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The finalists for this year's Polaris Prize have been announced. Modeled after music prizes like the UK's Mercury Prize or the American Shortlist Prize, the Polaris Music Prize honours excellence in Canadian music. Tending to shy away from mainstream successes, a jury of music industry folks and music journalists all choose their five favourite albums of the past year. From that a long list of forty bands is created. Then another vote takes place to choose the top 10 or short list before an 11 member grand jury decides the ultimate winner.
Created in 2006, past winners of Polaris include Final Fantasy and Patrick Watson. The winner receives a cash prize of $20,000 but the real prize is the publicity their album receives by wining the accolade that tends to lead to increased record sales.
This year's short list includes indie favourites like Kathleen Edwards, Stars and The Weakerthans. Several bigger names that were on the long list didn't make the cut for the short list including indie rockers The New Pornographers, singer-songwriters Hayden and City & Colour, alt-county band The Sadies and pop-rock duo Tegan and Sara.
Here is some of the short list for this year's Polaris Music Prize:
Black Mountain - In the Future
Basia Bulat - Oh, My Darling
Caribou - Andorra
Kathleen Edwards - Asking For Flowers
Plants & Animals - Parc Avenue
Shad - The Old Prince
Stars - In Our Bedroom After the War
Two Hours Traffic - Little Jabs
The Weakerthans - Reunion Tour
Writer: Michelle Garcia |
07/09/10 >> 
