Polaris Prize Long-list Announced

Summer means festivals and Polaris Music Prize time for Canadian Music fans!

This means the search for the best Canadian album released from June 1, 2007 to May 31, 2008 is on! For the uninitiated here is how it works:

The 2008 Polaris Jury consists of 185 members from local and national media who
display a wide breadth and depth of knowledge of Canadian music and passion for
discovering new albums. All jury members submit a ballot indicating their Top 5
albums of the year; the results form the Polaris Prize Long List and, after a
second round of voting, the Polaris Prize Short List. An 11-member Grand Jury is
selected each year to convene at the Polaris Awards gala, where they determine
the Polaris Prize Winner. To ensure an impartial outcome, no one with direct
financial relationships with artists is eligible to become a jury member.

The top forty albums (The Polaris Long List) has selected by the jury has been released. The final ten albums to make the short list will be announced on July 7th. Hopefully before then I will post who my five picks from the long list are and some rational behind my choices (beyond they are really cool). However for now I'll just add some brief thoughts about the list.

1) For some selections it seems they got put on the list by virtue of name recognition. Congratulations! You have a new album out so you get a Polaris Prize nomination. The new Weakerthan's album in my opinion certainly falls into this category as does Stars, City and Colour and possibly Islands.

2) Some big names are on here that certainly deserve to be. The Sadies, Tegan and Sara, The New Pornographers and Kathleen Edwards all put out their best albums yet and rightfully deserve the nomination.

3) Two surprising exclusions were Immaculate Machine's Fables and Cuff the Duke's Sidelines of the City. I thought both were excellent records and certainly deserved a nomination.

4) As someone from Ottawa I'm happy to see The Acorn and The HILOTRONS make the list. Especially as both are (or were in the case of The Acorn) on local Ottawa label Kelp Records.

5) If the previous two winners are any indication then in order to win your office Polaris pool you need to select an album by a relative unknown that is mellow, melodic and slightly folky. Essentially it has to be something palatable to the entire 11 member jury. Hayden immediately springs to mind but he is far to well established. My front runners in this category would certainly be The Acorn or Justin Rutledge.