Polaris Music Prize Reveals 2014 Long List

BY Alex HudsonPublished Jun 19, 2014

The Polaris Music Prize is one of the biggest events in the Canadian music calendar, and now the annual prize for the year's best album has unveiled the long list for its 2014 edition.

Albums that came out between June of 2013 and May of 2014 are eligible for the prize, with the nominees selected by a national jury of journalists, broadcasters and bloggers. The jury selected albums based on artistic merit alone.

The long list nominees are as follows:

Arcade Fire - Reflektor
AroarA - In the Pines
Austra - Olympia
Philippe B - Ornithologie, la nuit
BADBADNOTGOOD - III
Basia Bulat - Tall Tall Shadow
Chromeo - White Women
Cousins - The Halls of Wickwire
Cowboy Junkies / Various - The Kennedy Suite
The Darcys - Warring
Dead Obies - Montréal $ud
Mac DeMarco - Salad Days
DIANA - Perpetual Surrender
Drake - Nothing Was the Same
Freedom Writers - NOW
Fresh Snow - I
Frog Eyes - Carey's Cold Spring
Gorguts - Colored Sands
Tim Hecker - Virgins
Jimmy Hunt - Maladie d'amour
Jessy Lanza - Pull My Hair Back
Kalle Mattson - Someday, the Moon Will Be Gold
Moonface - Julia with Blue Jeans On
Mounties - Thrash Rock Legacy
Odonis Odonis - Hard Boiled Soft Boiled
Owen Pallett - In Conflict
Pink Mountaintops - Get Back
PUP - PUP
The Sadies - Internal Sounds
Shad - Flying Colours
Shooting Guns - Brotherhood of the Ram
Solids - Blame Confusion
Rae Spoon - My Prairie Home
The Strumbellas - We Still Move on Dance Floors
Tanya Tagaq - Animism
Thus Owls - Turning Rocks
Timber Timbre - Hot Dreams
Chad VanGaalen - Shrink Dust
Bry Webb - Free Will
Yamantaka // Sonic Titan - UZU

In total, 189 albums received ballot votes for the long list from 190 jury members. Twenty-three of the 40 long list titles are first time Polaris Music Prize nominees. Of those, four have been in previously nominated groups.

This long list of 40 will be whittled down to a short list of 10 on July 15. A grand jury will then select the winner, which will be announced at a Toronto gala at the Carlu on September 22. The winner will get $30,000.

This is Polaris Music Prize's ninth year. Past winners include Final Fantasy (2006), Patrick Watson (2007), Caribou (2008), Fucked Up (2009), Karkwa (2010), Arcade Fire (2011), Feist (2012) and Godspeed You! Black Emperor (2013).

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