Juno Awards Preview: Who will win Breakthrough Artist of the Year?

It’s the most wonderful time of the year. Well, if you love Canadian music, it is.

It’s officially Juno week, which means that just in a few short days, all the country’s biggest stars will descend upon Regina and celebrate all things Canadian music!

The show itself will be hosted by dad-to-be Michael Buble and will feature performances by Metric, Billy Talent, Carly Rae Jepsen, Hannah Georgas, k.d. lang, Marianas Trench, Serena Ryder, and The Sheepdogs.  But all week long, the city of Regina will be celebrating with Junofest, celebrity hockey tournaments and a Gala on Saturday night.

To celebrate the busy week, I wanted to feature some of the nominees that might be taking home a big award on Saturday or Sunday night.  Welcome to Mike Bloggity Blog’s 2013 Juno Preview!

A few weeks ago, I highlighted the year’s Best Music Video nominees and today, I wanted to look at the
Breakthrough Artist of the Year category, otherwise known as the Best New Artist.

Past winners:
Rita McNeil
Alanis Morissette
Jann Arden
Nelly Furtado
Avril Lavigne
Michael Buble
Drake
Dan Mangan

Notable snubs (Nominated but lost):
Holly Cole
Chantal Kreviazuk
Celine Dion (To Rita McNeil!)
Carly Rae Jepsen
Sam Roberts

2013 nominees:

Cold Specks
Toronto, ON
Twitter: 2,704 (@coldspecks)

Grimes
Vancouver, BC
Twitter followers: 129,503 (@Grimezsz)

Kira Isabella
Ottawa, ON
Twitter: @kira_isabella

Shawn Hook
South Slocan, BC
Twitter followers: 17,900 (@shawn_hook)

The Weeknd
Toronto
Twitter followers: 1,043,862 (@theweeknd)

Prediction:
The Weeknd or Kira Isabella

The Junos air Sunday night on CTV