For those unfamiliar, the Polaris Music Prize, in its third award season since its inception, awards "accolades" and a $20,000 payday to the single best Canadian album (at least 8 songs and plus 30 minutes) of the last year. Any album released in-between June 1, 2007 and May 31, 2008 is eligible.
this year's shortlist, with the winner to be announced September 29th, is:
Black Mountain - In The Future
Basia Bulat - Oh, My Darling
Caribou - Andorra
Kathleen Edwards - Asking For Flowers
Holy Fuck - LP
Plants and Animals - Parc Avenue
Stars - In Our Bedroom After The War
Shad - The Old Prince
Two Hours Traffic - Little Jabs
The Weakerthans - Reunion Tour
I've listened to all of the nominees minus Caribou and Shad's offerings and my early pick is Plants and Animals. A fantastic album, although considering last year's winner was from Montreal and Final Fantasy/Owen Pallet won the first year and his well known Montreal connections, P & A could suffer from a slight Montreal backlash. Of course, this thing is debated on "artistic merit" alone so that couldn't happen.
Now there were 40 albums long-listed a while back so there is bound to be some debate over who didn't make the cut. For my money, The Constantines' Kensington Heights and Welcome to the Night Sky by Wintersleep deserve to be there. Alas, I am no judge or jury.
The Weakerthans cordially invite the rest of the nominees to settle the matter of a winner the old fashioned way. If by old fashioned you mean a croquet tournament, which i do.
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