From May 1, 2018 and May 31, 2019 a whopping 233 albums were amassed in consideration for The Polaris Music Prize. The 40 albums chosen represent The Polaris Prize Long List; the best Canada has to offer, which we get to salivate over for the next three weeks before they narrow it down to their top ten.
Among the 40 albums chosen for this years’ Long List, two were selected from East Coast artists: Wintersleep’s In The Land Of and Tim Baker’s Forever Overhead.
Each year, the Polaris Music Prize awards $50,000 to the top Canadian album. The prize is awarded purely based on artistic merit and the heart strings of the judges, without any regard commercial success or how many energy drinks the album sold. There is also a second prize of $3,000 awarded for each of the ten Short List artists.
The announcement came today from The Forks in Winnipeg, Manitoba, immediately followed by a show from long-list nominees, Snotty Nose Rez Kids performing materials from their Long-Listed album, Trapline.
The 2019 Polaris Music Prize Long List:
Tim Baker – Forever Overhead
Tanika Charles – The Gumption
Clairmont The Second – Do You Drive?
Charlotte Cornfield – The Shape of Your Name
Marie Davidson – Working Class Woman
Dilly Dally – Heaven
The Dirty Nil – Master Volume
Dizzy – Baby Teeth
Elisapie – The Ballad of the Runaway Girl
FET.NAT – Le Mal
Dominique Fils-Aimé – Stay Tuned!
Fucked Up – Dose Your Dreams
Yves Jarvis – The Same But By Different Means
Carly Rae Jepsen – Dedicated
Kaia Kater – Grenades
Kimmortal – X Marks the Swirl
La Force – La Force
LAL – Dark Beings
Laurence-Anne – Première apparition
Salomé Leclerc – Les choses extérieures
Lee Harvey Osmond – Mohawk
Jean Leloup – L’étrange pays
Shay Lia – Dangerous
Les Louanges – La nuit est une panthère
Loud – Tout ça pour ça
Shawn Mendes – Shawn Mendes
Haviah Mighty – 13th Floor
Operators – Radiant Dawn
Orville Peck – Pony
Sandro Perri – In Another Life
PUP – Morbid Stuff
Lee Reed – The Steal City EP
Jessie Reyez – Being Human In Public
Shad – A Short Story About A War
Snotty Nose Rez Kids – Trapline
Alexandra Stréliski – INSCAPE
sydanie – 999
TOBi – STILL
Voivod – The Wake
Wintersleep – In The Land Of
If you do the math, that 2 out of 40 represents just 5% of the full list. While that may sound like a weak showing it’s not far off from the 6.2% of Canada’s population to be found in Atlantic Canada, it just feels a little underwhelming after last year’s win for Fredericton’s Jeremy Dutcher.
The selection jury responsible for the Polaris Long List consisted of 199 members, largely music journalists, broadcasters and bloggers from across Canada, several of which were from Atlantic Canada.
“It’s a pretty good list. I’m pumped that Snotty Nose Rez Kids and PUP made the long list this year. I would have liked to have seen Motherhood, Foxwarren and Matt Andersen on there too. They made my ballot,” says Fredericton-based Polaris Prize jury member and journalist Adam Bowie.
“So much good music every year. It’s an impossible task, really. Good records get left off every year and while that sucks, a lot of great stuff makes it too.”
Here’s hoping Atlantic Canada can beat the odds twice in row.
The announcement of the 10 album Short List will be made July 16, with the 2019 Polaris Music Prize winner being revealed at the Polaris Gala on Monday, September 16 at the Carlu in Toronto, and will be live streamed globally at cbcmusic.ca/polaris.