Year category and I’ll show you a Jackson Pollock, which contains roughly the same amount of colour, agility, and rogue brilliance. 

Indeed, the five competing albums from Dallas Smith, Jade Eagleson, Lindsay Ell, MacKenzie Porter, and Tenille Townes represent some of the catchiest, smartest, songs ever committed to record, which is even more impressive when you consider that the nominees aren’t wildly diverse, and with three of five hailing from Alberta. 

Conversely, the nominated albums show that country music is thematically broader than conventional wisdom might suggest. Songs touching on themes of homelessness, sexual assault, and existentialism get equal billing alongside heartbreak and hard liquor, and everything here is delivered with adjective-worthy verve. 

As it happens, yours truly reviewed four of the five nominated albums for this very website (coincidence?!?), also concluding, as the category judges did, that these recordings were excellent… even when I nitpicked on fealty to the genre. 

Even so, I would be hard-pressed (ish) to choose one album over another, which I suppose is a good problem for the JUNO Awards to have: whoever scoops up the hardware June 6 in Toronto during the show’s 50th anniversary is going make the nation proud. That old saw about it being an honour just to be nominated holds powerfully true among those competing in 2021. Here’s a snapshot of what’s in the running.

Dallas Smith, Timeless

Veteran performer Dallas Smith has been to this rodeo before, having been previously nominated for Country Album of the Year in 2013, 2015 (which he won), 2017, and 2020. Smith also has the most #1 hits among Canadian artists on Billboard's Canada Country chart, at 11. As such, he might be perceived as the one to beat. Timeless boasts a gleaming grocery list of contributors, including fellow nominee MacKenzie Porter and the great Dean Brody on the fabulously named track “Friends Don't Let Friends Drink Alone” as well as a pile of radio hits. Smith’s widespread familiarity might register as a debit (the newest thing always seems shiniest) but it’s certain none of his fellow nominees would feel shame in losing to a star of this stature.
Listen to it here.

Jade Eagleson, Jade Eagleson

Not yet 30, Jade Eagleson is nevertheless the staunch traditionalist in this year’s roundup, with the singer/songwriter from rural Ontario deftly conjuring (to borrow from Eagleson himself) Georges from Jones to Strait. Not that he's a throwback: according to his website, Eagleson is on track to have the most streamed album globally by a Canadian country artist in the past 10 years, which is definitely 21st century. As noted on its release last July, Jade Eagleson consolidates the performer’s singles to date with three previously unreleased songs. The album’s 11 tracks volley between doe-eyed love (the goose-bumpy ballad “Close”), remorseless post-breakup glee (the slinky, subversive “Count the Ways”), and an emotion somewhere in between (the kinetic, super-catchy “Little Less Lonely”). You can practically smell the sawdust and whiskey when this platter hits the turntable. 
Listen to it here.

Lindsay Ell, heart theory

The fifth studio album from the acclaimed Calgary singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist is fantastic, even if it might well pass as a pop record in a blind listening session. Regardless, as I said in my review last August, heart theory is “filled to bursting with everything that makes pop music, well, pop: songs so sparkling they may have been wiped down with lemon juice, obscenely memorable choruses, relatable themes and Ell’s gorgeous, boundless voice which is both engine and showpiece.” Conceptually focused on the various stages of grief, the album also features a song fearlessly chronicling sexual assault. It’s not an unheard-of musical topic (see also Lady Gaga’s “Til It Happens to You” or Tori Amos’ “Me and a Gun”) but the subject has never been handled with more grace. 
Listen to it here.

MacKenzie Porter, Drinkin’ Songs: The Collection

Porter’s second JUNO Award nomination — she was also in this category in 2015 but lost, possibly notably, to fellow 2021 nominee Dallas Smith — is an odds-on favourite both for her track record as the first female artist since Shania Twain to score three consecutive #1 singles at Canadian country radio as well as the sheer emotional and sonic heft of Drinkin’ Songs: The Collection which is flat-out, across-the-board great and propelled by a voice as smooth as polished glass though much warmer than that description suggests. Plus, music is a family affair and one the Porters are rather good at: big brother Kalan won 2004’s Canadian Idol and both sibs are multi-instrumentalists. 
Listen to it here.

Tenille Townes, The Lemonade Stand

The dazzling full-length debut from the Alberta-reared, Nashville-based singer/songwriter has been hotly tipped since it dropped last June, and not just because Townes juxtaposes gleaming production against humanist stories of uncommon gravitas. Those previous mentions about songs touching on homelessness and existentialism? Both happen on The Lemonade Stand, which elevates Townes’ silky voice to great heights while always making her scan as the delightfully down-to-earth gal you pray is seated next to you on a long-haul flight. Standout track “When I Meet My Maker” summons spiritual reverence with such startling force that even atheists are left dumbstruck. A win here would be a nice finale after 2020’s nomination for Breakthrough Artist of the Year.  
Listen to it here.

Tune into the 2021 JUNO Awards broadcast on Sunday, June 6 at 8pmET/5pmPT with a ridiculous number of viewing options including CBC TV, CBC Gem, CBC Radio One, CBC Music, CBC Listen, globally on CBCMusic.ca/junos and livestreamed on CBC Music’s TikTok, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube pages.