Hey! How come no category for MP3 of the year?

It was a week where they celebrated the best, and where an industry heard the worst!

Perhaps the choice of host for the night could have been a statement on the state of the industry, Alanis Morrisette know for her hit song Ironic guided the Juno awards along their path on Sunday night. The assembled crowd at the Skyreach centre celebrating the success of the Canadian music artist, while the industry execs drowned their sorrows in the sky boxes over a recent court ruling.

Her hit from the 90’s should have been playing as the theme music for the night, as many of the artists showcased tonight have made strong statements about the “morality if not legality of the downloading issue”

On Thursday the Canadian Supreme Court handed down a ruling that basically said that the music industry had not proven that there was any copyright infringement with the downloading of music off the internet. A major blow to the campaign of the CRIA to end the practice, which it claims is taking a major toll on the recording business.

Now to hear the CRIA tell it, the massive losses from the downloading problems could spell the end of the new Canadian artist and cause severe stress on a fragile industry. If that’s the case, the word never got out to the folks of Edmonton. The Juno awards took the city by storm this week, with most public events sold out. Celebrity watchers staking out hotels and bars for a glimpse of the high echelon artists of Canadian music.

Sunday night’s televised gala on CTV attracted 16,500 loud and appreciative fans that paid between 57 and 91 dollars to share a night with their idols. The largest crowd to ever attend a Juno show in its 33 year history.

The Alberta rockers Nickelback opened the show with a rousing rendition of Figure you out and then were called up to the stage to accept the award for Group of the year, they would follow that up later with the Fan Choice award. Which proved to be an appropriately named award, for the 16,500 strong Alberta fans?

Sam Roberts from Montreal were the big winners taking home three Juno’s over the course of the night, winning for Rock Album, Album of the year and Artist of the year.

Nellie Furtado won a Juno for her single Powerless and Sarah McLachlan won for her Pop Album Afterglow. Shania Twain collected Juno for the Country album UP and Michael Buble was named newcomer of the year.

The Juno’s which rarely travel outside of the Metro Toronto area, found a receptive group in Edmonton. The folks in Winnipeg now have something to work towards. The Manitoba capital will be the site for next years awards show. The success of the week long festival in Edmonton will be hard to top.