A groundbreaking punk album by Victoria trio Nomeansno has been given the 2021 Slaight Family Polaris Heritage Prize designation.
Wrong, the band’s fourth full-length album, was released in 1989 and has gone on to become one of the punk genre’s most acclaimed — and enduring — efforts. Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters and Nirvana fame has vouched his support of the album on several occasions, while local broadcaster Jason Lamb, of The Zone @91.3 radio station, is currently working on a biography of the band that will feature Wrong prominently.
Nomeansno, whose core members, brothers John and Rob Wright, were raised in Victoria, officially retired in 2016. The band was named Tuesday to the list of Heritage Prize winners alongside Faith Nolan, a Halifax-reared singer-songwriter whose 1986 blues-folk album, Africville, also received the designation.
Glenn Gould, Kate & Anna McGarrigle, and Neil Young are among the previous winners of the award, which celebrates Canadian albums of artistic distinction, without regard to musical genre or commercial popularity.
mdevlin@timescolonist.com
