Canadian musician Chilly Gonzales knows the music business inside and out. He releases music on his own label, has collaborated with musicians like Feist, Daft Punk and Drake and also co-produced a host of songs and albums. He has had a successful career in Canada, France and Germany. In 2018, he even started a music academy, the Gonzervatory in Cologne.
The International Music Awards (IMA) are the successor to the German music prize, Echo, which from 1992 to 2018 was given to the best-selling artists in Germany. The Echo awards ended their run in scandal after an anti-Semitism controversy last year.
For the new awards, instead of focusing only on sales, the IMA’s organizers want to distribute the prizes in a variety of categories. Aside from honoring the most unique sounds of today and tomorrow, categories also touch on musical engagement and attitude. DW spoke with Gonzales, one of the IMA’s jurors, about the awards and music in general.
Mr. Gonzales, how important or unimportant do you think music prizes are?
If you win them, they are really exciting, and they are one of the signs of your impact on the world. It’s like a concentrated version of what you feel when you get a review in a newspaper that is positive.
The Echo awards were only about sales. Now you have a prize that seems to be more about quality…
Well, quality is subjective, therefore it cannot possibly be only about quality. It’s about industry consensus, which is what the Grammys are as well. Your choices are based on good reviews, sales or industry consensus. You can’t have industry consensus without a little feeling of “Well, this was a big seller, we can’t ignore it.” But it doesn’t have to necessarily mean that you give the prize to the people who sold the most because they happen to be anti-Semites, and then you get in trouble and have to change your entire system. You get pinned into a corner if you only go by sales.
During your career, you have won music prizes, such as a Grammy for a collaboration on Daft Punk’s album Random Access Memories. In what way did that affect your musical career?
I didn’t win a prize. Daft Punk won a prize that I was part of. I don’t consider that my prize at all, because Daft Punk would have won it with or without me, and so I only consider prizes when they’re for my own albums or own concerts or in my own name.
So this year, I was nominated for a Preis für Popkultur (Pop Culture Prize) in Germany, and for an honorary fellowship from the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. I was also nominated in 2011 for a Juno Award, which is the Canadian Grammy, for my album Ivory Tower. But my piano albums were never nominated for any kind of recording prize in Canada, England, Germany and France. And that was always a little disappointing to me. But you get over it pretty quickly. I mean it’s not the be-all and end-all. I think when you don’t get it, you don’t let it get you down, and you take that negative energy and channel it in a positive way.
What kind of recognition is the one that gives you the most satisfaction personally?
The respect of other musicians.
Posted from: https://www.dw.com/en/pianist-chilly-gonzales-on-the-respect-of-other-musicians/a-51330400
