The Polaris Music Prize is an award given yearly to one album based not on genre, affiliation or record sales, but artistic merit. The nominees are selected by an extensive group of music critics and bloggers, with a 40-album long list unveiled in June, the 10-album short list unveiled in July and the winner revealed in September.
The long list for the 2015 Polaris Music Prize was unveiled in Halifax at the Carleton, with the list announced by musicians Elizabeth Shepherd, Old Man Luedecke and Luke Doucet, as well as Halifax Mayor Mike Savage. The entire list is as follows:
Absolutely Free – Absolutely Free
The Acorn – Vieux Loup
Lydia Ainsworth – Right From Real
Alvvays – Alvvays
Arkells – High Noon
Rich Aucoin – Ephemeral
BadBadNotGood & Ghostface Killah – Sour Soul
Bahamas – Bahamas is Afie
Barr Brothers – Sleeping Operator
Braids – Deep in the Iris
Steph Cameron – Sad-Eyed Lonesome Lady
Caribou – Our Love
Jazz Cartier – Marauding in Paradise
Jennifer Castle – Pink City
Cold Specks – Neuroplasticity
Louis-Jean Cormier – Les Grands Artéres
Death From Above 1979 – The Physical World
Drake – If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late
Frazey Ford – Indian Ocean
Tobias Jesso Jr. – Goon
B.A. Johnston – Shit Sucks
Pierre Kwenders – Le dernier empereur Bantou
Lee Harvey Osmond – Beautiful Scars
Jean Leloup – A Paradis City
METZ – II
Milk & Bone – Little Mourning
Tre Mission – Stigmata
New Pornographers – Brill Bruisers
Joel Plaskett – Park Avenue Sobriety Test
Buffy St. Marie – Power in the Blood
Elizabeth Shepherd – The Signal
Siskiyou – Nervous
Colin Stetson & Sarah Neufeld – Never Were the Way She Was
Various Artists – Native North America Vol. 1
Viet Cong – Viet Cong
Patrick Watson – Love Songs For Robots
The Weather Station – Loyalty
White Lung – Deep Fantasy
Whitehorse – Leave No Bridge Unburned
Young Guv – Ripe 4 Luv
The Polaris Prize is considered a cousin of Britain’s Mercury Prize, which is awarded in the same fashion.
At its inception, the winner of the Polaris Prize received $20,000. This year, the winner will receive $50,000. The nine other shortlisted contenders will receive $3,000 each.
Additionally, there will be a new prize given out each year called the Slaight Family Polaris Heritage Prize, which will be given yearly to five albums from five decades before the Polaris Prize was created.
The Polaris Music Prize short list will be announced July 16.
