Congratulations to all the long list nominees, including many earbuds & ticket stubs favourites! Please note, my picks all got in, so I'm quite pleased.
At this point, the jury will now take this list and vote again to come up with the Short List, which will be announced July 6 from the Sky Yard of the Drake Hotel in Toronto live on Sirius 86 and CBC Radio 3.
If you don't know what the Polaris Music Prize is, take a read through the official rules here. But really, why would you be reading this blog if you didn't?
Let's give you a second to browse through the selections below. Then a tiny bit of commentating.
Apollo Ghosts - Mount Benson
Bahamas - Pink Strat
The Besnard Lakes - The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night
Blue Rodeo - The Things We Left Behind
Brasstronaut - Mt. Chimaera
Broken Social Scene - Forgiveness Rock Record
Basia Bulat - Heart Of My Own
By Divine Right - Mutant Message
Caribou - Swim
Jason Collett - Rat A Tat Tat
Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles (II)
Amelia Curran - Hunter, Hunter
Fred Fortin - Plastrer La Lune
Frog Eyes - Paul’s Tomb: A Triumph
Hannah Georgas - This Is Good
Ghostkeeper - Ghostkeeper
Holy Fuck - Latin
Karkwa - Les Chemins De Verre
LeE HARVeY OsMOND - A Quiet Evil
Greg MacPherson - Mr. Invitation
Dan Mangan - Nice, Nice, Very Nice
Misteur Valaire - Golden Bombay
The New Pornographers - Together
Owen Pallett - Heartland
Plants And Animals - La La Land
Radio Radio - Belmundo Regal
Justin Rutledge - The Early Widows
The Sadies - Darker Circles
Shad - TSOL
Elizabeth Shepherd - Heavy Falls The Night
The Slew - 100%
Meaghan Smith - The Cricket’s Orchestra
South Rakkas Crew - The Stimulus Package
Tegan And Sara - Sainthood
The Wooden Sky - If I Don’t Come Home You’ll Know I’m Gone
Hawksley Workman - Meat
You Say Party! We Say Die! - XXXX
Young Galaxy - Invisible Republic
Yukon Blonde - Yukon Blonde
Zeus - Say Us
Some preliminary comments based on recurring concerns raised regarding the Polaris picks:
Gender split: There are 14 female artists/bands which contain female members out of 40. This number goes down to about 10 if you only count female fronted bands.
Language split: 4 francophone artists out of 40.
Regional split: 10 BC/Albertan artists out of 40.
Album um... experience (?) split: 8 out of 40 are debut full-length albums.
What do you think about the long list?